wanttaja@ssc-vax.UUCP (Ronald J Wanttaja) (10/08/85)
> > Commodore is not a navy rank it is a courtesy title for use > >when a person with the rank of Captain is aboard a ship which he > >is not currently commanding. > Actually, you are right and wrong. Commodore is not a "rank" > in the way that that term is normally used. It is a command position > that has no real significance in peace time service (thus the difficulty > in finding general understanding). Generally speaking, a commodore > is the "captain" of a fleet, as opposed to a vessel. > > -- Just to give the full details of what someone else has posted... the US Navy did institute the rank of Commodore as a non-wartime, non-courtesy rank, about five years ago. It eliminated their problem with the rank of Rear Admiral, which could either be grade O-7 or O-8, depending upon whether the officer was "of the Upper Half" or "of the Lower Half." Ran into some problems of equivalency between the services... since the Navy had no rank visibly equivalent to Brigadier General. A Rear Admiral has two stars- whether he was upper half or lower half. The addition of the Commodore grade fixed that. Ron Wanttaja (ssc-vax!wanttaja) "Up that rigging, you monkeys, aloft! There's no chains to to hold you now!"