TenderJobs

A Tender Tale

TenderJobs

A Tender - like any Navy ship - has a primary task - the purpose the ship was designed and built for. But by the very nature of being a "ship" there are many additional tasks that are vital to the ship being able to perform it's primary duty. These tasks are related to operating, servicing and maintaining the ship itself and her crew. To accomplish all of the tasks that a ship must perform - these tasks are divided among various departments and divisions. A "typical" ship's organization depends on it's size, armorment and primary task;
those "Departments" can be summarized as follows:

Type Ship	Aircraft carriers	Large capitol ships battle ships, destroyers, etc.	Tenders
Departments	Operations	Operations	Executive
	Air	Navigation	Weapons (typically 5 divisions)
	Navigation	Weapons	Repair (typically 7 divisions)
	Weapons	Engineering	Operations/Navigation
	Engineering	Supply	Deck
	Supply	Medical	Engineering
	Medical		Supply
	Reactor		Medical
			Dental

What becomes immediately apparent is that the organization of a Tender is as complex as the mighty Air Craft Carrier - and far more complex than even the large Battle Wagons. Briefly, the Executive department performs roughly the same job as the Operations department on a "regular ship" though the Captain and his staff have not only the usual responsibilities of seeing to it that the ships own operation, maintenance, and crew are being taken care of - but also that the Tended units are getting the repairs, parts, services and support they need as well. So a Tender is a giant self-contained - self sufficient portable repair and re provisioning base that can get up and move to just about anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. Since a Tender is "in port" more than not - the crew complement is heavily skewed towards technical personnel that are trained on the various "systems" that form the "tended units". When at sea - these people are now free to "double" on the Tender as CIC, Engineering, Lookouts, Phone Talkers, and other at sea watches. So no one is wasted nor idle.

These pages, then, are about those "jobs" - the equipment, and what it takes to make it work - We'll be adding "jobs" as they are submitted by those sailors who did those jobs. Obviously - this is a work in progress - It will start out with One system, one "team" of one Division of One Department - and hopefully GROW as others share their work experience. If you worked on a Submarine Tender - write up your job - and what it was about - and we'll add it to these pages.

Note: Every ship is organized differently - infact it's not uncommon for the same ship to re-organize divisions, departments, etc. as their mission changes. The Skeleton below may seem "out of whack" to some - but it's the only organiztion I know - it represents the structure of the Proteus from 1973 - 1976. Even the Proteus' structure had changed quite a bit by 1991 - as evidenced by the chart published in the "Operation Fiery Vigil" book. So if it seems that Nav Repair was W3 - instead of W5 - you're probably right - for the time/ship you remember! - just play along with me on this one - I'm too easily confused as it is!!!!

Tender Jobs As a "jobs page" becomes available - they will be underlined

Department	Division	Shop / item
Executive	Captain	The Buck Stops Here!
	XO - ships evolutions	Plan of the Day 8 September 1944
Weapons	W1
	W2 Fire Control	Guns, Torpedos, and Missiles!
	W3
	W4
	W5 Navigation Repair	Ships Inertial Navigation System
		Digital
		NavAids
Repair	R1
	R2
	R3
	R4 Electronic Repair	Antenna Shop
		Sonar Shop
		General Electronics Shop
		Calibration Lab
	R5 Optical	Optical Shop
	R6
	R7
Ops/Nav	O1
Deck	D1
	X (Incoming personnel)
Engineering	E1
Supply	S1
	S2
	S3
Medical
Dental		Dentist Office - Say AHHHhh!