Armoured Soldiers operate and maintain armoured fighting vehicles, its weapon systems and its communication equipment. Armoured Soldiers are members of the Combat Arms team, which also includes Infantry, Artillery and Combat Engineering regiments.
As a member of a reconnaissance vehicle crew trained to be a driver or an observer, an Armoured Soldier has the following duties:
Marine Systems Engineers are responsible for the readiness, operation and maintenance of propulsion and ancillary systems, power generation and distribution, auxiliary systems, ship’s service systems, ship and machinery control systems, hull structure, ship’s stability, damage control, and the integration of these systems.
They analyze the state of their systems, equipment and personnel, predict their requirement for naval operations and advise Command accordingly. The primary role of a Marine Systems Engineer is to provide technical expertise, advice and leadership in support of:
Marine engineering officers are responsible for the safe operation and maintenance of all equipment and structures aboard Canadian Coast Guard vessels. You keep the main engines and auxiliary systems of the ship in good working order under the supervision of the vessel’s chief engineer.
For more information: https://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/college/officer-training-formation-officier/engin-training-formation-ingen-eng.html
Economics is basically the science of acquiring wealth and making your money work for you. No, economics is not about investing. Economics is more about analysing what is going is on in the market place - in transactions. But for me, understanding the business of economics helped me with my investing. I also used my degree from Carleton to qualify for and win a nice job in the Office of Risk Management, Health Canada. Then i retired from the Public Service after 38 years.
Major Project Service Line, Public Works and Government Services Canada
I have been a sessional lecturer and a contract instructor since 2002. I take pride in teaching some of the finest students in the university.
What’s it like being a Royal Canadian Navy Ship’s Team Diver?
This is a work in progress...
Great! Said no diver ever... it is hard work, potentially dangerous, usually cold and often dark.
I was a Ship’s Diving Officer from 1978 to 1994. In that time, I did several hundred dives from the Arctic Circle, the Great Lakes, the St Lawrence River, to Bermuda and Cuba.
My Course was number 7801S. The “S” supposedly stood for an extra course offered to “other government personnel” and not intended for members of the Canadian Forces. My course was filled with a DND civilian who was working at Experimental Diving Unit in Toronto, two DFO personnel, a couple of RCMP officers, two Parks Canada people and the rest of the 20 spots were filled by Canadian Coast Guard engineering officers.
Because we were mostly civilians, I am sure the instructors took it easy on us (not!). Within 48 hours, we lost almost half the course.
Why did the Coast Guard train engineering officers to be divers, you might ask... The Coast Guard differed in thinking from the Navy, at that time, in that the CCG policy was to use engineering officers who have considerable technical skills and would likely be able to lead repairs more effectively. The Navy limits entry to MARS Officers (navigators) who have more of a generalist training but are trained also to operate small craft like the ship’s boats which can be used to support diving operations. If a CCG dive team needed a boat ride, the base or a ship would supply a boat and crew.
The name of the course and qualification in my day was Ship’s Diver, Ship’s Diving Supervisor and Ship’s Diving Officer. The qualification on successful completion of the course was based on your rank and the expectation that all Officers would be in charge of diving operations, including planning and leading, as well as some diving. And Petty Officers 2nd Class would also be supervising diving operations, and assisting with the planning, preparations and leadership. The word “Team” was added to the qualification after my time to make it clearer what the role is, or so I have been told.
A dive team carried in a ship was generally 10 members, consisting of an officer, one or two Petty Officers and 7 or 8 Sailors (the rank renaming thing is still quite new for me...) The team can be divided in two halves with about equal capability and strength. Generally four divers make up the smallest size team with two working divers, a standby (safety) diver and a supervisor. If operating from a boat, there would be an additional person (a Bosun or maybe an otherwise under employed diver) operating the boat under the dive supervisor’s direction. Special situations exist in a submarine where the size of the dive team was four members on the Oberon class boats, and 12 divers on the AORs.
Divers generally need to stay fit. And that level of fitness is maintained mostly on your own time.
The Dive Pay goes some way to compensating for the extra duty time. Divers have to dive at least once a month to remain “Current”. Sometimes the ship’s routine is too crowded to allow for a currency dive if there is no scheduled diving operation in the plan. However, divers are expected to hold themselves ready 24 hours a day in the event of an emergency. More on that maybe later.
The course length has varied between 3 and 5 weeks over the time I was actively diving and keeping up with things.
The training is the same for everyone; Officer, NCO and Sailor alike. In my day (I’m sorry, but I suspect there may have been one or two changes in the 25 years since I last got my ears wet with the Navy), Petty Officers Second Class, were eligible to attempt )The Officers and NCOs who are Petty Officer 2nd Class qualified lot like the Ships Diver course... the first thing on the agenda, after meeting the training staff and the CO, is the fitness test followed by the swimming pool where you are evaluated on drown proofing, laps, holding your breathe etc. Again pass or fail. Then a class, trip to Unit QM for an issue of wetsuit, mask, fins, snorkel, weight belt and weights, knife (diving, dull) and these days, probably a Floater coat and sundries. Each day was a run, sit ups, chin ups, "blast walls " (a peculiar use of the ammo bunkers), a swim, maybe jump off a signal bridge of a war ship ("hang time" long enough to reconsider your life choices)... followed by a morning dive, an afternoon dive, and maybe a night dive.
We had to accumulate something like 25 hours of, "bottom time " doing various things like searches, hand tools, "plumber's nightmare " (a bag of pipes and pipe fittings that only go together one way - the instructors would occasionally remove a part to make the task more difficult...). Safety boats, floats, charging tanks, an unannounced Operation Awkward (ship's self defense), underwater navigation, the list goes on... The only easy day was yesterday... and the instructors meant it.
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