And others might believe the Easter Bunny has better situational awareness than has been demonstrated by several inexplicable, and tragically fatal, Navy examples that contradict your appraisal.
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[quote=ācaptainjim47, post:254, topic:45819, full:trueā]
yes, i believe 1MC ends up being the generic term.[/quote]
One is used for all-hands one-way announcements and another is point-to-point two-way internal communications. You wouldnāt use the 1MC to confer with CIC as to contacts. No āgenericsā please.
1MC is a sufficient 3 letter descriptor of the system such everyone here thatās spent any time on a Navy bridge knows that Iām talking about an intercomā¦ this is off topic.
No, anyone who has spent time on a Navy bridge might readily wonder if you have actually been there. The 1MC in not an intercom, it is an announcing, or public address, system.
These are just a few of the intercoms on Navy ships:
Intercommunication System Circuits:
4MC - Damage Control
19MC - Aviation Ready Rooms
20MC - CIC
21MC - Captainās Command
22MC - Radio Central
24MC - Flag Officer
26MC - Machinery Control
29MC - Sonar Control and Information System
30MC - Special Weapons Control Announcing System
And yes, off topic.
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No wonder they get confused!!!
Honestly most of them arenāt used during special details on most ships. Most ships donāt have flag circuits on them for instance, since they donāt normally carry flag officers.
The 29MC is primarily used for announcing subsurface contacts or inbound torpedoes, and wonāt be in regular use during normal navigation.
Most communication internal to ships is done via internal nets, everyoneās got a headset on and the bridge has a speaker with it up. Comms on the net are(supposed to be) limited to what needs to be passed to ensure safe navigation / warfighting.
Like I said in another thread just now:
Why not use a telephone with a load speaker?
Simple, understandable and commonly used by most other Maritime Nations.
But then again; why make it simple when you can do it the American way??
Not accurate, not sufficient, and setting one up to fail.
Plain English works so much better on too many occasions (possibly not all, but the majority) that speed up the decision making loop and give us (usually) a better result.
As an example, I can say EMT and Iāll bet we get at least four or five (or a dozen) different answers on what an EMT means depending on the expertise and background of the responder.
And Iāve never served, never been on a warship so while I understand there are different codes and circuits for communication, it helps to really know what your talking about when you make a statement.
Like I said in another thread just now:
Why not use a telephone with a load speaker?
Simple, understandable and commonly used by most other Maritime Nations.
But then again; why make it simple when you can do it the American way??
Thatās basically what an internal net is, with a speaker being both in CIC and the bridge. You just use Push To Talk(either a foot pedal or a button on the phone) and are talking to the other stations.
And most all of the comms internally are done via plain language to avoid foul-ups.
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Thanks for the clarification
ā¦ as may be heard on the USS Porter audio! 
Shockingly Iāve not heard the Porter audio, and sadly weāve just pulled our pier lines in and gone to SATCOMs so youtube wonāt really load 
I know there was a push in recent years to use plain language on the internal nets.
Here is an audio only version of the USS Porter pilothouse audio (3.7MB mp3) http://s3.amazonaws.com/hamptonroadscom/store/3541.mp3
This is a forum for professionals; I think most of us appreciate technical accuracy. Thanks for clarification on comms circuit names.
Appreciate the link!
Biggest issue I hear is honestly the CO. If he felt that the OOD making mistakes on that level, he should have just taken direct command of the bridge and issued orders himself directly. I honestly think if the OOD had just been allowed to steer the ship like he wanted(coming back to starboard), this never happens. At least then you donāt have a Conn or Helm trying to make sense of 3-4 sources of orders, like what the actual fuck was happening there? Iāve never heard it that bad except one time under Capt. Graf, and in that case our Helmsman just told the CO to fuck off and took the safe action himself under the direction of the harbor pilot.
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I agree, some of the confusion on that audio is lack of situational awareness when another ship is sighted unexpectedly but most of the confusing verbal exchange is the disagreement between the CO and the OOD, a problem that could have been resolved had the CO taken the conn,
When I was trained as a bridge watch officer (JOOW, JOOD, OOD) in the early 70ās, it was a clear policy that if the CO gave any helm or lee helm order, then the CO had the conn. The conning officer and/or the OOD would announce āon the bridge, the Captain has the connā, and it got logged immediately. No change in that when I left my last ship in 1987.
I was in the Navy for 23 years and spent 11 years assigned to ships. Iāve heard that recording about 10 times, and it still canāt get over the discussions on the bridge and the amount of time between helm and engine orders and their execution.
I get sick each time I hear it.
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Its not that bad. On āsmall boysā, they are only going to have a couple of those circuits. And you donāt need to know which one is which, they are separate boxes located in specific places. Such as the bridge will only have the Command/Captainās circuit and maybe the Damage control circuit. On two of the ships I was on, the 21MC was on the starboard side of the bridge close to the COās chair and the DC circuit was in the back port side where there was pull-down plates/diagrams of the ship used as a backup to Damage Control Central. This is what they look like; just the push-buttons changed based on what circuit it is.
(available for sale on e-bay)
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āWeāve Ben hit on the port sideā