Three jobs are currently available in the Fire Controlman (FC) rating: Operator, Administrator, and Technician. Technicians are the experts who maintain, repair, and troubleshoot the equipment used by Operators and Administrators: computers and related peripheral devices, radars, fiber optics, system displays, and other auxiliary equipment. They also handle the packing and unpacking or ordnance and, on a related note, operate and maintain the equipment used to handle that ordnance.
Operators and Administrators work more closely together. In the case of Air Warfare (AW), for instance, the management and planning of AW operations are handled by either a FC Administrator, First Class or a Chief FC Administrator. Chief FC Administrators oversee the Air Defense (AD) operations of entire battle groups and make recommendations for search-and-attack AD plans. As part of their oversight of shipboard AD operations, on the other hand, FC Administrators at the First Class Petty Officer level assign defensive priorities for air contacts, recommend tactics to be used in Air Defense, and plan Air Defense engagements based on both the threats and tactics that have been chosen to be employed against them.
It’s FC Operators who actually have the hands-on control of the advanced weapons systems deployed on U.S. Navy vessels: they are the ones who actually engage the enemies based on the parameters established FC Administrators. But those parameters are based on the observations and analysis of the Operators, who are responsible for reporting, tracking, and analyzing Contacts of Interest—be they airborne, on the surface, or approaching from space or on a ballistic track.
The importance of correctly identifying incoming contacts can hardly be overstated, because while the Navy’s AEGIS Combat System can simultaneously track and respond to dozens of threats, it will attack only what it has been told is actually an enemy—or, conversely, what it has
not been told is a friendly or neutral.
Fire Controlman is a source rating for Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) designators 718x/728x and 726X, Electronics Technician (Surface/Submarine) and Ordnance Technician respectively.
Related Items
Fire Controlman (FC) Rating Badge
Fire Controlman (FC) Ball Cap Device
CWO Electronics Technician
Hard Shoulder Boards
Soft Epaulets
Sleeve Device
Collar Device
CWO Ordnance Technician (Submarine)
Hard Shoulder Boards
Soft Epaulets
Sleeve Device
Collar Device