Jobs and qualifications on a USN sub

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NMaude

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Scott Kenny said:
I don't remember seeing array length/diameters while I was in! (admittedly I was not a Sonar Tech)
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I supposed your job was to do with Sherwood Forest and maintaining the Trident IIs?
 
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Scott Kenny said:
helmsman, technically, but yes.
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Would you mind elucidating on any jobs other than administration/record keeping that USN yeomen partake in? I'd previously heard of submarine yeomen manning the helm as you did.
 
732 said:
Would you mind elucidating on any jobs other than administration/record keeping that USN yeomen partake in? I'd previously heard of submarine yeomen manning the helm as you did.
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Helmsman, lookout, force protection, can sit broadband sonar stack, and I was working on Electronic Surveillance Measures and Chief of the Watch when I was pulled off the boat for medical.

Then there's the off watch things. Firefighter, atmosphere monitoring stuff, phone talker. Atmosphere monitoring could be a draeger tube unit or the OTTO fuel detector.

And that's not getting into whatever collateral duties you get tagged with. My formal description of the job is "Admin assistant, legal assistant, HR assistant, and postal clerk." I got tagged with ship's photographer as part of the awards ceremony stuff.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Helmsman, lookout, force protection, can sit broadband sonar stack, and I was working on Electronic Surveillance Measures and Chief of the Watch when I was pulled off the boat for medical.

Then there's the off watch things. Firefighter, atmosphere monitoring stuff, phone talker. Atmosphere monitoring could be a draeger tube unit or the OTTO fuel detector.

And that's not getting into whatever collateral duties you get tagged with. My formal description of the job is "Admin assistant, legal assistant, HR assistant, and postal clerk." I got tagged with ship's photographer as part of the awards ceremony stuff.
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Would there have been separate quals for whatever auxiliary duty you were assigned?

Edit: I had a look at the Feb. 2026 YNS Occupational and Readiness Standards document and it explicitly mentions "Helmsman/Planesman (Except VA Class)". Would that mean your boat was a 688 or 637?
 
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732 said:
Would there have been separate quals for whatever auxiliary duty you were assigned?
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Yeah, any watches you qualify are going to have their own qual cards and under-instruction watch requirements before you can formally assume that watch.

Other collateral duties? Eh, that depends. It can often be less formal, sometimes your predecessor will provide instruction... sometimes it's "I had it, you got it."
 
732 said:
Would there have been separate quals for whatever auxiliary duty you were assigned?
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For things like force protection, lookout, ESM, or Chief of the watch, yes those are all separate quals.

Command legal assistant or photographer didn't get a qual card. Just "here's the camera(s), here's the film/SD cards, you're it."

732 said:
Would that mean your boat was a 688 or 637?
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726/Trident. The 637s were all gone by the time I was in. Well, except for Parche but Projects boats never count.

NMaude said:
My understanding is that Scott was a crewman on an Ohio-class SSBN, he mentioned last year in another thread that when he got his rack time he was sleeping in "Sherwood Forrest".
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Correct.
 
I only found out about my color blindness (among other ills, bad vision) when I tried to join the Navy.

My Dad just got by on Railroad Retirement. He retired not long after I got out of high school.

I figured I would probably need two pensions by the time I was his age, so I figured the Navy Nuclear Program was the way to go, with me working at Browns Ferry...so's to be a double-dipper.

No luck
 
Scott Kenny said:
For things like force protection, lookout, ESM, or Chief of the watch, yes those are all separate quals.
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I'd imagine wherever the M16/M4s would be stored on the boat is someplace nobody except the torpedomen had keys to, since IIRC torpedomen usually handle all firearms on subs.
 
732 said:
I'd imagine wherever the M16/M4s would be stored on the boat is someplace nobody except the torpedomen had keys to, since IIRC torpedomen usually handle all firearms on subs.
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Chief of the watch or Officer of the Deck when underway, Duty Chief when in port, and also IIRC the Belowdecks may have had keys to the forward Small Arms locker while in port.

Plus after 9-11 we got a lot more small arms loaded onboard. So the nuke engineers got their own small arms locker back aft.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Chief of the watch or Officer of the Deck when underway, Duty Chief when in port, and also IIRC the Belowdecks may have had keys to the forward Small Arms locker while in port.

Plus after 9-11 we got a lot more small arms loaded onboard. So the nuke engineers got their own small arms locker back aft.
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Never imagined anybody aft would be getting their own gun locker.
 

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