What do you think is the nuke school passing percentage and why?

[DDMurray]

In all seriousness, if a chief reactor watch made it through the brief with the eoow and ppws without being fit to stand watch, something else was wrong. Stop reading in too much or putting words in my mouth. Enough with this holier then though crap. (Braced for smite)


On topic, I'm curious... what was the attrition rate at prototype back in the day?

WRT your response to my response, I'll leave it at, "I see".

WRT to NPTU attrition, it used to be very low.  In my class (8502), I think we lost two guys at S3G.  Total pipeline attrition used to be about 50%, if I recall correctly.

[MMM]

When I went though NPTU (9504) I think we lost about 5 people. One was incompentent on watch, the others went out drinking (underage) the night before graduation and got caught.

NNPTC was a lot rougher, I think we lost 25%, my section was almost 50%, although mostly due to bad decision making/integrity. A couple were medical and there were a few academic.

[Neutron_Herder]

I was in class 9002, and I don't think we lost any enlisted people during prototype at S3G...  I can remember the staff complaining about how it was a pump and not a filter.

'A' school and NNPS were a different story though.  We had about 50% of the people that started 'A' school graduate from Power School.  Not all of it was due to academic failures, but most of them were.

[DDMurray]

Like I said, the real problem I see in the fleet nuclear power is the lack of quality senior enlisted leadership. That means you have very junior chiefs and first classes who are filling roles that people who have twice their experience should be filling, and part of their job is to train the new guys. I'm quite sure this is, at least partially, the result of decades worth of poor retention and competition from a lucrative position at a civilian plant. The high standard is still there, there just isn't the manpower around to fill it.

Let me re-phrase for you:  "From my limited experience I believe the real problem in the fleet nuclear power is the lack of quality senior enlisted leadership, because the JOs and DHs are so clueless, a lack of backup from experienced enlisted leaders has been the cause of many critiqueable events."

From my experience, due to the poor initial training and lack of motivation of JOs many of the managerial/admin tasks have been passed down to the Chief Petty Officers such that they have to spend so much time on admin that they do not spend enough time on the deckplates.
Examples:  Fitness reports, training reports, maintenance records, log package reviews, personal awards.  The mantra, "Officers fight the ship, Chiefs run the ship," has been used as an excuse for officers to abdicate their primary duty, which is filling the role they have been assigned. 

[IPREGEN]

Good post Marssim. I go back to class 7408, yes I'm still alive

60 people in my boot company- Orlando, about 4 set back / non swimmers / academic, one suicide attempt (got a Dear John letter")
MMA school - Great Lakes, every person made it except for the standard occasional hardship for family or the like
Nuke school - Mare Island, they dropped like Marines on a beach, roughly 35% went "to the fleet"
Prototype -A1W Idaho, only lost a few, they developed a case of not giving a crap because of the workload and hours, back then you would put in the hours until qualified, 16 hour Thursdays to only do 8 on Friday until "in hull", then 12's or more until qualified. But this is where we did see that all the book learning folks did not always do well in the physical plant
ELT Idaho- we all made it
Fleet, CGN-25, Bainbridge- everybody qualified, some just took longer

[spekkio]

Let me re-phrase for you:  "From my limited experience I believe the real problem in the fleet nuclear power is the lack of quality senior enlisted leadership, because the JOs and DHs are so clueless, a lack of backup from experienced enlisted leaders has been the cause of many critiqueable events."

From my experience, due to the poor initial training and lack of motivation of JOs many of the managerial/admin tasks have been passed down to the Chief Petty Officers such that they have to spend so much time on admin that they do not spend enough time on the deckplates.

You can take it as an insult if you wish, but nuke chiefs and PO1's being junior is a fact, not an opinion. Very few, if any, other ratings have people getting promoted to E-5 (and sometimes E-6) before they even go to a sea command because they can pass some exams. Now Big Navy is only going to allot your division X E-6's, and 1 is only performing at the E-4 level because he hasn't been in a sea command. This is the same guy, if he scores high enough, who could make chief his first time up as long as he does his job and the nuclear Navy continues to have manning issues.

As for JO training, that is another can of worms and I certainly am not going to defend the Navy's process for preparing a new Ensign/LTJG to hit the fleet and excel in the role as a DIVO. Motivation? That is highly individualized, and generally speaking I find officers to be no more or less motivated than their enlisted counterparts.

[Gamecock]

Let me re-phrase for you:  "From my limited experience I believe the real problem in the fleet nuclear power is the lack of quality senior enlisted leadership, because the JOs and DHs are so clueless, a lack of backup from experienced enlisted leaders has been the cause of many critiqueable events."

From my experience, due to the poor initial training and lack of motivation of JOs many of the managerial/admin tasks have been passed down to the Chief Petty Officers such that they have to spend so much time on admin that they do not spend enough time on the deckplates.
Examples:  Fitness reports, training reports, maintenance records, log package reviews, personal awards.  The mantra, "Officers fight the ship, Chiefs run the ship," has been used as an excuse for officers to abdicate their primary duty, which is filling the role they have been assigned. 

When I was a young ensign, I thought that the job of the chief was to train....and that training included the JO's.

I hope this thread does not degenerate into a chiefs vs. officer bash session

[MMM]

Hopefully if an E-6 is working at the level of an E-4, his COC will recognize that and award him the appropeiate evals, preventing him from making chief. I know I've seen it done a couple times. Substandard E-6 shows up (who had been at sea before), acts like a 3rd class or FN, gets a really crappy eval, specifically low/average marks in Prof Knowledge and Leadership.

Although on the flip side, if that same E-6 leaves the command for a non-nuclear billet (i.e. recruiting), and happens to excel there, he could make chief, which sort of sucks.

[DDMurray]

You bring up a great point.  If the Chief trains the Ensign, what does the rest of the Wardroom do with the Ensign?  The Chief trains him in how the division supports the mission and gives him pointers on effective leadership, liking owning a problem instead of blaming it on the blue shirt.   The Chief also trains the Ensign that when the CO/XO/ENG puts out a plan, it is our plan; so that when we brief the boys, it's "Here's what we're doing," vice "The ENG/CO/XO said we have to...".   My guess is, the JOs will say the Chiefs are not doing this.  The Chiefs will say the JOs aren't interested in getting too deep into the division because they are only there to punch their "nuke ticket" so they can go forward and "learn to fight the ship".

The training of JOs and our junior enlisted are a couple of areas that are really hurting the NNPP.  Poor retention exacerbates both.  Every single person joins the NNPP voluntarily to be succesful.  Our screening process should ensure that those who start the pipeline finish.  Between NFAS/O-NPS and qualifying SIR/PNEO we are not keeping our best and brightest at a pace that ensures only the best reach the next level of leadership.  Knowing this, do our ISICs and TYCOMs grant our boats a little leeway?  No.  In fact, they demand that we do more with less.  Because of this, we work our people too many hours and force too many requirements/best practices down their throats.  

I'm not interested in a enlisted vs. officer debate either.  However, I will not stand by and let someone say, "...the real problem I see in the fleet nuclear power is the lack of quality senior enlisted leadership...." and let it go by without a rebuttal.

[IPREGEN]

The Navy is just like anywhere else, good and bad leadership is part of life. But sometimes what is perceived as a bad organization is just evidence that that person making the noise is not a good fit for that type of environment. We had a couple of CO's that I thought were a little eccentric, but they displayed great leadership at crunch time. If you are not a good fit where you are then the simple solution is suck it up, finish your obligation and move on.

[NHSparky]

     Something to get on thread topic.  I looked into the Graduation rate from My class in 1988 at NPS and it shows a first week light side class total of 705 students.  In my service record it shows 440 graduates 24 weeks later. 

I hear ya--I was 8801 (grad in March 1988 from NPS.)  626 started, 474 finished.  We were actually above the average at the time.  I remember when I was in NFAS and 8704 graduated NPS, the grad rate was UNDER 50 percent for that class, and Admiral McKee himself came down to find out why.

I think the emphasis was on getting the non-hackers out early, hence one of the reasons (but hardly the only one) to shift over to NFAS versus the old BEE/A-school in Great Lakes format.

Long story short, slackers have ALWAYS gotten through the system, but in the current system they're caught and weeded out a lot earlier, or at least that's the appearance I'm getting.

As far as to WHY, I'd venture to say that DU/motiviational are as prevalent as purely academic reasons--and most of the academic ones are guys who just didn't want the program anymore and quit.

Bottom line, the number was around 45-50 percent of those who start made it back in my (your) day, and I wouldn't imagine that number has changed all that much.

[NHSparky]

Hopefully if an E-6 is working at the level of an E-4, his COC will recognize that and award him the appropeiate evals, preventing him from making chief. I know I've seen it done a couple times. Substandard E-6 shows up (who had been at sea before), acts like a 3rd class or FN, gets a really crappy eval, specifically low/average marks in Prof Knowledge and Leadership.

Although on the flip side, if that same E-6 leaves the command for a non-nuclear billet (i.e. recruiting), and happens to excel there, he could make chief, which sort of sucks.

Which was my last duty station before I got out.  CRF and submariners do not mix.  CRF and nuke submariners--that's even worse.

Then again, I never understood the mentality of the Chief Recruiter who had a AFQT of 29 AND WAS PROUD OF IT.  I wish I was kidding.

[deltarho]

In my prototype at Idaho, we had a guy make Paul Harvey news.  Nope, it wasn't flattering.  Seems that he decided to clean the dust off the star of a police car at the local Best Western where the officers were eating at the diner and the squid was going to the lounge--prelubricated.  For some reason he couldn't wait to get inside to relieve himself and saw that he could kill two birds with one stone: community service and an empty bladder.  The cops didn't have the same outlook.  Two days after the event, it was commented on by Paul Harvey on the radio and the next day he was 'splaining himself to the Captain of the base.  This was when the NPTU staff stuck their proverbial necks on the line and vouched for the sailor (by the way, he was an ET--shocking, I know!).  Although he lost 1/2 of two month's pay, and understand he had his reduction in rank suspended only because the Command Masterchief couldn't stop laughing during Captain's Mast...but that just may be a sandcrab story.

[Fermi2]

Class 8502 started with something like 600 sailors and graduated about 300 or so, out of that IIRC something like 225 made it through Prototype.

[Jechtm]

OOOOOh I see what you did there!

[DDMurray]

Class 8502 started with something like 600 sailors and graduated about 300 or so, out of that IIRC something like 225 made it through Prototype.

I was in 8502.  Small world.