Volunteer or Volun-Told? (Submarines)

[nukeplease]

Hey everybody.

I was just wondering what the deal was with submarines in the enlisted nuke field.  It is my understanding that submarine time is voluntary but I look at how many more subs the Navy has compared to carriers and I feel like a large majority of enlisted nukes must be on submarines.

Is serving time on a sub a part of every enlisted nukes career?  Can you have a good career staying on carriers only (If that is even possible)?

Also, no offense to any sub people out there. I'm just curious about the distribution of people.

Thanks!

[Gamecock]

Hey everybody.

I was just wondering what the deal was with submarines in the enlisted nuke field.  It is my understanding that submarine time is voluntary but I look at how many more subs the Navy has compared to carriers and I feel like a large majority of enlisted nukes must be on submarines.

Is serving time on a sub a part of every enlisted nukes career? no


Can you have a good career staying on carriers only (If that is even possible)?yes

Also, no offense to any sub people out there. I'm just curious about the distribution of people.

Thanks!

[DDMurray]

A sub has roughly 35-40 enlisted nukes (so SSBNs would have 70-80).  A carrier has roughly 350-450 (Enterprise has more I think).  The surface numbers may be a little off.  When I graduated from prototype in 1986, if you had not volunteered subs before NPTU, you were going surface.  I knew several guys who had volunteered subs that still went surface.  At the time they were manning up the Ike so many a baby nuke got sent there.  My uncle who took to me to the recruiter had been a submariner and recommended I volunteer for sub-duty.  My original plan was to be an submarine RM.  Once I switched to nuke, I maintained my sub-vol. 

Gamecock answered your other questions.

[MMM]

Clarification on surface numbers: Reactor Dept. has about 400 personnel, about 300 are nuclear trained, the others are not.

[nukeplease]

I had no idea there were so many enlisted Nukes on a surface ship.