Career Path > Navy:Getting In
ET vs. ELT
Already Gone:
It's all about time management, my friend. The trick is to never be doing one thing when you can be doing two. Never pass by one job on the way to another. If you're going to do a weekly survey, catch the daily at the same time instead of doing them in sequence. Efficiency can cut the daily routine of the ELT down to about two and a half hours. The rest is for periodic stuff like surveys, reading TLD's, PM's etc. That should take less than four hours per day (on average). Quals doesn't take any time when you're already qualified. For some reason, I must have been on the only three subs that didn't qualify everyone as EWS. It was not an option. You didn't get to start the EWS card until you were given one. Since there were already too many, we had to wait in line for someone to transfer off. I always hated those jerks who refused to stand the other watches after they qualified EWS. There were plenty of dog-tired lower level watches and a lot of rack back EWS's.
Not that this is aimed at you, but if every ex nuke who claims to have been an EWS actually was one, there would have been nobody in the whole fleet standing Engineroom Lower Level, AEA, or Reactor Technician. (As I said above: once an EWS, never stand ERLL again.) Since most of us did six and out, less than half of us were ever senior enough to get the EWS card. And still there were too damned many of them.
Running drills four days a week, six hours a day is one hell of a good way to piss off the crew. It is also not practical when you're too busy sneaking up on a Russian to be making all that noise. I guess if you're doing nothing but turning circles, and you have the fast attacks to protect you, you can thrash about all you want. It's not like Ivan would have been able to find you anyway. (The people who make Polish jokes never heard of the Soviet Navy)
mattrev:
Being on an FBM meant a few extra surveys associated with those things that may or may not have been there. ;-)
Missle compartment surveys (weekly) tended to take a couple hours. We also were responsible for all the hot line equimpent inventories.
Like I said, we gave the ELT to the newest guys. That was the first thing we qualified. It was expected to be qualified BEQ, ERLL &, ERF by the end of the first patrol (not to mention SS). Not a lot of extra time. Once the guys were fully qualified, it tended to be better. I never wanted to stand it again though.
The CO's policy on our boat was all LPO's and leading 1st's were to be EWS qualified. Being the LELT meant I didn't have a choice. We were only 4 section anyways. The only person who (sometimes) came off the watchbill was the bull (and he stood his fair share considering his other responsibilities). The LPO's were the only ones standing EWS at the time I did.
As for drills, nothing noisy when on alert. FI's, Emer. RC entrys, spills, dump half the ER, stuff like that. But we had to do it since we only had 2.5 months to get ready for a major inspection. We had either an ORSE,r TRE or TRE/TCP at the end of every patrol.
And we didn't need any fast boat. You couldn't hear us anyways. I recall one instance on a Super Bowl sunday. Playing games with some SSN, CO got tired of it & put us shallow with a wire out so we could catch the game. Meanwhile, there's an SSN below us going all over the place trying to find us (but can't) since we're not running pumps. They were not happy, but couldn't do anything since our CO was so senior.
Marlin:
Well Latenuke it seems you have more information than you really need. We had a term for this kind of disparity in experience... "Ustafish". Tours on a ship lasted about three years then you were transfered, there was always comparisons made to someones last assignment. It was better, it was worse, and then of course nothing ever changes. (Sounds like a break room during an outage come to think of it).
My experiences spanned 1970 to 1978. When I enlisted they were offering M-16s and a swamp to new high school grads, we were always fully manned. When I qualified EWS in 1975 which is normally a more senior watch station with more perks, the draft had ended and retention dropped. I found myself dragging my feet on completing my EWS quals until the M-Div chief threatened to make me port and starboard EWS trainee under his instruction. I found myself on a three section watch bill or less for most of the rest of my service. Well thats my "Ustafish" story you will hear plenty more.
taterhead:
If I am not mistaken, this whole thread has only covered the sub side of MM-ELT and ET.
In my carrier experience, the ETs and ELTs only compete in one area...the time they spend in the rack.
A RO qual'd ET had a fat watch rotation, while there were always plenty of ELTs (you only needed one per plant, per watch anyway).
ELTs had their own berthing, ETs didn't. They had to live with the EMs in the cavernous 150 man berthing on the 2nd deck. The ELTs have their own division, their own division office, own ELT Chief and DIVO.
ELTs had to qualify SIR on mechanical watchstations, but only stood them for proficiency.ETs qual'ed and stood RO/SRO, IW, RT, and 4th deck watch.
Either way, you really couldn't go wrong on a carrier. IF you like to play Mr Wizard, try for ELT. If you like to push buttons and stuff, be an ET. But remember, you can choose ET(sorta), but you cannot choose ELT. Before you hang your hopes on being an ELT, you better resign yourself to being a plain old mechanic, just in case you don't get picked up.
I feel so sorry for you sub/former subbers.
mattrev:
--- Quote from: taterhead on Dec 11, 2004, 01:11 ---
I feel so sorry for you sub/former subbers.
--- End quote ---
You got it wrong from me. I loved being busy. I'm the sort that lis always trying to learn something new. Tended to annoy the s*** out of people with all the questions I'd ask (still does <g>). I'd be doing forward surveys, stop off at the sonar shack & spend a couple hours learning about sonar. or go into radio & listen to AFRS for a couple hours (instead of watching a movie).
I liked standing MO watches (even the occasional RO/EO UI). Doing just RP/Chem all the time was boring.
I stood a lot of COW/DIVE UI watches just for the heck of it, could operate any of the fire control/section tracking party stations (but only got to do time-freq for real).
Once I was assigned as the ship's drill coordinator & turned over LELT , things got a lot busier for me but it was great. Coming up with new & better ways to make the guys suck rubber. ;-)
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