I'm an Electrician currently finishing up prototype in New York, and I've been seriously on the fence about volunteering for sub duty. I went to Groton this weekend and toured the USS Missouri, but still couldn't commit. I'm worried about advancement rates vs surface, as well as how the qualification process differs. My goal is to get EWS/E-div LPO by the end of my first sea duty, and to get stationed at power school for shore duty, and I'd like to know on which platform I could more reasonably achieve those goals. Any general career advice would be greatly appreciated as well. Thank you.
I think you should sit down with a couple of Chiefs coming off of boats to see if what you desire is realistic on a sub.
As I was transferring from a sub, the push was definitely toward the mantra that 'The Chief is the LPO and workcenter supervisor' (which has some technical basis that according to big Navy, a division Chief is the LPO while the LCPO is akin to a Dept. Chief). Some COs might adhere to this philosophy more than others, but the ones that the Commodores would consider 'good COs' generally do. The second 'push' was to not have E-5s standing supervisory watches... an exceptionally smart/mature guy could qualify the watch as an E-5, but shouldn't stand it until E-6.
Another thing is that even on a sub, your ability to qualify and stand EWS/EDPO will be pretty limited. The biggest hurdle for an E-divver is that there are almost never enough SROs to go around, at least on a SSN... unless the boat can do better than 4 section, port and stupid SRO in-port, you're not going to get onto the EDPO watchbill. This can be a big demotivator for some because it means that the only time you get to stand EDPO is when you are getting a bad deal out of it (holiday, family emergency, etc). Almost all of our EDPO E-6s were M-divvers simply because 13-15 Mdivvers + 5-6 ELTs standing SRW, which is pretty easy to qualify = fat watchbill with personnel to spare. The one that wasn't was a prototype sea returnee qualified EOOW who the command thought should be a Chief. Underway, you won't really stand EWS except during the times where all the eng dept Chiefs have to go to a meeting.
As for LPO, the same thing that GC posted happens on subs - you usually have a few 2nd tour E-Divvers who need the paper to advance more than you do.
This of course all assumes that you are a hot-runner who the EDMC can trust to be an EWS/EDPO, which takes not only brains but demonstrating a level of maturity and leadership far above your peers. Without that recommendation from him, you will not qualify EWS/EDPO.
In short, what you want to do is a gambit. You could, through circumstances completely outside of your control, end up permanently 3-section, port/stbd watch SRO in-port and stand EO underway and not be given the opportunity to qualify EWS/EDPO because the boat doesn't need you for it.