I like how this discussion went from which enlisted breast devices were considered warfare qualifications to comparing SWO vs. Pilot training pipelines. WTF dudes?
I think discussing the way different communities do things has some merit, especially when the surface/sub community have had more mishaps than they'd like lately and one of the root causes is always poorly trained watchstander(s) on watch at the wrong time. The solution is always more CO oversight and acting like the deficiencies within those units were special snowflakes instead of taking a hard look at how we train and qualify watchstanders.
Aviation and apparently SPECWAR are unique in the way they train people before hitting the fleet. Having experienced the SWO-ish* way, I think what aviation does makes a whole lot of sense and produces better trained, more capable officers. By not being in an operational unit, you don't have to do your qualifications between the ship's routine, learning to manage a division that doesn't respect you because you're not qualified anything, and miscellaneous DH bitch tasking. And because you're already assigned to the ship/sub, there's pressure to lower the bar for those who struggle because it's better than the alternative -- getting a new guy and waiting another 12-18 months until he's fully qualified. The upshot is the qualifications would take a shorter amount of time, too, because that's all you have to do.
But there are many like Steve who scoff at the idea of doing qualifications off of the ship, so here we are.
As for the warfare device question, it's been answered several pages ago. It's clearly spelled out in the Navy uniform regs.
*Yes, we get a year of nuclear training, but subs consist of more than an engineroom and reactor compartment.
