Rare designators in USN

[azguy]

Huh? MSRON has existed in some force pre-9/11. And like I said, culturally it's very Reserve dominated. Personally, I think that side should've been given over to the Security LDOs anyway...

But I already said there's not much overlap between AEGIS and small craft/expeditionary ops.
I'm not talking about a Small Craft track, I'm talking about an Expeditionary track would roll up EXW ops from the ship side to the shore side.

But last I checked, amphibs are still a big part of the Surface Navy, and we also still man other amphib "customer" units like LCAC and LCU ACU commands with SWOs.
For the side of the Surface Navy that regularly works with the Marines, developing an understanding of ground force commander requirements, CFF/NSFS, and amphib ops AFTER leaving the well deck might not be a bad idea.

I'm not an Amphib guy so I don't want to speak for that side of the house, but I think they might take umbrage with being typecast into another mission. To my limited knowledge, there aren't many SWOs assigned to ACUs. And those that are assigned to ACUs are sent to Skeds type jobs... we send many JOs to DESRONs to meet the same fate.

If I'm being totally honest, I think we need to soft split Amphib SWOs from CRUDES in order to maximize schoolhouse training and operational experience in each community.

To my earlier point, does driving an LSD/LPD for two years make you the heir apparent of Riverine/MSRON excellence? Or is an E-5 BM, EOD, or MA, much more qualified to lead a small boat team than you?

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Really, I don't understand how useful the CruDes experience might be in riverine warfare and vice versa. Even while my Coast Guard experience says that every officer of warfare designator should go through the small craft's bridge, this is not the case for the Navy. In CG there was a typical path:
- Commission;
- Two years tour DivO on a high or medium endurance cutter;
- Two years as a patrol boat CO;
- Two years DH on high or medium;
- Two years as exec of medium cutter;
- Postgraduate education, a year or so;
- Either XO of high end cutter or CO of medium one, two years again;
- CO of high end or brigade/division staff opso, two again.
Then out or battle for flag rank
And while every officer was a small craft/boat CO, it is hardly possible for much more complicated fields of CruDes tasks...

 

[Hair Warrior]

Would it be feasible to mirror some of the SWCC small craft training (minus BUD/S of course) and use that as a JIT training course (short duration) for anyone headed to RIVRON/MSRON, incl. SWOs no matter their rank? Or, are there reasons that won't work?

 

[AllAmerican75]

Would it be feasible to mirror some of the SWCC small craft training (minus BUD/S of course) and use that as a JIT training course (short duration) for anyone headed to RIVRON/MSRON, incl. SWOs no matter their rank? Or, are there reasons that won't work?

As I understand it, there's already a training pipeline for folks heading to the CRSRONs; that's not really the issue. The issue is retaining the people who understand how the expeditionary community functions and what they can and can't bring to the fight. This is what has hampered the SWCC community as of late, since they don't have URL officers to advocate for them in the ever swirling fight for budget cuts and fiscal responsibility. Since NECC is a revolving door for Active Duty (there are dudes in the Reserves who spend their entire career doing RIVRON/MESRON or Beachmaster stuff), the amount of experienced people at the top of the food chain who know how to implement them properly and advocate for their continued funding are not there.

To better paint the picture, the lack of URL officers in the SWCC community is causing them to lose ground and the SEAL officers who run the show have been working hard to create combined training pipelines and possibly even eliminate the SB rate entirely. Apparently, the dream from the top brass of SPECWAR is to staff everything with SEALs: some SEALs will drive boats, some will drive those cool underwater vehicles, some will shoot things, and some will blow stuff up. Advocating the elimination of SWOs in NECC will leave it all on the shoulders of the CEC and EOD officers whose training and interests are very limited in scope and do not necessarily encompass driving fast boats, orchestrating beach landings, providing harbor security, performing HVU protection in close quarters, and waging asymmetric warfare in coastal regions and up rivers.

 

[BigRed389]

To better paint the picture, the lack of URL officers in the SWCC community is causing them to lose ground and the SEAL officers who run the show have been working hard to create combined training pipelines and possibly even eliminate the SB rate entirely. Apparently, the dream from the top brass of SPECWAR is to staff everything with SEALs: some SEALs will drive boats, some will drive those cool underwater vehicles, some will shoot things, and some will blow stuff up. Advocating the elimination of SWOs in NECC will leave it all on the shoulders of the CEC and EOD officers whose training and interests are very limited in scope and do not necessarily encompass driving fast boats, orchestrating beach landings, providing harbor security, performing HVU protection in close quarters, and waging asymmetric warfare in coastal regions and up rivers.

Yeah, so one of the issues that popped up in OIF was you had a bunch of SBT guys sitting around not doing much with boats.
Because doing daylight patrols, doing waterborne guard post wasn't in their job description, and there also wasn't a whole lot of demand to do super sneaky shit with small boats. So you had a bunch of RIVRON guys going out daily while a bunch of SWCC dudes with the same gear weren't doing much.
In that situation, NSW would probably have been happy to retask the SBT guys to be door kickers.
It's the same reason the Marines passed RIVRON off to the Navy, their Small Craft Companies were manned by a bunch of grunts, and the demand was there to put more grunts back on land while the Navy was more than happy to absorb the mission and the free publicity and sweet, sweet OCO money that came with it.

I'm not an Amphib guy so I don't want to speak for that side of the house, but I think they might take umbrage with being typecast into another mission. To my limited knowledge, there aren't many SWOs assigned to ACUs. And those that are assigned to ACUs are sent to Skeds type jobs... we send many JOs to DESRONs to meet the same fate.

If I'm being totally honest, I think we need to soft split Amphib SWOs from CRUDES in order to maximize schoolhouse training and operational experience in each community.

I agree, and it's why I'd push Expeditionary jobs on the amphib community.
There's no reason Gator Navy SWOs shouldn't have room in their career path to run a large part of the Expeditionary community.
Pretty much every NECC element has capabilities for operating off/with the Gator Navy, and there was a big gap between the SWOs that drive "Mom" for those missions and the slap dash mix of RL communities plus CEC/EOD that makes up NECC.

To my earlier point, does driving an LSD/LPD for two years make you the heir apparent of Riverine/MSRON excellence? Or is an E-5 BM, EOD, or MA, much more qualified to lead a small boat team than you?

It does not...but the E-5 or above is also not more qualified to lead a small boat team than you (ie a properly trained URL officer).
Just like I would hope you're not pawning off CRUDES leadership on a STO or ADO.
Setting responsibilities of O's and E's aside, it's even more blatant when NECC does not do enlisted closed loop detailing, so your E-5 or above may also be on their first NECC tour.

 

[Hair Warrior]

(Gouge)

Great gouge. Thanks for the info.

Huh, I am surprised there are no Naval Special Warfare officers in SWCC. I feel like that would be an easy fix -- allow officers after BUD/S to split into SWCC training instead of SEAL. Then at either O-4 or O-5, merge both SEAL and SWCC officer tracks into a single NSW officer track (like the Navy does with AEDO and AMDO). There are probably good reasons it's not done this way, though.

Failing that, an easier/lesser fix could be to coach SEAL officers in staff jobs on how best to advocate for the SWCC community.

 

[AllAmerican75]

Great gouge. Thanks for the info.
Huh, I am surprised there are no Naval Special Warfare officers in SWCC. I feel like that would be an easy fix -- allow officers after BUD/S to split into SWCC training instead of SEAL. Then at either O-4 or O-5, merge both SEAL and SWCC officer tracks into a single NSW officer track (like the Navy does with AEDO and AMDO). There are probably good reasons it's not done this way, though.
Failing that, an easier/lesser fix could be to coach SEAL officers in staff jobs on how best to advocate for the SWCC community.

No problemo, dude. Sadly, the SEALs just don't have the bodies and the SWCC community just isn't big enough. I think the combination of both communities into one makes sense; but I'm an outsider looking in.

Wisdom and knowledge

Bro, you're preaching to the choir. I've heard rumblings from my friends at SWOS and PERS-41 that they're considering breaking apart CRUDES and GATOR career paths. I think it would be very viable to do an initial tour on the GATOR, go NECC for a couple of years, then do a shore tour chilling at a PHIBRON/Fleet/NECC Staff, then DH on a GATOR, DH at NECC, then staff until you pick up command or get out.

I think this would make a great Proceedings article. With the push to modernize the SWO community and career path, I think this could gain real traction.

 

[wlawr005]

I feel like that would be an easy fix -- allow officers after BUD/S to split into SWCC training instead of SEAL.

Failing that, an easier/lesser fix could be to coach SEAL officers in staff jobs on how best to advocate for the SWCC community.

Congrats gentlemen, you've completed the hardest military training conceivable and earned the right to lead SEALs into combat. By the way, a Good Idea Fairy has added SWCC to your career path, so we're gonna need you to come in on Saturday and finish some TPS reports instead.

Seriously man.

 

[AllAmerican75]

Congrats gentlemen, you've completed the hardest military training conceivable and earned the right to lead SEALs into combat. By the way, a Good Idea Fairy has added SWCC to your career path, so we're gonna need you to come in on Saturday and finish some TPS reports instead.
Seriously man.

Well, technically, their training pipeline extends approximately 2 years after BUD/S with all of the follow-on training, so if you wanted to send some dudes to be boat drivers instead of arctic warfare or desert warfare, it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Expectations management is not that hard. If a SWCC officer cadre is truly a need for the Navy (a big "if"), SWCC can be a separate designator, like how AEDO and AMDO are separate below O-6. So before ever going to BUD/S, you either put in for SWCC on your dream sheet or OCS packet, or you didn't -- no in between.

e.g. Don't put NFO as your #2 choice after NA if you aren't mentally prepared to be a NFO in the event that you aren't selected for NA. Some applicants will still say "SEAL or bust" and that's okay. But no one would go through BUD/S without knowing their follow-on path first.

 

[wlawr005]

Okay, I'll play.

Find me one person who's gonna go through BUD/s to be a river boat Captain.

Or needs to for that matter.

 

[BigRed389]

Okay, I'll play.

Find me one person who's gonna go through BUD/s to be a river boat Captain.

Or needs to for that matter.

Effectively that sort of already happens. SEAL officers are put in charge of SBT Dets.
Or SDV units.

Though I agree, I don't think they need BUD/S to be split off into a permanent SWCC O career path.
Just like on the conventional side, the point of an officer there isn't to have years and years of boat ops experience, but rather being able to work with a lot of different outside groups to get the job done.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Well, technically, their training pipeline extends approximately 2 years after BUD/S with all of the follow-on training, so if you wanted to send some dudes to be boat drivers instead of arctic warfare or desert warfare, it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Once they graduate BUD/S (at about 2 years in for officers) they go to a team and can and do deploy right after that. They may go to additional schools as well but they are all deployable.

 

[AllAmerican75]

Once they graduate BUD/S (at about 2 years in for officers) they go to a team and can and do deploy right after that. They may go to additional schools as well but they are all deployable.

So is it different for the enlisted dudes? Most of the SEALs I've worked with have been enlisted but they said that they completed BUD/S which was a few months and then did about 2 years of training covering everything from jump school to arctic warfare and even offensive car driving. It wouldn't surprise me if the officers have some differences in their pipeline.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

So is it different for the enlisted dudes? Most of the SEALs I've worked with have been enlisted but they said that they completed BUD/S which was a few months and then did about 2 years of training covering everything from jump school to arctic warfare and even offensive car driving. It wouldn't surprise me if the officers have some differences in their pipeline.

I made a terminology error, when a person says they graduated BUD/S the average person would believe they have become a SEAL and pinned on the trident, however BUD/S is only 6 months of the about 2 year pipeline, but they still have SQT and a few other schools, those all added together when you add in the breaks end up being about 2 years from start to the point they graduate and go to the teams.

When they pin on the trident at graduation it is just a few days before they head out to their assigned team, they said what team each person was going to at the graduation.