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STSE1-E3

Sonar Technician (Submarine)

E-1 to E-3 (Junior Enlisted) · Navy

E1–E3E-4E-5E-6E-7E8–E9
HEADS UP

BESS at Groton is not optional and not a formality — a BESS failure delays your check-in and flags you to the receiving boat's sonar chief before you ever set foot on the brow. Get through BESS clean, check aboard early, and start your Submarine Qualification PQS the same week you stow your sea bag. The dolphins are the only credential that matters in this community at this paygrade.

The Honest MOS Read
You are a sonar student on a submarine you have not yet earned the right to stand watch on. That sentence captures the whole job at the SR through STSSN tier, and the submarine community is unusually honest about enforcing it. STS A-School at Naval Submarine School, Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut runs roughly 26 weeks. You are learning physics that most people never touch: how sound propagates underwater, the effects of thermoclines and salinity gradients on acoustic transmission, the difference between broadband and narrowband energy, how a passive sonar sphere array works, what a towed array detects that the sphere array cannot, and the basics of Target Motion Analysis — building a course-speed-range picture of a submerged contact from nothing but bearing rate and time. The BQQ-10 suite (or the legacy BQQ-5 series on older hulls) is the installed system you learn in school; the hull you report to may have a variant or a newer sub-system configuration, so A-School teaches you the architecture and physics, not just the button sequence. After A-School you complete Basic Enlisted Submarine School (BESS), also at Groton, which is the submarine community's entry qualification covering damage control, emergency procedures, compartment familiarization, and submarine safety fundamentals. BESS is your ticket to check aboard. A failure means you do not leave Groton on the timeline the detailer planned, and the sonar chief on the receiving boat receives the administrative message before you arrive. Once you check aboard your first submarine — most likely an SSN (Los Angeles-class, Virginia-class) or SSGN — Submarine Qualification PQS begins immediately. Sub Qual is the most important task at this paygrade. It is a command-specific qualification card that requires demonstrating knowledge of every major system aboard the boat: propulsion, ballast, weapons stowage, escape trunks, fire suppression, flooding response, compartment access, emergency procedures. You earn each signature from a qualified watchstander who physically tested you on the system — not someone who watched you describe it. The gold dolphins (Submarine Warfare Insignia) go on your uniform after a board with the Captain. The community tracks non-qual sailors by name. The sonar supervisor knows exactly where every STSSN is in the qualification process at any given time. In between school, BESS, and PQS you stand sonar training watches under direct supervision, run Preventive Maintenance System (PMS) cards on assigned sonar equipment sections, and sit through acoustic-analysis training in the shack. The training watches are where the sonar supervisor starts reading your potential: can you sit at the display and describe what you are seeing in the correct format, or do you panic and guess? The PMS is where the division chief reads your attention to detail: did you complete every step on the MRC, or did you skip the ones that seemed like admin? Submarines run on three rotating watch sections at sea. When you are not on watch, you are sleeping, eating, running PQS, studying for advancement, or doing maintenance. There is no escape to the barracks during a patrol. The space is close, the crew is small, and every sailor is visible to every other sailor in ways that surface ships do not replicate. The STSSN who keeps his mouth shut, does the work, finishes the qual, and does not make the chief explain himself to the CO is the STSSN who earns respect. The one who skips PMS steps, hides a qual block he cannot get signed, or opens his mouth in a chiefs-and-officers conversation without an invitation earns a different kind of attention. Submarine duty pay begins from the day you check aboard a submarine. BESS pay, hazardous duty incentive pay (diving), and sea pay (for extended deployments) apply per the current DOD pay tables. The financial package is meaningfully different from surface-force service at the same paygrade.
Career Arc
  • 01STS A-School at Naval Submarine School, Groton CT — approximately 26 weeks.
  • 02Basic Enlisted Submarine School (BESS) at Groton — qualification required before checking aboard the receiving submarine.
  • 03Check aboard first submarine (SSN or SSGN); submarine duty pay begins.
  • 04Submarine Qualification PQS begins immediately; complete before or during first patrol cycle.
  • 05Gold dolphins board with the Captain; SS warfare insignia pinned.
  • 06Training sonar watches progressing toward supervised independent watch qualification.
  • 07Advancement eligibility for STS3 (E-4) via NWAE once time-in-rate and other eligibility requirements are met.
Common Screwups
  • ×BESS failure or academic setback at A-School without proactively telling the chain. The sonar chief on the receiving boat gets the admin message; the STSSN who hid the difficulty until it became official paperwork starts with a strike against him before day one.
  • ×Treating Submarine Qualification PQS as a second-priority item behind watchstanding. The dolphins are not a second-patrol goal — non-qual sailors on patrol are visible and the boat runs a tighter watchbill as a result.
  • ×Security clearance incident — unreported foreign contact, financial trouble, or compartmented-information mishandling — handled as an administrative inconvenience rather than a mandatory proactive report. One incident that surfaces through a periodic review instead of your own disclosure is treated as an integrity failure, not a paperwork gap.
  • ×Discussing acoustic detection capabilities, sonar contacts, or patrol-area specifics with anyone outside authorized spaces. This class of information is among the most tightly held in the fleet. The STSSN who talks in a bar about what the sonar shack detected on the last run triggers a security incident that can end the sea billet entirely.
  • ×Treating PMS cards as signatures to collect rather than maintenance steps to execute. A sonar system that fails underway because a verification step was skipped has your name in the casualty log and the sonar chief has to explain it to the department head.

A Day in the Life

  • 0500Reveille (at sea). Dress, hygiene in the head (brief windows on a submarine — the schedule is coordinated). Check the watch bill for your section rotation.
  • 0530-0630Watch section turnover — if on watch, relieve the outgoing watchstander in the sonar shack. Receive the acoustic picture brief: contacts held, bearing, classification, watchstander notes on any developing targets. Inspect the display and verify the contact track log. At STSSN you are not relieving independently — you are observing and supporting the qualified watchstander's relief.
  • 0630-0800Sonar training watch under direct supervisor supervision. The sonar supervisor assigns specific tasks: monitor the broadband display for this bearing sector, track this contact and report bearing changes, execute this PMS card on the sphere array interface equipment. You work under his eyes and he is grading your format and your judgment on every call.
  • 0800-1000PQS work — approaching a qualified senior STS for line-item sign-offs in the compartments you have been studying. The submarine is at sea; access to propulsion and weapons spaces happens during watch section breaks when the spaces are available and the LPO or department head has cleared the timing.
  • 1000-1130PMS execution on assigned sonar equipment. MRC card pulled from the PMS binder, read top to bottom before touching the equipment, safety precautions applied, steps completed in sequence, log entry made in real time.
  • 1130-1230Lunch at the mess. Submarine mess is small — the crew eats in two or three seatings depending on hull size. The STSSN eats when his watch section rotation allows it, not on his own schedule.
  • 1230-1500Off watch: PQS continuation, NWAE study (STS3 advancement exam preparation starts on day one of checking aboard, not six months before the exam), and sonar doctrine self-study. A-School gave you the physics; the doctrine you apply it to comes from NWP 3-21 series and the hull-specific sonar procedures.
  • 1500-1700Watch section duties — if not on rotation, assist the LPO or a senior STS with division administrative work: PMS completion logs, watchstander qualification tracking, classified material accountability log maintenance under supervision.
  • 1700-1800Dinner. Then back to rack or study space depending on the watch rotation. Rack time on a submarine is coordinated — hot racking (sharing a berthing space with another sailor on opposite watch sections) is standard on some hull classes.
  • 1800-2200NWAE study, PQS review, or rest before the next watch section rotation. The sonar supervisor who walks through berthing at 2000 and finds you with the PQS card and a study guide is the one who finds time to give you a sign-off tomorrow.
  • 2200Lights out or next watch section relief — 24-hour schedule rotates continuously at sea.
  • In port (Groton, Pearl Harbor, Bremerton, Guam)Section duty days on a rotating schedule; liberty during non-duty periods. PQS work happens in port when equipment access is scheduled and senior watchstanders have time for walk-throughs. NWAE study, PT, and personal administration. The STSSN who uses in-port time for qual work and NWAE prep is the STSSN who emerges from the first patrol with dolphins and a study log the chief has already seen.

Weekly Cadence

At sea the week does not exist as a planning unit — the watch rotation is the structure, and it repeats every 18 hours (for a three-section rotation) regardless of what day of the week the calendar shows. The STSSN's week is defined by watch sections, PMS assignments, and PQS milestones. If the sonar supervisor scheduled a qualification walk-through for Tuesday at 1400 and the watch section rotation changed, the walk-through moves too — the boat's operational schedule is the calendar and no sailor's professional development plan overrides it. In port, the week has a more recognizable shape. Monday is the administrative reset — division sync, plan-of-the-week review, PMS scheduling for the week, watchbill adjustments for the duty section rotation. Tuesday through Thursday are the working core: PMS evolutions in the sonar spaces, PQS walk-throughs with senior watchstanders during their available hours, NWAE study in berthing or the ward room during off-duty windows. The sonar supervisor's Thursday section sync reviews PMS completion against the week's targets and the PQS milestone chart against the patrol schedule. Friday is typically the end of the in-port workday but section duty rotates through the weekend and the STSSN on weekend duty is available for PQS work if a senior watchstander on duty has time. The deployments and underways that define the actual calendar of submarine life do not follow a monthly pattern — the operational schedule is set by squadron requirements, maintenance cycles, and fleet deployment commitments that the STSSN is not briefed in advance. The sailor who builds PQS and NWAE work habits that function at sea (short focused sessions, not marathon cramming) is the one who arrives at the dolphins board and the advancement exam prepared regardless of how the schedule moved.

Key Skills — How to Drill Each

  1. 01
    Identify the major components and functional architecture of the ship's primary sonar system to the Submarine Qualification PQS standard.
    Walk the sonar shack with a senior STS3 or STS2 during the first week and trace every cable run to the processing equipment it feeds. The PQS is not asking for book knowledge — the board will send you to the actual hardware and ask you to point at the sphere array interface or the towed-array handling room and explain what it does. Print the PQS card, read every line item once before you approach a senior watchstander for a sign-off, and never ask someone to sign something you cannot explain cold the next morning.
  2. 02
    Execute PMS MRC cards on assigned sonar equipment with no skipped steps.
    Read the MRC top to bottom before you touch the equipment. Note the safety precautions first — sonar sphere arrays involve high-voltage systems and the precautions are there because of real incidents. Complete the card in sequence. Log the entry in ink as you go, not at the end. The sonar supervisor doing a spot-check is not checking whether the work is done — he is checking whether the log reflects the work being done on the correct day in the correct sequence. The STSSN who fills in the log at the end of the day with approximate times gets caught, and the sonar chief finds out before the week closes.
  3. 03
    Perform basic broadband and narrowband display monitoring under direct sonar supervisor supervision, reporting contact bearing, classification confidence, and hold/lost status in standard format.
    The format is not improvised — there is a contact-report format for the sonar shack and you learn it in A-School and reinforce it every training watch. Bearing to the nearest degree. Classification: merchant/surface contact/possible submarine/unknown. Confidence: high/medium/low. Hold or lost. That is the call. Practice it out loud during training watches even when the supervisor is not in the shack — the habit of saying it correctly when it is a training contact is what makes you say it correctly when it is a real contact at 0300.
  4. 04
    Complete BESS qualification and Submarine Qualification PQS on the LCPO's timeline.
    Build a PQS completion schedule the first week aboard. Count the line items, count the weeks until the end of the first patrol, and allocate two to four sign-offs per week depending on the density of the sections. Brief the schedule to the sonar supervisor — not to demonstrate planning, but because the supervisor will adjust it for upcoming maintenance periods, exercises, and watch-section constraints that you do not know about yet. The STSSN who sets a schedule and briefs it gets mentoring; the one who says 'I am working on it' every week until the patrol ends gets a formal counseling entry.
  5. 05
    Maintain security clearance currency and handle classified material in sonar spaces correctly.
    Know the clearance reporting requirements cold before you check aboard: foreign national contacts must be reported, financial difficulties above a threshold must be reported, cohabitation with foreign nationals must be reported. The adjudication process is not your enemy — hiding something that surfaces through a background investigation is. In the sonar shack specifically: classified publications are signed out on the access log and signed back in; no copies made outside the authorized process; no notes on unclassified paper from classified sources; no discussion in the passageway or on the messdeck.

Manuals & References — What Chapters Matter

  • NSTM Chapter 565 — Sonar Systems (Navy Ships' Technical Manual)
    The maintenance and operational reference for submarine sonar systems. At the STSSN paygrade you are using it to understand the equipment you are running PMS on and building toward the PQS sign-offs that reference it. Read the chapter introduction and system description sections before you start the PMS cards — the sonar supervisor who catches you running a maintenance card without understanding what the equipment does will stop the evolution and brief you himself, in front of the division.
  • NWP 3-21 series — Anti-Submarine Warfare
    The doctrinal framework for everything the sonar shack produces operationally. You do not need to brief it at STSSN but you need to understand that the contact prosecutions, barrier patrols, and torpedo-evasion evolutions you are training for all live inside this doctrine. The sonar supervisor who explains why a prosecution procedure works the way it does is referencing NWP 3-21 even when he does not say the title — you should know which document he is pulling from.
  • OPNAVINST 3120.32 series (SORM) — Standard Organization and Regulations of the US Navy
    The watch organization, watchbill structure, and administrative regulation framework for Navy ships. Submarines operate under SORM as modified by the applicable submarine-specific instructions. At STSSN you need to understand the watch bill, the duty sections, how a watch relief works, and the officer-of-the-deck chain that your sonar contact reports flow through. The sonar supervisor who briefs you on contact-reporting format is teaching you the watchstation; SORM is the architecture behind it.
  • Submarine Qualification PQS (hull-specific Qualification Card)
    The most important document in your possession at this paygrade. Every line item is a real qualification requirement — not a formality, not an admin exercise. The board with the Captain is not a friendly conversation; it is a knowledge demonstration. Treat the card as the primary work product and everything else as support for completing it.
  • NAVPERS 18068 Vol II — Manual of Navy Enlisted Manpower and Personnel Classifications (NEC catalog)
    Read the STS-specific NEC entries before your first career counselor conversation — not after. The STS rating's advanced NEC pipeline options (advanced acoustic analysis NECs, towed-array specific qualifications, and follow-on community paths) shape what your second enlistment looks like. The STSSN who walks into a counselor session already knowing which NEC path he wants and why is the one the LPO remembers at the next advancement slate.

Standards — How to Hit Each

  • BESS graduation prior to checking aboard the receiving submarine.
    BESS is taught at Groton and is structured around submarine safety knowledge, damage control, and emergency procedures. The test is not pass-or-fail on one attempt in all sections — retake policies vary. What the community reads is whether you graduated on schedule and whether you required remediation. Show up to BESS having already read the student guide; the STSSN who reads ahead and asks questions passes the sections the first time.
  • Submarine Qualification earned within the first patrol or deployment cycle.
    The patrol schedule is the constraint. Brief your PQS completion plan to the sonar supervisor in the first week. Work the hardest sections — propulsion, weapons, ballast — early when the boat is in port and the equipment is accessible. The easier knowledge sections can fill in underway. The dolphins go on before the boat returns from the first patrol; that is the community expectation, not a suggestion.
  • PRT Good Low or higher; BCA in standard.
    Submarine physical readiness standards are the same as the surface Navy under OPNAVINST 6110.1, but the physical demands of the submarine environment — crawling through machinery spaces, operating in confined compartments, carrying equipment on damage control stations — make fitness a functional requirement. Train the 1.5-mile run and the push-ups and sit-ups on the standard cycle. The STSSN who fails PRT is also the STSSN the chief is managing a readiness issue on in an already-constrained watch bill.
  • Zero security incidents — unreported clearance-relevant contacts, mishandled classified material.
    Understand the reporting requirements before you are tested on them. Foreign national contacts (anyone who is not a US citizen or LPR who you socialize with more than casually), foreign travel, changes in financial status that put you in debt collection, arrests or civil court actions — all require reporting. The deadline for reporting is 'as soon as you reasonably can,' which in practice means within a few days. The security manager is not your adversary; the adjudication process exists to keep clearances alive, not to revoke them for good-faith disclosure.

Technical Mistakes — Concrete Consequences

  • Reporting a contact bearing or classification without using the correct format.
    The OOD takes torpedo defense and contact prosecution actions based on what the sonar shack reports. A garbled call — wrong bearing format, missing confidence level, ambiguous hold/lost status — means the watch team is working with degraded information during a period when the picture is developing. The sonar supervisor corrects it in front of the watch team and the correction lands in the watch log. At STSSN it is a learning event; repeated incorrect format is a qualification block.
  • Hiding a PQS block you cannot get signed because you are embarrassed the knowledge is not there.
    The sonar supervisor finds out regardless — the qualification cards are reviewed at section sync and the LCPO tracks every signature. The STSSN who goes to the supervisor three weeks before the patrol ends and says 'I have been stuck on this section since week two' gets remedial mentoring and a formal counseling entry. The STSSN who goes to the supervisor two weeks before the patrol ends and says 'I have been stuck since week two but did not want to say anything' gets the counseling entry and the supervisor's permanent read on whether he can be trusted to surface problems in the shack.
  • Skipping a PMS step because the equipment appears to be functioning correctly.
    Sonar system calibration and alignment maintenance directly affect detection sensitivity. The calibration step you skipped is not visible in day-to-day performance until the system misses a contact it should have detected. The maintenance log shows the gap; the CSMP (Casualty/Status/Maintenance program) traces the last completed maintenance date back to your name and the sonar chief has to explain it to the department head during the readiness brief.
  • Discussing sonar performance characteristics, tonal library specifics, or patrol-area details outside authorized spaces.
    Acoustic intelligence about submarine sonar detection capability is among the most tightly held information in the fleet. A single conversation in a bar near the waterfront that surfaces in a security debrief triggers a command investigation at the CO level. The STSSN who talks about what the sonar shack detected on the last patrol, even in general terms, with people outside the clearance boundary does not keep his sea billet.

Career Decisions at This Rank

  • First enlistment term length and reenlistment timing at approximately 18-24 months
    The STS community is submarine-force only — unlike surface ratings that mix shore and sea billets through the career, STS sailors serve on submarines or in submarine support billets. The commitment is meaningful and the reenlistment decision at the end of the first term deserves honest evaluation before the SRB conversation. The current SRB for STS and submarine-force ratings is published in the applicable NAVADMIN message — pull it before talking to the career counselor. If the submarine lifestyle fits and the community is the right fit, reenlist with a pipeline (advanced NEC, second-boat orders to a different hull class) locked in; if it does not fit, ETS is the honest answer and the transition assistance program can help map the credentials to civilian employment.
  • TSP enrollment under the Blended Retirement System
    Every sailor under BRS receives 1% automatic government TSP contribution after 60 days; the 4% government match for a 5% personal contribution does not start until two years of service. The math on compounding over a 20-year career is not optional to understand — it is money left on the table if you do not enroll at 5% at the two-year mark. Talk to the Fleet and Family Service Center financial counselor at Groton during the first 90 days; the conversation is free and the compound-interest math is worth 30 minutes.
  • NEC pipeline path after earning the dolphins — advanced acoustic analysis, towed-array, or community follow-on options
    The STS rating has advanced NEC pipelines that open after the first tour — specific acoustic analysis specializations and towed-array qualifications that distinguish the watchstander's technical profile. Read the NAVPERS 18068 Vol II NEC entries for the STS rating before the first career counselor conversation. The STSSN who has a specific NEC path in mind and can explain why is the one the LPO advocates for when the pipeline slot comes available.

How the Seat Varies by Unit Type

  • Los Angeles-class SSN (fast attack)
    The workhorse of the submarine force and the most common first-boat assignment. LA-class boats are compact, the crew is tight, and the sonar spaces are the primary mission space for the STS rating. The BQQ-5 series or the BQQ-10 depending on the flight and modernization level. Deployment cycles of roughly 6-8 months, with 12-18 months between deployments on a good maintenance cycle. The sonar division on an LA-class is typically 6-12 enlisted STS sailors and the sonar chief runs a tight space.
  • Virginia-class SSN (Block I-V)
    The current production attack submarine and the newer-technology hull. The BQQ-10 system with the large-aperture bow array and the wide-aperture arrays is the installed suite, and the Virginia-class Block III and later hulls have the Virginia Payload Module capability that changes the operational mission set. The sonar spaces are laid out differently from LA-class and the processing architecture reflects two decades of system evolution. A first-boat on a Virginia-class puts you on the most operationally relevant hull in the submarine fleet.
  • Ohio-class SSGN (guided missile submarine)
    Four converted Ohio-class boats operate as SSGNs with a Tomahawk land-attack and special operations primary mission set. The sonar suite is the same Ohio-class acoustic architecture the boats carried as SSBNs. The ASW mission is secondary to the strike and SOF-support missions; the sonar division supports the overall mission but the operational profile is different from a dedicated ASW fast-attack. Shore-rotation assignments sometimes bring STS sailors to SSGN duty.
  • Submarine force support billets (SUBRON staff, NUWC detachment, schoolhouse, submarine tender)
    Not a first-assignment destination for most STSSN sailors but the alternative STS career path exists. SUBRON staff billets, NUWC (Naval Undersea Warfare Center) technical support roles, and the Naval Submarine School instructor pipeline are shore assignments that open after the first sea tour. For the STSSN thinking about a 20-year career, understanding that shore billets exist and what they require helps frame the second-enlistment decision.

What Good Looks Like at This Rank

The good STSSN checks aboard Groton with BESS already in mind, walks through the instruction and starts identifying the sections that will require the most prep. He graduates BESS on the original timeline without remediation. He checks aboard the boat with his Submarine Qualification card printed, walks the sonar shack with whoever will give him an hour on day one, and briefs the sonar supervisor his PQS completion plan by the end of the first week. His plan has section milestones and a completion date before the patrol, not 'I will work on it.' Once aboard, his PMS cards are completed in sequence, in ink, on the actual day the maintenance was performed — not back-filled at the end of the week. He asks questions before he touches equipment he has not touched before, not after. When he sits a training watch, his contact format is correct every time — bearing, classification, confidence, hold/lost — because he practiced it out loud in his rack the night before. The sonar supervisor corrects his format once on the first training watch and not again. By the halfway point of the first patrol his dolphins board date is set and the Captain already knows his name. When the patrol ends and the board convenes, the STSSN answers the Captain's questions on propulsion, ballast, weapons stowage, escape trunks, and sonar systems with the answers he has been able to give for the past three weeks. The dolphins go on. The sonar chief mentions his name at the next section sync when discussing who should advance to the first supervised independent watch section.

Preview — The Next Rank

STS3 (E-4) is the first paygrade where you hold the sonar watch independently — your name on the watchbill, your contact report going to the OOD without a supervisor's review before it leaves the shack. The Petty Officer Third Class crow means the submarine community has certified you as a working watchstander. What changes at STS3 is not the technical content of the job but the accountability: your contact classifications are the ones the fire-control party is working with, your PMS cards carry your signature without a supervisor co-signing them, and the STSSN you are mentoring through early PQS line items is building habits off what they see you do. The Navy-Wide Advancement Examination (NWAE) for STS2 becomes a live countdown the day you pin STS3. The advancement cycle runs twice annually; the Final Multiple Score (FMS) combines exam score, performance evaluation rankings, time-in-rate, awards, and education. The sonar chief on a fast-attack with a four or five-person STS3 cohort knows every advancement score in the division before the cycle closes — the advancement score is not private on a submarine the way it might be on a large ship. The STS3 who walks into the STS2 NWAE with 90 days of documented study behind him is the STS3 the chief is advocating for at the ranking board. Build the study log from day one at STS3 — not three months before the exam. The towed-array watchstander qualification is the major new technical achievement at STS3 on boats that carry towed arrays. The stream and retrieval procedures, the geometric management of array depth and trail, and the narrowband analysis that a properly streamed array enables are the technical differentiation between a sphere-array-only watchstander and a full-capability sonar watchstander. The STS3 who earns the towed-array qualification early is the one the sonar supervisor schedules on the watchbill in a way that carries the division. The one who defers it is visible for the wrong reason.
FAQ

STS E1-E3 — Frequently Asked Questions

Q01What does a E1-E3 STS (Sonar Technician (Submarine)) actually do?
You arrive at STS "A" School at Naval Submarine School, Naval Submarine Base New London (Groton), Connecticut with a security clearance and a lot of ambition, and you spend the first phase of your career learning how sound travels underwater and why it matters more than almost any other physics you will ever apply in a Navy uniform.
Q02What's the most important thing to know as a E1-E3 STS?
BESS at Groton is not optional and not a formality — a BESS failure delays your check-in and flags you to the receiving boat's sonar chief before you ever set foot on the brow.
Q03What does a typical day look like for a E1-E3 STS?
Time-blocked day at the E1-E3 STS rank tier: 0500 Reveille (at sea). Dress, hygiene in the head (brief windows on a submarine — the schedule is coordinated). Check the watch bill for your section rotation, 0530-0630 Watch section turnover — if on watch, relieve the outgoing watchstander in the sonar shack. Receive the acoustic picture brief: contacts held, bearing, classification, watchstander notes on any developing targets. Inspect the display and verify the contact track log.…
Q04What mistakes get E1-E3 STS soldiers fired or relieved?
BESS failure or academic setback at A-School without proactively telling the chain. The sonar chief on the receiving boat gets the admin message; the STSSN who hid the difficulty until it became official paperwork starts with a strike against him before day one; Treating Submarine Qualification PQS as a second-priority item behind watchstanding. The dolphins are not a second-patrol goal — non-qual sailors on patrol are visible and the boat runs a tighter watchbill as a result;…
Q05What career decisions matter most at the E1-E3 STS rank tier?
First enlistment term length and reenlistment timing at approximately 18-24 months — The STS community is submarine-force only — unlike surface ratings that mix shore and sea billets through the career, STS sailors serve on submarines or in submarine support billets. The commitment is meaningful and the reenlistment decision at the end of the first term deserves honest evaluation before the SRB conversation. The current SRB for STS and submarine-force ratings is published in the applicable NAVADMIN message — pull it before talking to the career counselor.…
Q06What's next after E1-E3 for a STS (Sonar Technician (Submarine)) in the Navy?
STS3 (E-4) is the first paygrade where you hold the sonar watch independently — your name on the watchbill, your contact report going to the OOD without a supervisor's review before it leaves the shack.
Q07What manuals and regulations does a E1-E3 STS need to know cold?
NSTM Chapter 565 — Sonar Systems (Navy Ships' Technical Manual); the technical reference for installed sonar equipment maintenance and operation aboard submarines.; NWP 3-21 series — Anti-Submarine Warfare; the doctrine framework behind every contact prosecution, barrier patrol, and torpedo evasion evolution you will train for.; OPNAVINST 3120.32 series (SORM) — Standard Organization and Regulations of the US Navy; watch organization, watchbill assignment,…

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Published by the Honest MOS Editorial DeskVerified against DoD/.gov sourcesUpdated May 2026Editorial standards