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STSE7

Sonar Technician (Submarine)

E-7 (Sergeant First Class) · Navy

E1–E3E-4E-5E-6E-7E8–E9
HEADS UP

Making Chief in the STS community changes the job more than any other promotion. The CO and XO look to you as the senior enlisted acoustic technical authority on a boat where the sonar picture is one of the most operationally consequential products the crew generates. The goat locker is real — the transition is not social theater, it is the Navy's enlisted leadership onboarding, and the sonar division reads whether the anchors changed your behavior or just your collar.

The Honest MOS Read
STSC (Chief Petty Officer) is the landmark promotion in the STS rating. The submarine community phrases it directly: the STS3 who pins Chief has made it. Every other advancement is a step on the path; the anchors are the destination the community has been pointing you toward since you sat your first training watch as an STSSN. Making Chief changes the job in two fundamental ways. First, you leave the watch-section rotation as the working senior watchstander and become the LCPO of the sonar division — the officer-of-record for enlisted execution of acoustic analysis, watchstander qualification, PMS, classified material programs, personnel readiness, and the advancement slate for every STS in the division. Second, the CO and XO begin treating you as the senior enlisted acoustic technical authority on the submarine — not just the senior enlisted in the sonar department, but the voice they consult when the sonar picture is consequential and the department head needs a peer-level technical opinion. The goat locker transition is real, and the sonar division watches it from the first day of the anchors. The STSC who is present in the sonar spaces during watchstander qualification events, who runs the PMS spot-checks personally before the squadron inspection team arrives, and who sits at the watchstation during the first CSG ASW exercise of the tour is the one the division understands is building the standard from the inside. The STSC who manages from a distance — appearances at section sync, absent during qualification boards, phone-in PMS reviews — is the one the sonar division quietly accounts for differently. The STS1 LPO sees the gap and fills it with his own judgment, which is not the same as the chief's judgment. As LCPO you run the sonar division through the COMSUBRON operational assessment, the CSG ASW exercise, the squadron inspection, and the deployment cycle. The discrepancy the inspector finds in the sonar spaces is your discrepancy. The watchstander who fails a qualification board is your training program's output. The eEVAL that does not advance the STS2 on cycle is your professional judgment in print. The classified material gap that surfaces through an outside inspection rather than your own self-check is your accountability failure. The Chief level is the first level where the sonar division's outcomes trace directly to one person — and that person is you. The Chief's Mess is the senior enlisted institution that makes the submarine force work. CPO Initiation and the transition into the mess are the Navy's way of onboarding the new Chief into a peer cohort that has been running the enlisted structure for decades. The mess enforces standards horizontally — the goat locker does not need the wardroom to enforce Chief-level professional conduct because the mess does it first. The STSC who understands this and engages the mess as a professional institution earns a different standing than the one who sees CPO Initiation as a hazing ritual to endure. The Senior Chief slate begins moving at the back of your mind during the second or third year as STSC. The Senior Enlisted Academy (SEA) fellowship at Naval War College Newport is the primary senior PME milestone. The eEVAL profile from the LCPO seat — who advanced, who selected for commissioning, what the division's acoustic assessment results looked like — is the portfolio the Senior Chief board reads.
Career Arc
  • 01STSC pin-on; CPO Academy / CPO Initiation program; Chief's Mess transition.
  • 02LCPO seat assumed for the sonar division — first eEVAL cycle as LCPO.
  • 03First COMSUBRON operational assessment or CSG ASW exercise as senior enlisted acoustic voice.
  • 04Senior Enlisted Academy (SEA) fellowship consideration — Naval War College Newport RI.
  • 05Division through first deployment cycle and post-deployment assessment with zero LCPO-attributable inspection findings.
  • 06Senior Chief (STSCS) board package building from the second year at STSC — eEVAL profile, commissioning accessions, acoustic proficiency outcomes.
  • 07Shore tour eligibility — SUBRON staff, Naval Submarine School department, NUWC Newport technical cadre.
Common Screwups
  • ×Treating the goat locker as a break from the sonar shack. The STSC who is not physically present in the division during watchstander qualification events, PMS spot-checks, and acoustic training sessions is the one whose division develops habits he has to explain to the department head at the next COMSUBRON assessment. The Chief who manages from a distance is not leading the acoustic standard — he is hoping the STS1 is.
  • ×Delegating classified material accountability entirely to the STS1 LPO because 'that is an LPO function.' Classified material on a submarine is command accountability. The Chief is the first line of enlisted ownership in the classified material program; the department head's confidence in the program is a function of the STSC's personal engagement with the accountability cycle, not the LPO's.
  • ×Allowing the sonar division to run contact prosecution and torpedo-evasion procedures from habit rather than from the published on-board procedures. Procedural drift on a submarine accumulates until an incident crystallizes it; the Chief who allows informal shortcuts because 'we always do it this way' owns the next incident report.
  • ×Going public with disagreement with the department head or XO. The disagreement happens in the passageway, then in the office, then at the department head's deck — and you walk out aligned every time. The goat locker enforces this without the wardroom asking. The STSC who breaks the alignment rule in front of the sonar division teaches the division that the chain is negotiable.
  • ×Letting the commissioning program or advanced NEC mentoring conversation become a check-the-box exercise. The STSC develops the STS community's next decade of acoustic-intelligence and ASW capability through the petty officers he mentors. Counseling honestly — including 'this path may not be right for you and here is why' — is the professional standard, not the encouraging non-answer.

A Day in the Life

  • 0500Reveille at sea. Walk the sonar spaces before the first section turnover — classified material log, PMS status against the day's schedule, watchstander accountability from overnight.
  • 0530-0600Section turnover observation — the STSC does not relieve the watch as a watchstander but observes the STS1 LPO running the watch turnover and evaluates whether the acoustic picture brief was complete and the turnover format was correct.
  • 0600-0700Daily sync with the STS1 LPO — sonar division status, any overnight developments, PMS schedule for the day, watchstander assignments. The Chief who hears nothing surprising in this brief has a division running on a predictable cadence.
  • 0700-0800Department sync with the department head — sonar division readiness brief: watchstander qualification currency, PMS completion, classified material status, any personnel actions in progress. The Chief who briefs the department head from memory without note cards is the Chief the department head trusts.
  • 0800-1200Division work — PMS spot-check of the section in the sonar spaces, watchstander qualification board if one is scheduled (personally present, not delegated), acoustic training session with the junior watchstanders on tonal analysis or TMA procedures.
  • 1200-1300Lunch at the mess — the Chief's Mess on a submarine is a working institution, not a social club. Mess business, professional development discussion, any personnel action that requires mess input.
  • 1300-1600LCPO administrative block: eEVAL drafting, classified material accounting audit (Monday self-inspection, mid-week spot-check), advancement preparation review with STS1 mentoring session, any personnel actions pending CO review.
  • 1600-1700CO or XO sync if scheduled — the STSC briefs the CO on any sonar division readiness change, personnel action requiring CO awareness, or operational acoustic development from the day's watchstanding that has tactical relevance.
  • 1700-1800Dinner. End-of-day classified material verification — log balanced against inventory before the next watch section.
  • 1800-2200Senior Enlisted Academy application research if SEA fellowship is the current professional development target; Chief board support for any STS1 whose package is in progress; operational awareness brief from the on-watch sonar supervisor if a contact prosecution is developing.
  • Field operations / COMSUBRON assessment weeksAssessment weeks change the tempo but not the standard. Walk the spaces before the assessment team. Stand the watchstation during the acoustic event the assessment team is evaluating. Brief the AAR. The STSC who runs assessment week exactly the same as a routine underway week is the Chief the squadron staff cannot find a finding for.

Weekly Cadence

The Chief's week on a submarine runs on a predictable cadence that the department head, XO, and CMC can set their watches by. Monday sync sets the division's week: plan of the week published, watchstander assignments confirmed, PMS schedule reviewed against the maintenance log, classified material status verified, any personnel action in progress briefed to the LPO. The department head sync on Monday morning receives the sonar division's weekly status from the STSC directly — not filtered through the LPO. Tuesday through Thursday are the execution core. PMS spot-checks happen on Tuesday; the sonar division's acoustic training session (tonal analysis, TMA, torpedo-evasion procedures) falls on Wednesday or Thursday depending on the watchbill. The STSC who is physically present in the sonar spaces during the training session — not passing through, but sitting in the back and listening to the quality of the instruction — is the Chief whose training program produces the results the post-exercise AAR reflects. Friday is the classified material audit and the plan-of-next-week briefing to the LPO. The week closes with the classified material log balanced and verified and the next week's plan in the LPO's hands before the STSC stands down for any end-of-week administrative periods. In port, the weekly cadence mirrors this structure with the addition of the mess meetings that the STSC attends as part of the CPO governance cycle.

Key Skills — How to Drill Each

  1. 01
    Run the LCPO bench for a sonar division through a deployment cycle — watchbill, PMS, qualification tracking, classified material, advancement, PRP/security, discipline — at the cadence the department head and CO can predict.
    The weekly cadence is the Chief's product. Monday sync with the department head's admin officer: division status, PMS schedule, personnel actions pending, any qualification board results from the prior week. Monday sync with the sonar division: plan of the week, training schedule, watchstander assignments, any counseling or administrative actions. The department head who can predict what the sonar division's status is on any given Thursday without asking is the department head who gives the STSC the benefit of the doubt when an unexpected issue surfaces. Build that predictability from the first week of the anchors.
  2. 02
    Defend the sonar division's PMS completion, watchstander qualification currency, classified material posture, and acoustic readiness summary to the department head and CO without numbers being revised.
    Own the numbers in your memory before anyone asks. The PMS completion percentage, the deferred items list and reasons, the qualification currency rate for every watch station in the division, the classified material inventory count against the access log — these need to be immediately available, not retrieved during the brief. The STSC who briefs readiness from memory and whose numbers match the maintenance log when the department head spot-checks is the Chief who earns the department head's unconditional trust. That trust is the professional capital the STSC spends when an unexpected discrepancy surfaces.
  3. 03
    Lead the sonar division through a COMSUBRON operational assessment, CSG ASW exercise, or squadron inspection as the senior enlisted acoustic technical voice on the deckplate.
    Walk the sonar spaces before the assessment team does. The discrepancy you find in your own spaces is a discrepancy you can address; the one the inspector finds is a finding in the report. During the assessment itself, stand the watchstation, brief the acoustic picture, and run the sonar division procedures to the standard the assessment is evaluating — not to a modified standard you think the team will accept. The post-event AAR is the STSC's product; it should name what the division did well, what needed correction, and what specific procedure or training change was implemented as a result.
  4. 04
    Mentor STS1s toward Chief-board-competitive packages and at least one sailor per year into a commissioning program or advanced NEC pipeline.
    The mentoring conversation that produces a Chief selection is not one conversation — it is a continuous professional development cadence over two years. Walk the STS1's package with him quarterly: eEVAL profile trend, SSS qualification status, classified material accountability record, commissioning program eligibility if applicable. When the package is not competitive for the board, say so honestly and identify specifically what needs to change and on what timeline. The STSC who gives vague encouragement and a disappointing board result to an STS1 who trusted his assessment has failed the mentoring obligation.
  5. 05
    Brief the CO, XO, and squadron/CSG staff on sonar division enlisted readiness and acoustic training status.
    The CO brief is not a status update — it is a confidence brief. The CO needs to be able to walk into a COMSUBRON review or a CSG commander's assessment and defend the sonar division's enlisted readiness posture without additional preparation. Brief in the language the CO uses when briefing up — not in LPO-level detail, but at the operational readiness summary level the command team communicates to the squadron. The STSC who briefs the CO with the same information density the CO will present to the commodore is the Chief the CO calls before a flag-level review.

Manuals & References — What Chapters Matter

  • NSTM Chapter 565 — Sonar Systems
    The STSC is the senior enlisted technical authority for sonar equipment aboard. The department head holds the STSC accountable for what the system certification cycle finds. Know the chapter sections relevant to the installed suite — not to cite them from memory in the spaces, but to recognize immediately when a watchstander's technical description is wrong and correct it at the source. The STSC who cannot answer the NUWC representative's technical question during a system assessment loses the technical authority that underpins the LCPO relationship with the department head.
  • NWP 3-21 series — Anti-Submarine Warfare
    The ASW doctrine that drives every contact prosecution, barrier patrol, and torpedo-evasion evolution in the division. The STSC who knows the doctrine framework behind the procedure is the one the department head and the CSG ASW coordinator defer to when an unusual prosecution scenario develops. The Chief who cannot explain why a procedure sequences the way it does — who can only confirm that it is the procedure — is the Chief whose acoustic technical authority is functional rather than comprehensive.
  • On-board hull-specific classified acoustic doctrine, tonal libraries, and sonar system publications
    The STSC sets the standard for how the division engages the hull's classified acoustic materials. The qualified watchstanders in the division should be able to find the applicable procedure without asking; the unqualified should be able to find it with direction. The Chief who is current on the hull's classified acoustic doctrine is the one whose watchstander qualification boards test to the right standard.
  • MILPERSMAN — enlisted personnel administration at Chief visibility
    At STSC you process PRP administrative actions, Article 15 inputs, separation recommendations, and classified-material-incident administrative actions. Know the applicable MILPERSMAN articles before the JAG consultation — the Chief who reads the relevant article before the JAG meeting is the Chief who conducts the action correctly. The Chief who learns the applicable standard from the JAG officer during the meeting is the Chief whose administrative chain slows down at the point when speed and accuracy matter.
  • CPO 365 / CPO Initiation Program and Chief's Mess governance materials
    The Chief's Mess is the governance institution that makes enlisted leadership work on a submarine. The STSC who engages CPO 365 and the mess governance seriously — not as institutional overhead but as the professional framework for how chiefs lead — is the one the mess trusts to represent the senior enlisted standard. The mess enforces Chief-level professional conduct before the wardroom has to; the STSC who understands this earns standing in the mess that pays dividends in every subsequent personnel action.

Standards — How to Hit Each

  • CPO Academy / Chief's Mess transition complete; functioning as a Chief in the mess and on the deckplate every day.
    CPO Academy is the formal program; the Chief's Mess transition is the 365-day follow-on. Both are professional onboarding into the senior enlisted leadership institution, not social rituals to complete and move past. Engage the mess governance actively — show up to mess meetings, participate in the professional development discussions, hold other chiefs to the standard the same way you expect to be held to it. The sonar division reads whether the anchors changed the STSC or just the collar within the first 30 days.
  • Sonar division PMS completion, watchstander qualification currency, and classified material accountability defensible at XO and CO level every deployment cycle.
    The standard is not 'no findings from the squadron inspection' — the standard is 'the CO can defend the division's readiness posture to the commodore without additional preparation.' Brief the CO and XO on the division's readiness status quarterly at minimum, and whenever a significant change occurs — deferred maintenance above a threshold, a watchstander qualification board failure, a classified material access log discrepancy. The CO and XO who are never surprised by the sonar division's readiness posture are the ones who trust the STSC to run the division without daily supervision.
  • Division acoustic training program producing watchstanders whose ASW exercise performance tracks positively.
    Build the training program from the post-exercise AAR, not from a template. Each ASW exercise produces specific performance data: contact detection rates, classification accuracy, TMA solution quality, torpedo-evasion procedure execution. The training program the STSC runs after the AAR should address the specific gaps the exercise revealed, not a generic refresher. When the next exercise produces better results in the areas the prior AAR identified, the STSC has closed the loop. When it does not, the training program needs revision.
  • eEVAL profile and ranking that selects STS1s and STSCs from the division on schedule.
    The advancement outcomes from the STSC's eEVAL portfolio are the empirical test of the Chief's professional judgment about his sailors. The STS1s the STSC ranked at EP advance on cycle; the ones ranked at MP advance at the right rate below EP; the ones not advanced received honest counseling about why and what to change. When the board results diverge significantly from the STSC's ranking — STS1s ranked EP who do not advance, STS1s ranked MP who should have been EP — the department head asks the STSC to explain the discrepancy. The explanation the STSC gives is the input the department head uses to assess the STSC's professional judgment.

Technical Mistakes — Concrete Consequences

  • Walking through the sonar shack during a watchstander qualification event rather than evaluating it.
    The STSC who observes a watchstander qualification board by walking through, nodding, and signing the qual card has not verified the standard — he has created the appearance of having verified it. When the sonar division's watchstander qualifications fail to hold up during a COMSUBRON assessment, the assessment team asks who signed the qualification cards. The STSC's name on the LCPO line of the qualification program documentation traces the standard back to the Chief's personal evaluation of what the program required.
  • Delegating classified material accountability entirely to the LPO and performing no independent audit.
    A classified-material discrepancy on a submarine triggers a command investigation that traces through the accountability chain to the LCPO. The STSC who can demonstrate that he personally audited the classified material log on a regular schedule — and identified the discrepancy before the inspector — is the Chief who is managing his program. The one who delegated entirely and whose LPO allowed a gap to develop has the same accountability in the investigation and a different conversation with the XO about why the LCPO level provided no independent check.
  • Allowing informal procedural drift in contact prosecution and torpedo-evasion procedures.
    Submarine contact prosecution and torpedo-evasion procedures exist because the community built them after incidents. The STSC who allows the sonar division to run the procedures from habit — 'we always sequence it this way because it is faster' — is the Chief whose division is operating on a modified procedure that the COMSUBRON assessment team has not evaluated and the on-board procedures do not authorize. When the informal procedure produces an error, the investigation traces the procedural modification back through the division's training record and finds the LCPO's tolerance of the drift.
  • Going public with disagreement with the department head or XO in a setting visible to the sonar division.
    The sonar division does not need to see the Chief disagree with the wardroom publicly to understand that the Chief has a different opinion — the division reads the result of the conversation, not the conversation itself. The STSC who expresses disagreement with the department head in front of watchstanders teaches the division that the chain is negotiable when the Chief finds it inconvenient. The sonar chief who takes the disagreement to the passageway, then to the department head's cabin, then walks out aligned teaches the division that the chain is the rule even when the Chief does not like the decision.

Career Decisions at This Rank

  • Senior Enlisted Academy (SEA) — timing and application
    The SEA fellowship at Naval War College Newport, Rhode Island is the primary senior PME program for the E-8/E-9 pathway. STSC sailors who complete SEA before competing for the Senior Chief board have a visible PME milestone. The application cycle and selection is managed through the chain — brief the CMC and the XO on SEA application intent and timing. The STSC who is on the SEA waiting list or in the application cycle is the one the Senior Chief board recognizes as building the professional development portfolio the senior billet requires.
  • Shore tour after first STSC sea tour
    The STSC shore tour options in the STS community include Naval Submarine School department head for acoustic training curriculum, SUBRON staff as the senior enlisted STS technical advisor, NUWC Newport technical cadre billets, and submarine force training command billets. Each provides a different professional development context. The SUBRON staff billet puts the STSC at the interface between the submarine force and the operational training commands — the Senior Chief board reads this input alongside the deckplate LCPO record. Brief a preference to the CMC and the detailer before the detailing window; the STSC with a stated preference and a strong record shapes the assignment more than the one who accepts what is available.
  • Senior Chief board candidacy — package readiness
    The STSCS board reads the complete STSC service record: eEVAL profile from the LCPO tour, acoustic assessment results, commissioning and pipeline accession outcomes, CMC input, and the STSC's own advanced professional development record. The STSC who is competitive for the Senior Chief board has: at least one deployment cycle as LCPO with clean assessment results, SEA fellowship complete or in progress, a documented commissioning or pipeline accession from the division, and a CMC whose input is specific and positive. Build the package over the full STSC tour, not the six months before the board announcement.

How the Seat Varies by Unit Type

  • Fast-attack SSN — LCPO seat, primary ASW mission
    The STSC LCPO seat on an SSN is the community's primary proving ground. The sonar division is the primary mission element; every COMSUBRON assessment, CSG exercise, and torpedo-evasion event tests the LCPO's program directly. The division's performance record from the STSC's tour is the primary Senior Chief board input alongside the eEVAL profile.
  • SSGN — LCPO seat, strike and SOF-support mission
    The LCPO accountability is the same; the operational mission context is different. The STSC on an SSGN manages the sonar division's readiness in a mission profile where ASW is secondary. Senior Chief board inputs from SSGN tours are equivalent to SSN tours provided the division management record is strong.
  • Shore tour — Naval Submarine School acoustic training department, SUBRON staff
    The STSC in a Naval Submarine School billet shapes the acoustic training curriculum for the entire STSSN pipeline — a visible professional contribution that the Senior Chief board reads in the context of a strong sea-tour record. SUBRON staff billets provide operational staff experience and exposure to the submarine force at the operational command level.
  • NUWC Newport technical cadre
    The NUWC billet for a senior STSC puts the Chief at the interface between the fleet sonar community and the naval acoustic research and development programs. The technical currency and the inter-agency relationships built in a NUWC billet are difficult to replicate on a submarine. Available to STSC sailors with advanced NEC pipelines and demonstrated technical depth.

What Good Looks Like at This Rank

The good Chief Sonar Technician Submarine is the LCPO the CO names without checking a roster when the squadron commander asks which division chief has never surprised him. The explanation is in the details: the sonar division has passed every COMSUBRON assessment during the STSC's tour without a finding attributable to senior enlisted decision-making. The STS1 LPO runs the division's daily mechanics — watch scheduling, PMS coordination, eEVAL administration — and the STSC runs the standard the LPO executes against. When the inspector walks into the sonar spaces, the STSC is already there. His eEVAL portfolio from the LCPO seat shows STS1s advancing to Chief on schedule, commissioning program candidates selecting at or above the community average, and a clear progression from the division's first-patrol acoustic performance to the post-COMSUBRON-assessment performance two years later. The post-exercise AARs he wrote name specific gaps and specific training responses; the next exercise results show the training response closed the gap. The department head presents those AARs at the squadron-level readiness brief without revision. The Chief's Mess on the submarine knows the STSC not as the sonar department's chief but as the mess member who shows up to the governance meetings, holds other chiefs to the standard, and runs the sonar division in a way that makes the CMC's job easier. When the Senior Chief slate opens, the CMC does not have to review the STSC's record from scratch — he has been observing the standard for two years and the input is already written.

Preview — The Next Rank

STSCS (Senior Chief Petty Officer) is the paygrade where the STS community holds you accountable for outcomes across multiple platforms — not just the sonar division on your boat. The Senior Chief in the STS community serves at a submarine squadron staff, a CSG staff, COMSUBPAC or COMSUBLANT staff cell, or a NUWC technical cadre position, and writes fewer eEVALs but the ones that determine the next Chief and Senior Chief slate across the rate. The Senior Chief brief goes to the commodore, the type commander, and OPNAV-N97 (Undersea Warfare) leadership. The language changes from department-head-level readiness reporting to flag-officer-level community posture briefing. The acoustic proficiency metrics across multiple boats in the squadron, the watchstander credentialing rates across the STS rating, the commissioning and pipeline accession numbers — these are the numbers the STSCS briefs and the numbers the Senior Chief board evaluates tenure by. The transition from STSC to STSCS also marks the beginning of the post-Navy transition planning that should start 24-36 months before retirement. NUWC civil service acoustic analyst billets, naval defense contractor pathways at organizations like Leidos, Booz Allen, BAE Systems, and SAIC, and DIA/NSA technical support roles where the STS community's cleared acoustic expertise commands the compensation the community's years of classified technical development have built — these are the specific conversations to have before the retirement date approaches, not after.
FAQ

STS E7 — Frequently Asked Questions

Q01What does a E7 STS (Sonar Technician (Submarine)) actually do?
As LCPO of the sonar division aboard an SSN or SSGN, you own enlisted execution of the acoustic analysis, watchstander qualification, PMS, and classified material programs for the sonar department.
Q02What's the most important thing to know as a E7 STS?
Making Chief in the STS community changes the job more than any other promotion.
Q03What does a typical day look like for a E7 STS?
Time-blocked day at the E7 STS rank tier: 0500 Reveille at sea. Walk the sonar spaces before the first section turnover — classified material log, PMS status against the day's schedule, watchstander accountability from overnight, 0530-0600 Section turnover observation — the STSC does not relieve the watch as a watchstander but observes the STS1 LPO running the watch turnover and evaluates whether the acoustic picture brief was complete and the turnover format was correct, 0600-0700 Daily sync with the STS1 LPO — sonar division status, any overnight developments, PMS schedule for the day,…
Q04What mistakes get E7 STS soldiers fired or relieved?
Treating the goat locker as a break from the sonar shack. The STSC who is not physically present in the division during watchstander qualification events, PMS spot-checks, and acoustic training sessions is the one whose division develops habits he has to explain to the department head at the next COMSUBRON assessment. The Chief who manages from a distance is not leading the acoustic standard — he is hoping the STS1 is;…
Q05What career decisions matter most at the E7 STS rank tier?
Senior Enlisted Academy (SEA) — timing and application — The SEA fellowship at Naval War College Newport, Rhode Island is the primary senior PME program for the E-8/E-9 pathway. STSC sailors who complete SEA before competing for the Senior Chief board have a visible PME milestone. The application cycle and selection is managed through the chain — brief the CMC and the XO on SEA application intent and timing.…
Q06What's next after E7 for a STS (Sonar Technician (Submarine)) in the Navy?
STSCS (Senior Chief Petty Officer) is the paygrade where the STS community holds you accountable for outcomes across multiple platforms — not just the sonar division on your boat.
Q07What manuals and regulations does a E7 STS need to know cold?
NSTM Chapter 565 — Sonar Systems; you are the senior enlisted technical authority for sonar equipment aboard and you are accountable to the department head for what certifications find.; NWP 3-21 series — ASW doctrine; the Chief who knows the doctrine behind the procedure is the one the department head and the CSG ASW coordinator defer to when an unusual prosecution scenario surfaces.; On-board hull-specific classified acoustic doctrine, tonal libraries,…

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