SWO Ship Selection

A

amcollier

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Nov 29, 2019
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Being an old sailor myself, I watched the live stream of the ship selection. My DS has an nom for USNA, but we are waiting to see if he get an offer to attend.

In any case, how does the ship selection work? Is it 1st in class ranking that gets to choose first pick? Or is there a lottery? When I was in A school back in the 90s, our duty station was determined by class standing.
 
Overall Order of Merit (OOM), which is a combination of class, military, and physical rankings. There are a lot of posts about OOM in this forum.

Then there is the 'blue chip.' If a Midshipman impresses the Commanding Officer enough while on a summer tour, that CO will hold a spot for that Midshipman. The Mid is not required to take that spot, however. If that individual chooses another ship, that billet goes back into the general pool and is open for grabs.
 
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amcollier said:
Being an old sailor myself, I watched the live stream of the ship selection. My DS has an nom for USNA, but we are waiting to see if he get an offer to attend.

In any case, how does the ship selection work? Is it 1st in class ranking that gets to choose first pick? Or is there a lottery? When I was in A school back in the 90s, our duty station was determined by class standing.
Click to expand...

I was there tonight. It was lots of fun. Very festive.
 
My daughter decided to live stream ship selection on our TV in the living room shortly after dinner. I had watched a replay of the 2019 version so I felt that I would be able to come across as very knowledgeable (for once!) on how things were working and what would be the most desirable place to be based out of.

Things didn’t quite go as planned for 2020. I made the broad sweeping statement/prediction that Rota, Spain would be, by far, the most desirable location to be based out of as it was, by far, in 2019. There were Midshipmen-choreographed Spanish dances and lots of fist pumping celebration to go to Rota which was entirely off the board easily within the 1st 20 picks in 2019.

Fast forward to 2020 and nobody was touching Rota with a 10 foot pole. Sadly all of the ships based out of Rota, the very exciting port in Spain, are now in probably the northern Indian Ocean or worse yet, the Persian Gulf.

Last year, I gave up watching the 2019 installment before I ever found out that there were actual Naval bases in Annapolis, Maryland and Mayport, Florida. Who knew?!? Literally, no one had chosen these two rather boring/mundane sounding home ports (to me) in the United States for 2019 - everyone was going for forward-deployed bases with better geographic locations.

The reality of what these young people could be asked to do in their future seems to have sunk in or at least crossed some minds or maybe I just read this all long.
 
So in general, how do mids choose? Is there a cheatsheet of which ship has best sr officers or newest gizmos? I get the home port variable or even type of ship.
I assume each billet may be a specific position within that ship, or are they all unspecified?
 
Every Mid looks at many factors. For some it’s ship type over anything. Others it’s home port over ship type. Other factors are deployment schedules. Maybe someone has a summer wedding planned so they don’t want to go to a ship that is planned to be deployed. As we all know... needs of the Navy win and things can change. Mids do have access to certain info such as deployment schedules, dry dock or not, and some other items. There is also the under ground info between Mids and grads who are a year or two ahead in the fleet such as ship morale, culture, etc. It’s personal for each Mid how they pick.
 
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Since the rule of thumb is ships have a 30% turnover every year, picking a ship because someone who was on the ship for summer cruise a year ago said the CO was cool, is not the best reason to choose a ship. The ships fall roughly into two categories, the CRUDES (cruiser destroyer) and amphibs (amphibious ships that embark Marines) - two different missions, both important. That is one basis for choosing. Others want specific classes of ships. Some say “give me anything in that homeport, because that’s close to my family, GF, BF.”

Mayport is the East Coast equivalent of San Diego. Live at Jax Beach, establish residency in FL to retain for rest of time on AD and pay no state income tax, good weather (though not SoCal). We enjoy listening to the sponsor mids discuss the options. And anyone who thinks Rota is a lazy Med kind of place to be is sorely mistaken. We returned ships to homeport there because of the proximity to eastern Med/Gulf hot spots.

CO/XO have complete flexibility to assign as needed on a ship, and JOs can expect to rotate through various departments. Their job is to not only lead their division, but learn the ship as a warfare platform and successfully complete the professional qualifications for designation as a Surface Warfare Officer.

I miss our homeports from back in the 600-ship Navy days - Long Beach, San Francisco Bay area (so many great Naval Stations and Naval Air Stations BRACed), Staten Island, Philadelphia, and the list goes on.

Some also choose based on what they have been able to find out about the ship’s deployment cycle, and what stage the ship is in.

Those are broad brush strokes.
 
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ok stupid question: does ship selection include submarines too? or is that a separate selection day?
 
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mcfamilyof4 said:
ok stupid question: does ship selection include submarines too? ot is that a separate selection day?
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No.

Those going sub pick school start dates.

The sub pipeline is generally two years long, and they get their sub assignments in the final year of that training.

Future aviators pick school start dates, type of planes determined later by needs of the Navy, squadron and location further down the school pipeline.

Marines pick TBS dates.

Since baby SWOs go straight to ships, that’s why there is a bit more hoopla.

No questions here are truly stupid (well, there might be some forehead-slappers). There is always something to be learned, especially for browsing new readers.
 
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Thank you. That was definitely what I was hoping to learn... That Mayport for tax purposes thing is exactly what I would have used.
 
Capt MJ said:
No.

Those going sub pick school start dates.

The sub pipeline is generally two years long, and they get their sub assignments in the final year of that training.

Future aviators pick school start dates, type of planes determined later by needs of the Navy, squadron and location further down the school pipeline.

Marines pick TBS dates.

Since baby SWOs go straight to ships, that’s why there is a bit more hoopla.

No questions here are truly stupid (well, there might be some forehead-slappers). There is always something to be learned, especially for browsing new readers.
Click to expand...

is sub training school in one location? everyone goes to the same place? and if so where is that?
 
Miami Redskin said:
My daughter decided to live stream ship selection on our TV in the living room shortly after dinner. I had watched a replay of the 2019 version so I felt that I would be able to come across as very knowledgeable (for once!) on how things were working and what would be the most desirable place to be based out of.

Things didn’t quite go as planned for 2020. I made the broad sweeping statement/prediction that Rota, Spain would be, by far, the most desirable location to be based out of as it was, by far, in 2019. There were Midshipmen-choreographed Spanish dances and lots of fist pumping celebration to go to Rota which was entirely off the board easily within the 1st 20 picks in 2019.

Fast forward to 2020 and nobody was touching Rota with a 10 foot pole. Sadly all of the ships based out of Rota, the very exciting port in Spain, are now in probably the northern Indian Ocean or worse yet, the Persian Gulf.

Last year, I gave up watching the 2019 installment before I ever found out that there were actual Naval bases in Annapolis, Maryland and Mayport, Florida. Who knew?!? Literally, no one had chosen these two rather boring/mundane sounding home ports (to me) in the United States for 2019 - everyone was going for forward-deployed bases with better geographic locations.

The reality of what these young people could be asked to do in their future seems to have sunk in or at least crossed some minds or maybe I just read this all long.
Click to expand...

What you said about Rota is surprising, typically it is very desirable. When I was at USNA(14-18) the Rota spots were gone by the 10th or so pick every year.
 
Temple17 said:
The reason why Rota fell so low was because a couple of those ships are about to switch their home port to Norfolk.
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Beautiful Nahfuk by the sea. I spent five years there and would have stayed but shore duty in Florida called.

I did two Med cruises so that's four times in Rota. It seemed like a great place to be stationed. The hospital was very cooperative in providing physicals and other ancillary services, lab, audiograms, optometry,etc. The sun was really hot apparently as one of our Mensa members laid out too long and drank too much. He came back to the ship with multiple blisters on the shoulders, arms, and forehead. Big blisters. The second degree burns alone required hospitalization but he was also near comatose from the beer. I called an ambulance to the pier. We were out-chopping the Med so we left and he stayed. I never saw him again.
 
Temple17 said:
The reason why Rota fell so low was because a couple of those ships are about to switch their home port to Norfolk.
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Homeport change for Forward deployed ships is normally for overhaul.
 
Miami Redskin said:
Fast forward to 2020 and nobody was touching Rota with a 10 foot pole. Sadly all of the ships based out of Rota, the very exciting port in Spain, are now in probably the northern Indian Ocean or worse yet, the Persian Gulf.
Click to expand...
I would be very surprised if all or even most of them are in the IO or Persian Gulf. There is a specific reason why those particular ships are forward deployed and THAT mission is not in the IO/PG
 
just getting my head around this..
How do ensigns save money ( when making ~$3200 per month plus BAH, BAS)? I mean can that really happen if proper with money??
 
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