Naval Deployment questions

[CadNav]

Hey there, I just have a question about naval deployments.


As an NWO, how many deployments do you get a year? My dad was a stoker and joined in 2003, so he was not home very often. Is it still like that? Will I be home less than half a year, generally? As you climb in rank, do you get less or more deployments? One of my friends is a MarTech and he only got deployed for 2 weeks in three years, but I think he is an anomaly...

Are deployments hard? Not talking about workups but I mean generally day-to-day...

I'm just a tiny bit worried that I'll be gone for eight months, and then come home for a month, and then go for another eight months. If that were to happen one time, I guess it would be okay, but I think if it were to happen repeatedly my finacé would be a little peeved.

(to be honest, I don't even know what an NWO does apart from being officer of the watch and commanding the ship when there's a problem)

 

[Lumber]

Hey there, I just have a question about naval deployments.


As an NWO, how many deployments do you get a year? My dad was a stoker and joined in 2003, so he was not home very often. Is it still like that? Will I be home less than half a year, generally? As you climb in rank, do you get less or more deployments? One of my friends is a MarTech and he only got deployed for 2 weeks in three years, but I think he is an anomaly...

Are deployments hard? Not talking about workups but I mean generally day-to-day...

I'm just a tiny bit worried that I'll be gone for eight months, and then come home for a month, and then go for another eight months. If that were to happen one time, I guess it would be okay, but I think if it were to happen repeatedly my finacé would be a little peeved.

(to be honest, I don't even know what an NWO does apart from being officer of the watch and commanding the ship when there's a problem)

Are you currently an NWO under training, or are you only looking to apply as an NWO?

I'll answer the easiest question first. You will never deploy for 8 months and then one month later re-deploy for another month. It never happens, and it's not even allowed to happen (wartime exceptions, obviously). There are different types of "deployments". When people in the Navy talk about a "deployment", they are talking about deploying on a named operation, such as OP REASURRANCE or OP ARTEMIS. We call this "Force Employment" or "FE". These deployments are typically 6 months, but on the rare occasion they are 7 months. Longer deployments than that generally don't happen anymore. When you get back from one of these long deployments, the Navy isn't actually allowed to re-deploy you for at least a year. Some people have tried to re-deploy 6 months later, but it requires the sailor/officer to sign a waiver, and even then the Navy doesn't like authorizing it. There are other named operations that are shorter, such as OP NANOOK and OP CARIBBE (1-2 months). The rule about not redeploying after these does not apply.

That being said, there are a ton of other "sails" that are much shorter and are used to achieve what we call "Forge Generation" or "FG". These sails exist to train sailors/aircrew, prepare crews for eventual deployment, or support other "activities" that are happening. These can include things such as sea trials (where you go out for a week and test equipment that was recently repaired, or measure your ships magnetic signature, etc), 2-3 day sails supporting things like a CANSOFCOM maritime boarding exercise, 2 week and 4 week long "work ups" programs (prep for deployment), week long Air work-ups (integrating a helicopter with the ship), week long sails in support of training courses (such as going to sea for the SAC (shipborne air controller) course, or Fleet Navigating Officer course), participating in mutli-week long Task Group exercises, such as Ex Cutlas Fury off Halifax or Ex Joint Warrior off Scotland, etc, etc. These sails usually take place in the year leading up to your deployment. So, in a typical 2-year posting for an NWO aboard ship, you will spend a year "working up" the ship doing FG sails that will see you sailing for probably ~3-ish months spread out over that year, with the longest single stint being your 4 week final work-ups sails (it's actually closer to 3 weeks now... cut backs...). Then you will deploy for 6 months. When you get back, you will have (likely) over a month of vacation to take. When your vacation is over, you might stay with the ship, but most officers get posted off the ship after the deployment. If you stay with the ship, you'll likely do a few weeks here and there of FG sailing, but you will certainly be posted off before the next deployment.

Not all ships do formal 6 months deployments. You could get posted to a ship that isn't schedule to actually conduct a named operation, in which case your 2-3 year posting aboard will be nothing but a bunch of that FG sailing, but in any year it will never be more than 6 months, and it will likely be less than that.

Deployment are not hard. They are A BLAST. If you have a family at home, it's harder, but if you are young, you will relish it, and make some of the best friends you've ever made. It can be a grind, and "ground hog" day certainly sets in during long patrols, but ship's usually only spend about two weeks at sea between port-visits, and those port-visits are often the highlight of the deployment. You are gone for 6 months, but you aren't SAILING for 6 months. You are doing "patrols" of between 5 and 15 days, and in between those patrols you are spending 2-4 days (sometimes more) visiting port cities around the world.

The real thing that can really make the day-to-day hard (and this does happen), is your chain of command. The three people as an junior NWO who have the greatest effect on whether your life sucks or not are the NavO (your direct boss), the XO (who is in charge of all the officers, the "Wardroom"), and the Captain. If the NavO is an asshole, your life might be hard. If the XO runs the Wardroom like a tyrant, all the officers lives will be hard. As a bridge watchkeeper, your main job during the day is to drive the ship and make reports to the Captain, so if the Captain is an asshole, your life might be hard, at least for the 4-8 hours a day you are on the bridge. I've experienced unpleasant XOs and unpleasant COs, once both at the same time, but I've been lucky enough not to have had any hard-ass or dick-head NavOs (though I've heard plenty of stories of such).

Oh and as for your question "As you climb in rank, do you get less or more deployments?", all I can say is that rank is not in anyway correlated to how much you will deploy. As a Sub-Lieutenant, your job is a bridge watchkeeper, and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month. As a junior Lieutenant, you will become a "Director" level officer, and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month. As a senior Lieutenant, your job will be as an "ORO" (Operations Room Officer), and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month. As a Lieutenant-Commander, you will be an XO, and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month... see where I'm going with this?

Let me know if you have any questions about what an NWO does at each rank level.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Just a point of of pedant and clarity.

Every time a ship goes to sea does not mean its 'deployed'. I have spent much more time at sea not on deployment than I have on deployment. In fact two of my busiest years at sea were not 'on deployment'.

The RCN is a fickle beast. When we do our jobs we are away from home, outside Canadian waters and often visiting foreign countries. None of that necessarily means being on 'deployment'.

 

[stoker dave]

I will add that, although it is some decades since I wore the RCN uniform, deployments were some of the best experiences of my life.

They can be your greatest challenge and greatest reward.

 

[CadNav]

Are you currently an NWO under training, or are you only looking to apply as an NWO?

I'll answer the easiest question first. You will never deploy for 8 months and then one month later re-deploy for another month. It never happens, and it's not even allowed to happen (wartime exceptions, obviously). There are different types of "deployments". When people in the Navy talk about a "deployment", they are talking about deploying on a named operation, such as OP REASURRANCE or OP ARTEMIS. We call this "Force Employment" or "FE". These deployments are typically 6 months, but on the rare occasion they are 7 months. Longer deployments than that generally don't happen anymore. When you get back from one of these long deployments, the Navy isn't actually allowed to re-deploy you for at least a year. Some people have tried to re-deploy 6 months later, but it requires the sailor/officer to sign a waiver, and even then the Navy doesn't like authorizing it. There are other named operations that are shorter, such as OP NANOOK and OP CARIBBE (1-2 months). The rule about not redeploying after these does not apply.

That being said, there are a ton of other "sails" that are much shorter and are used to achieve what we call "Forge Generation" or "FG". These sails exist to train sailors/aircrew, prepare crews for eventual deployment, or support other "activities" that are happening. These can include things such as sea trials (where you go out for a week and test equipment that was recently repaired, or measure your ships magnetic signature, etc), 2-3 day sails supporting things like a CANSOFCOM maritime boarding exercise, 2 week and 4 week long "work ups" programs (prep for deployment), week long Air work-ups (integrating a helicopter with the ship), week long sails in support of training courses (such as going to sea for the SAC (shipborne air controller) course, or Fleet Navigating Officer course), participating in mutli-week long Task Group exercises, such as Ex Cutlas Fury off Halifax or Ex Joint Warrior off Scotland, etc, etc. These sails usually take place in the year leading up to your deployment. So, in a typical 2-year posting for an NWO aboard ship, you will spend a year "working up" the ship doing FG sails that will see you sailing for probably ~3-ish months spread out over that year, with the longest single stint being your 4 week final work-ups sails (it's actually closer to 3 weeks now... cut backs...). Then you will deploy for 6 months. When you get back, you will have (likely) over a month of vacation to take. When your vacation is over, you might stay with the ship, but most officers get posted off the ship after the deployment. If you stay with the ship, you'll likely do a few weeks here and there of FG sailing, but you will certainly be posted off before the next deployment.

Not all ships do formal 6 months deployments. You could get posted to a ship that isn't schedule to actually conduct a named operation, in which case your 2-3 year posting aboard will be nothing but a bunch of that FG sailing, but in any year it will never be more than 6 months, and it will likely be less than that.

Deployment are not hard. They are A BLAST. If you have a family at home, it's harder, but if you are young, you will relish it, and make some of the best friends you've ever made. It can be a grind, and "ground hog" day certainly sets in during long patrols, but ship's usually only spend about two weeks at sea between port-visits, and those port-visits are often the highlight of the deployment. You are gone for 6 months, but you aren't SAILING for 6 months. You are doing "patrols" of between 5 and 15 days, and in between those patrols you are spending 2-4 days (sometimes more) visiting port cities around the world.

The real thing that can really make the day-to-day hard (and this does happen), is your chain of command. The three people as an junior NWO who have the greatest effect on whether your life sucks or not are the NavO (your direct boss), the XO (who is in charge of all the officers, the "Wardroom"), and the Captain. If the NavO is an asshole, your life might be hard. If the XO runs the Wardroom like a tyrant, all the officers lives will be hard. As a bridge watchkeeper, your main job during the day is to drive the ship and make reports to the Captain, so if the Captain is an asshole, your life might be hard, at least for the 4-8 hours a day you are on the bridge. I've experienced unpleasant XOs and unpleasant COs, once both at the same time, but I've been lucky enough not to have had any hard-ass or dick-head NavOs (though I've heard plenty of stories of such).

Oh and as for your question "As you climb in rank, do you get less or more deployments?", all I can say is that rank is not in anyway correlated to how much you will deploy. As a Sub-Lieutenant, your job is a bridge watchkeeper, and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month. As a junior Lieutenant, you will become a "Director" level officer, and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month. As a senior Lieutenant, your job will be as an "ORO" (Operations Room Officer), and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month. As a Lieutenant-Commander, you will be an XO, and you could be posted to a Frigate that is deploying, or you could be posted to a Frigate/AOPS that is just doing "continental ops" and never gone for more than a month... see where I'm going with this?

Let me know if you have any questions about what an NWO does at each rank level.

I'm an NWO, but I used to be an infanteer with my bmoq mod 1 plar'd, so I really don't know anything about navy in general. My dad joined in 2003 and then he went subs, which supposedly sail a lot, or used to sail, anyways.

He was a stoker, so he has harder physical work than what I'm going to do, which I believe is almost none, unless I am the boarding person(?)

Is being an NWO like being on fire picket? As in, you're just there, and then like something happens, and then you tell someone like "oh there's an unknown ship" and then you do some certain procedure? It's all theory and procedure, and laws and rules? I hope so, because that's why I took the job... you said long watches are like groundhog day but I like doing repetative stuff, and talking, except sometimes I'm too chatty and my fireteam partner gets annoyed

Do you deal with NCM's? I assume you have to, but I don't know anyone who would be on the bridge except the helmsman.

I think I've watched too many movies, or my infantry time (I've only ever been on course, reservist, which I believe is SHAD in navy?) is making me spin for no good reason.

You should also think about a career in recruiting because it's making me very excited — it's a lot better spiel than "do you like camping?"

 

[PuckChaser]

Jesus, you picked a trade without knowing basic details of what it does?

 

[Lumber]

Jesus, you picked a trade without knowing basic details of what it does?

Is this sarcasm? Most of the people who join the CAF don't have a fulsome understanding of what they will do day-to-day in their job, and if they say they do, they're probably wrong.

 

[CadNav]

Jesus, you picked a trade without knowing basic details of what it does?

I mean, I wouldn't call that "basic" knowledge, I think I know what it does generally...
Ask new infantry recruits what they do on the day-to-day (not fighting), they probably won't know...
NWO is a workhorse trade and has many different things they can do, so I assume it's difficult to explain what the job is in a sentence or two. Isn't this why we have job description on MPRR? Because there are some jobs that aren't self-explanatory?

I have a feeling a lot of people who've been in these more "workhorse" trades probably don't know what there job is, not in that they don't know what's going on, but that the job is so varied that they have a hard time explaining it to other people... It's not the same as an image tech or cook, I assume it's more NWO is more complicated than "drive ship" than Infantry is "shoot people"

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

As a NWO, you also shoot people. You just do it from a much greater distance, and when you succeed, kill a lot more than one at a time. Yes. You don't just "drive" the ship as a NWO, you also fight it. You will interact with a few trades directly (like, Bosn, Signalmen/radio operators and Ops trades) and with all the others indirectly, so unlike infantry, your day to day will likely touch all trades.

You will find a lot more than just the helmsperson on the bridge. On a quiet "routine" sailing watch, you will likely have four or five persons with you. In increased watchkeeping scenarios or in action, a whole lot more. But being chatty won't work. The bridge is a place of work, not a social gathering place, so while you may chat a little bit, from time to time and in a few quieter moments, it will not be frequent, and if you do too much of it, you can expect the Navo, Cox'n, XO or CO to come down hard on you. Normally, on the bridge, the exchanges of words are for work related reasons and consist of standardized orders and block reports that you will learn in time Here's a famous classic line from a Navo pre-sail briefing when doing a more difficult passage: "I want quiet and to be able to hear a pin drop".

I see from your original post that you are worried about your relationship with your fiance. That is a good start to a lasting relationship, and yes, NWO is certainly an occupation that can be hard on family life and has a high incidence of divorce. Now, from a NWO (called MARS, in my days) who is still with his wife of 44 years, here are a few tips that are worth thinking about.

First, you will be gone often and in circumstances that make live communications very unlikely and rushing back home impossible. So right off the bat, you have to have a long talk with your fiance so she understands that she must be, or become, the type of person who can stand on her own two feet and deal with what life throws at her and the family on her own, often without being able to get your input. For your part, you have to learn that she will be making these calls without you, and while they may not be the calls you would have made, they are the ones she made and its up to you to accept them, live with them and support them: never blame her for having made a call.

Second, those few long deployments that were mentioned above mean that, no matter how often you will be able to talk/video-conference or meet at a foreign port during the deployment, you will have both been separated in two different worlds for those six or seven months. Human beings change all the time and are changed by their daily circumstances and so, the two of you will have moved apart during that time. You have to be aware of this fact. When you come home, you cannot expect to just pick up where you left as if nothing happened. You have to re-learn one another and put in all the extra time and efforts that this requires. It ought to be just like when you were dating at first: make the time, listen, learn from one another and grow the relationship all over again.

Finally, don't do anything that would breach the trust between you. As a sailor, there will be numerous occasions for "adventures". But nothing stays secret in the Navy -period. So resist, resist, resist. Anything else is taking a big risk. Besides, if you truly love her, it's not that hard.

OK, Enough patronizing from me.

A last word: Admiral Gardam (now retired) started is life in the CAF as a militia infanteer, so redemption as a NWO is possible.

 

[CadNav]

As a NWO, you also shoot people. You just do it from a much greater distance, and when you succeed, kill a lot more than one at a time. Yes. You don't just "drive" the ship as a NWO, you also fight it. You will interact with a few trades directly (like, Bosn, Signalmen/radio operators and Ops trades) and with all the others indirectly, so unlike infantry, your day to day will likely touch all trades.

You will find a lot more than just the helmsperson on the bridge. On a quiet "routine" sailing watch, you will likely have four or five persons with you. In increased watchkeeping scenarios or in action, a whole lot more. But being chatty won't work. The bridge is a place of work, not a social gathering place, so while you may chat a little bit, from time to time and in a few quieter moments, it will not be frequent, and if you do too much of it, you can expect the Navo, Cox'n, XO or CO to come down hard on you. Normally, on the bridge, the exchanges of words are for work related reasons and consist of standardized orders and block reports that you will learn in time Here's a famous classic line from a Navo pre-sail briefing when doing a more difficult passage: "I want quiet and to be able to hear a pin drop".

I see from your original post that you are worried about your relationship with your fiance. That is a good start to a lasting relationship, and yes, NWO is certainly an occupation that can be hard on family life and has a high incidence of divorce. Now, from a NWO (called MARS, in my days) who is still with his wife of 44 years, here are a few tips that are worth thinking about.

First, you will be gone often and in circumstances that make live communications very unlikely and rushing back home impossible. So right off the bat, you have to have a long talk with your fiance so she understands that she must be, or become, the type of person who can stand on her own two feet and deal with what life throws at her and the family on her own, often without being able to get your input. For your part, you have to learn that she will be making these calls without you, and while they may not be the calls you would have made, they are the ones she made and its up to you to accept them, live with them and support them: never blame her for having made a call.

Second, those few long deployments that were mentioned above mean that, no matter how often you will be able to talk/video-conference or meet at a foreign port during the deployment, you will have both been separated in two different worlds for those six or seven months. Human beings change all the time and are changed by their daily circumstances and so, the two of you will have moved apart during that time. You have to be aware of this fact. When you come home, you cannot expect to just pick up where you left as if nothing happened. You have to re-learn one another and put in all the extra time and efforts that this requires. It ought to be just like when you were dating at first: make the time, listen, learn from one another and grow the relationship all over again.

Finally, don't do anything that would breach the trust between you. As a sailor, there will be numerous occasions for "adventures". But nothing stays secret in the Navy -period. So resist, resist, resist. Anything else is taking a big risk. Besides, if you truly love her, it's not that hard.

OK, Enough patronizing from me.

A last word: Admiral Gardam (now retired) started is life in the CAF as a militia infanteer, so redemption as a NWO is possible.

Well, I guess you take the good with the bad. I already sign the contract, no use mope about it now.

I think everything will be okay with my fiancé, she's a keeper... if I am though, that's a different question (just a joke, or I hope anyways)

I hope I can be redeemed from being in PRes infantry... I have to carry the weight of shame for the rest of my days...
(I'm just kidding)

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I hope I can be redeemed from being in PRes infantry... I have to carry the weight of shame for the rest of my days...
(I'm just kidding)

Here's the caption we had for Dave Gardam in our MARS graduation yearbook: "You can take a Pongo to water, bu you can't make him take off his combat boots."