Aw Rating merger and Today's ASW

Michael Wise wrote in
:

In article ,
Charlie Wolf wrote:

Well - in keeping with the recently posted NG charter for this joint,
I offer this up:

Do group members here think this is a good idea?? My days as an AW
(S-3A's & B's) concentrated on sub-hunting and aviation acoustic
analysis, ISAR RADR, MAD, et al. But merging the rating with mechs
and metal smiths seems to me is kinda broad-based.

What are the rating exams going to look like?

In my day, we had AW's in the following specialties:
- acoustic
- non-acoustic
- helo

You do know that us helo AW's go through basic and advanced acoustical
training as well as do airborne acoustical analysis in the
fleet...right?


This article would leave one thinking that the AW rating will now
have numerous sub-specialties; none of which are related to any of
the others, except that they all have gold wings and draw ACIP.

I have to wonder what this will do to ranks of traditionally
ground-pounder ratings merged (AMS, AO, AE, AD, PR, etc.) of the
HS/HSL community. I'm not sure if things have changed or not, but when
I was in, if you were helo aircrew; you had to be SAR qualified. I
seriously doubt even 1/3 of the people filling those rates in the
squadrons I was in or worked around could have made it through SAR
school.

I have to wonder what percentage of those other rates can even make it
through the training pipeline...much less qualify for the security
clearances traditionally required of the AW rating.


It sounds to me that they may soften up and dumb down all requirements
across the board. That certainly will give them the numbers (the Navy
always seems to be short of SAR people), but I have to believe the
human element of helo ASW will be much less effective.

The conversion is ONLY for folks in the affected ratings who are
AIRCREW. Many of these people are not working directly in their ratings
anyway, so it would have little negative effect on shop readiness. In
fact, it migh inprove shop manning because they would no longer have to
eat these unfilled billets "out of hide".

Dave in San Diego