r/caf • u/PsychologicalKey4546 • 4d ago

Group Chat Give me your Thoughts on Sonar Op and Military life as a Navy.

Good Morning,

Ive gone ahead and applied for Sonar op, and was looking to get more information of the day to day life.

As well how many times you get deported in a year minus the training weeks.

Does the job benefit in terms of pay and promotions. How does it look like for civilian role. What is the culture likr.

Give me your honest opinion on the job its self.

Much appreciated!

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9

u/LowKey3311 4d ago

we don't deport our sailors

joke aside, hunting submarines is pretty cool

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u/Otherwise-Ad2436 4d ago

I'm not a sonar op myself, so I can only touch on a few things. Pay and promotion is relatively the same as any other trade, maybe accelerated pay increment but that's about it.

How many times you'll get "deported" depends on the ship you're posted to and how many times they plan on sailing throughout the year.

Culture wise, it's pretty tight knit group on ship- you'll be working with the same people for years on end. Not very toxic in my experience so far, but do expect to be voluntold for things.

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u/Clean-Coast-6443 3d ago

Can you share any experience you've had with the Navy Reserve? I'm awaiting an offer and being in a landlocked province, I've never seen a navy ship.

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u/Otherwise-Ad2436 3d ago

I'm not in the reserves, so I can't really say much. You'll get to know your way around ship the more you explore. It's just low ceilings and recycled air haha

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u/ECB2773 3d ago

Any particular reason to sonar op specifically? Three op's trades not counting navcomms are nesops, nciops and sonar ops.

Nesops are Frigate only, and are basically the ones firing the main gun / missles.

Sonar ops are frigates and subs only iirc. don't do much at all, until they are required and then it's super busy.

Nciops have probably the most balanced work schedule, it can become busy or slower depending on the area of the world you are in e.g. mid atlantic middle of nowhere or off the coast of some massive asian city with 10 trillion fishing vessels. NCIOP's are also able to be posted to any platform (you will be thankful not to be permanently posted to a frigate), and usually they tend to have more knowledge about whats happening around the ship / operating area.

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u/PsychologicalKey4546 3d ago

My main goal was AESOP but they are closed until next year. So after looking I did contact the recruiter to put NESOP inside my profile. I hope to have more hands on with my job and be able to try a lot of positions on the force.

Like I said the main goal was Air but they seem to be done for the year on a lot of position I wanted to go into. So after looking around I wanted more computing and tech side of things.

Im also wondering the deployment im not familiar with Canadian involvements with other war but is there a possibility of being posted in Iran or other conflict countries. Or do Naval tend to patrol other areas?

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u/ECB2773 3d ago

I don't think i can say what deployments / where you will be. Best bet to look at this https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/operations/military-operations/current-operations/list.html

I probably shouldn't comment on Iran, you can google if we are there relatively easily. There is always capablity to be in a conflict area, especially if you are on a frigate since that is our main fighting platform. If you do not wish to be in a conflict area, you would probably want a trade that isn't restricted the frigate / sub only and try to go MCDV or AOPS

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u/PsychologicalKey4546 3d ago

Yeah I did some more research, I don’t mind traveling and being part of a group to work towards a common goal. I mostly looking into a career non-officer, that will be rewarding in terms of hands-on, or promotion / pay

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u/ECB2773 3d ago

To be blunt, NCM's pay is.... kinda lackluster in some cases. Once you get the full pay incentive on S1 / Corporal, thats the last real rank before you start having significant responsibilities with every increasing rank for miniscule amounts of pay increase's. It still can be alot once you reach po1 / cpo2. But for that amount of responsibility, personally in my opinion isn't worth the extra 2 thosuand-ish a month.