Ask A Spook! Cryptologic Questions

[FlyNavy]

Joe,

I would hit up Jzhaun, as he is our resident CTI. I work with CTI types, but I don't know enough about your A-school to answer that as well as he could.

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I also recieved the following message in my inbox and am replying here;

Originally Posted by blacktemplar

Hi man,

I'm having trouble decipher the main differences between these three rates.

Also CTIs start as E1, as in unlike lets say Nuke or AECF dont get an auto rank, right?

-Tommy

The rates you mentioned were CTT, CTI, and IS. So I'll hit them in that order.

CTT: T-branchers are the Navy's Electronic Warfare experts. On ships we are responsible for Anti-Ship Missile Defense (ASMD), as well as Electronic Intelligence (ELINT). We use and maintain our equipment to monitor radar signals from ships, aircraft, shore sites, and missiles, and in some cases deny the use of these systems to our enemy. Shore side you would be working at a NIOC doing the same thing minus the ASMD part. As a whole, CTT's can get stationed on ships, ashore, on subs, and attached as Aircrew.

CTI: I-branchers are the Navy's language experts. They cover all different kinds of languages from Russian and Chinese to Spanish and Arabic. There are entire ranges of lesser spoken languages in there as well. CTI's spend most of their career at a NIOC and alternate CONUS//OCONUS duty stations. Your designated language will dictate where you get stationed (certain languages go certain places obviously).

IS: IS's work with what we call "All-Source" intelligence. Where the CT community are the technical experts, IS's are responsible for the bigger picture to include trends, historical relevance, and geo-political landscape. IS's spend quite a bit of time preparing briefs for senior personnel and going over the myriad of reports from other organizations. They are also responsible for Human Intelligence (HUMINT). IS's are stationed on larger ships typically and on shore sites around the world.

On the topic of auto-rank, that all just depends on how long you're in training for. The whole reason they bump people up like that is because they spend so long in training. If they didn't they would significantly be behind their peers career wise. So it's kind of a way to balance the playing field career wise. Different rates and specialties are in training for different time periods, so it just depends what specific program you land in.

/r
CTT1