Torpedoman's Mate

As a Torpedoman's Mate (TM), you ran the underwater weapons program on submarines. The Navy re-established the TM rating on 30 September 2019 under NAVADMIN 225/19, pulling torpedo and missile work back out of the Machinist's Mate (Weapons) and Missile Technician communities so the people who load, store, and service the boat's ordnance had their own rate again. If you wore TM crow, you handled every phase of weapons loading, unloading, and stowage on every class of submarine: Mk 48 ADCAP torpedoes, Tomahawk land-attack missiles, and countermeasure devices.

The job was never just "move the weapon." You performed organizational and intermediate maintenance on the launching and firing systems behind it: the hydraulic systems, high-pressure air systems, and seawater systems that drive a torpedo tube. You ran pre-fire and post-fire routines, maintained the ejection pump and impulse systems, kept the weapons stowage racks and handling gear in spec, and maintained submarine anchoring systems on top of it. That is electro-mechanical work under tight tolerance, with explosive ordnance in the loop and zero room to improvise. Training ran through the Torpedoman's Mate "A" School at Naval Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut, with follow-on systems and weapons-handling pipelines tied to your boat's hull class.

Civilian employers value this background because it is rare and it is verified. You troubleshot hydraulic and pneumatic actuation, you read mechanical and electrical schematics, you followed lockout-tagout and explosive-safety procedures that a manufacturing plant would kill to have baked into a new hire, and you did it inside a submarine where a mistake is not a do-over. Industrial and defense employers pay for exactly that combination of electro-mechanical troubleshooting and disciplined safety. To see how your rate stacks against other Navy weapons and ordnance jobs, the Gunner's Mate (GM) career page and the Mineman (MN) career page cover adjacent paths, and you can browse every rating through the military-to-civilian career hub.

I never serviced a torpedo tube, but I sold the kind of industrial electro-mechanical systems a TM maintains in their sleep. After the Navy I pivoted into tech sales, and the technicians who closed the most deals were the ones who had actually turned the wrench on hydraulics, high-pressure air, and fire-control gear. A TM walks into a defense or industrial sales-engineering room with credibility you cannot fake. The trick is writing the resume so a civilian hiring manager sees the systems expert, not just "submarine torpedo guy." — Brad Tachi, Navy Diver veteran & BMR founder

The most direct civilian translation of TM work is industrial and electro-mechanical maintenance. These roles use the exact troubleshooting, schematic-reading, and hydraulic/pneumatic skills you built on launching and firing systems. Per the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS, May 2024), industrial machinery mechanics (O*NET 49-9041.00) earned a median of $63,510, and electro-mechanical and mechatronics technicians (17-3024.00) earned $70,760. Both fields are growing faster than average as plants automate, which means the people who can fix a jammed actuator at 2 a.m. stay in demand.

Defense contractors are the cleanest fit. Companies that build submarines, torpedoes, and weapons-handling systems hire former TMs as field service technicians and weapons-systems technicians because you already know the hardware and the safety regime. Field service technician roles fall under commercial and industrial equipment mechanics, and many sit at or above the maintenance-and-repair median. Be honest about geography: defense field-service work clusters around shipyards and naval bases (Groton, Norfolk, Kings Bay, Pearl Harbor, Bremerton, San Diego), and traveling field roles can mean weeks away from home. Industrial maintenance, by contrast, exists in every state because every factory needs it.

If you want to stay close to ordnance and weapons systems, the cross-branch paths overlap heavily. Army ammunition and ordnance specialists, Marine aviation ordnance technicians, and EOD ratings compete for many of the same defense-contractor openings. See the Army 89B Ammunition Specialist page and the Marine 6531 Aircraft Ordnance Systems Technician page for how those backgrounds map. For a broader look at which roles pay the most after service, the highest-paying military-to-civilian jobs guide is worth a read, and when you are ready to translate your record, the military resume builder handles the formatting.

Federal technical and equipment series line up well with a TM record, and Veterans' Preference plus a likely active security clearance make you competitive on USAJobs. The Wage Grade (WG) trades hire on demonstrated hands-on skill, which is where weapons-handling and systems-maintenance experience shines without needing a degree.

The strongest direct matches are the trades series. WG-6605 (Artillery Repairing) and WG-2604 (Electronics Mechanic) cover the launching, firing, and electronic-control work you did on the boat. GS-1670 (Equipment Services / Equipment Specialist) is the classic landing spot for someone who can speak to the full lifecycle of a weapons or handling system, common at NAVSEA, NUWC Newport and Keyport, and the naval shipyards. GS-0802 (Engineering Technician) fits if you supported test, integration, or systems-engineering work. Adjacent series worth targeting include GS-1910 (Quality Assurance) for inspection-heavy backgrounds, GS-0018 (Safety and Occupational Health Management) given your explosive-safety and lockout-tagout discipline, and GS-1601 (General Facilities and Equipment) for broad equipment-program roles.

Aim for GS-7 through GS-11 (or WG-8 through WG-11) depending on how your enlisted time-in-grade translates. Your clearance is a real asset: many of these billets sit inside cleared facilities, and a current clearance shortens the hiring timeline. Other Navy weapons-and-systems ratings target the same series, so the Fire Controlman (FC) page and the Gunner's Mate (GM) page are useful side-by-side reads. For the federal-specific writing rules, the federal resume guides walk through the format, and the federal resume builder structures it to the standard USAJobs expects.

If you are applying to a defense contractor, a shipyard, or an industrial-maintenance shop, your terminology already lands. Those employers know what a torpedo tube and a hydraulic accumulator are. This section is for the careers OUTSIDE underwater weapons, where a civilian hiring manager has never heard "ADCAP" or "impulse tank" and needs your experience in business language.

The pattern that wins is translating the system, the scale, and the standard. "Maintained the launching system" becomes "maintained high-pressure hydraulic and pneumatic actuation systems to manufacturer tolerance." "Loaded torpedoes" becomes "executed controlled handling of high-value, hazardous assets under strict safety procedure." Lead with the transferable competency, then quantify it.

Before: "Performed organizational maintenance on submarine torpedo launching systems and conducted weapons handling evolutions."

After: "Maintained and troubleshot high-pressure hydraulic, pneumatic, and seawater actuation systems to OEM tolerance, and led controlled handling of high-value hazardous assets with a zero-incident safety record."

For more conversions like these, the 50 military terms translated to civilian language glossary and the hidden military skills article are good companions. To apply the translation to your own bullets, start in the military resume builder.