There was normally a team of 7 what might be termed 'sensor operators' on the maritime Mk 2 Nimrods. These were split into a 3-man acoustics team (wet men) and a 4-man non-acoustics team (dry men). Each team was coordinated by a lead operator, hence 'lead dry' or 'lead wet'.
The leads were appointed by the squadron and in my day (mid-late 80's) a competent operator could expect a lead slot on their second tour, depending on how many people had been pissed off in the interim.
The wet team manned the acoustics system and the dry men rotated between the dry sensors, normally hourly. One dry man was dedicated to the radio position and the other three rotated between ESM, radar and 'spare' dry who normally did the sonobuoy loading, made the tea and generally did 'stuff'
As lead I tended to stay off the gear and monitor the less experienced guys, especially if it was a more dry orientated sortie.
Depending on the sortie type there would be a couple of bods kicking around to help out with the loading as the dedicated acoustic sorties could be quite hectic each time the nav changed his mind on which buys to drop.
Hope this helps
Many thanks for that. But I thought a Nim crew was 12 total. With 7 sensor operators, 3 flight crew, nav, AEO, and Tac Nav that makes a crew of 13.
