An infinitely long, circular, cylindrical shell is submerged in an acoustic medium and subjected to a plane, axially propagating step wave. The fluid-shell interaction is approximated by neglecting fluid motions in the axial direction, thereby assuming that cylindrical waves radiate away from the shell independently of the axial coordinate. Rotatory inertia and transverse shear deformations are included in the shell equations of motion, and a steady-state solution is obtained by combining the independent variables, time and the axial coordinate, through a transformation that measures the shell response from the advancing wave front. Results from the steady-state solution for the case of steel shells submerged in water are presented using both the Timoshenko-type shell theory and the bending shell theory. It is shown that previous solutions, which assumed plane waves radiated away from the vibrating shell, overestimated the dumping effect of the fluid, and that the inclusion of transverse shear deformations and rotatory inertia have an effect on the response ahead of the wave front.