USA gives bigger guns to women

[Hooahguy]

As long as they can meet the same physical standards as males then most people in the military Ive talked to dont care. If they cant, then they have no business being in combat positions. It goes beyond equality or unit cohesion or whatever, its about saving lives. If a woman can drag a 200 pound teammate who has another 50 pounds of body armor and gear then that is great, power to her and she will make a great combat soldier. But if she cant, what is she going to do when she has to do it in combat and lives depend on her?

[Montmorency]

That actually ties in with my off-hand comment in a subtle way.

Doctrine and procurement: oriented today toward special ops, "shock and awe", long-range confrontation with missiles, drones, and aircraft, and conventional ground forces as an afterthought.

Speaking abstractly, there should be some differences in standards for various roles depending on the war scenario and the dynamic value of particular roles. Just as an example, what differences in standards could or should there be for a protracted conflict with conventional frontlines, in which presumably artillery, armor, and heavy infantry are overall a more important factor than cavalry and light recon insertions 0 relative to the past generation? Would they be reduced for the sake of mass mobilization or even conscription? Would they be reduced because close contact between opposing infantry squads is expected to be even rarer - or the opposite? What impact might sweeping campaign-specific changes in equipment loadout have on the standards at home?

This is a very broad question; make clear what assumptions you impute to it, or yourself bring to bear.

[Hooahguy]

There actually has been some discussion on relaxing some standards for some jobs, especially when it comes to cyber warfare. The military wont be able to attract the best people when the best people are not going to want to put up with all the annoyances of military life, not to mention the intense physical activity and low pay. Why go to the army, have to wake up at the crack of dawn every weekday to do physical exercise and get barely over $20k for it when you can get three times that in the private sector? So what ends up happening is that the military has to hire outside contractors who are very expensive to do the work.

Also all of this makes me wonder if women will now have to register for the draft.

[Husar]

As long as they can meet the same physical standards as males then most people in the military Ive talked to dont care. If they cant, then they have no business being in combat positions. It goes beyond equality or unit cohesion or whatever, its about saving lives. If a woman can drag a 200 pound teammate who has another 50 pounds of body armor and gear then that is great, power to her and she will make a great combat soldier. But if she cant, what is she going to do when she has to do it in combat and lives depend on her?

I am not sure what Monty is aiming at but the part I quoted starts by saying they have to fulfill all the standards and qualify, so I'm not sure why this would be a concern?

[Hooahguy]

There is a big concern that standards will be lowered to ensure that women passed. For example the USMC has tried to put a number of women through their male-only courses and they all failed for various reasons, so they have a valid concern that they will be forced to lower standards in order to comply with the new ruling.

[Husar]

There is a big concern that standards will be lowered to ensure that women passed. For example the USMC has tried to put a number of women through their male-only courses and they all failed for various reasons, so they have a valid concern that they will be forced to lower standards in order to comply with the new ruling.

Which tests?

http://ciceromagazine.com/features/i...-combat-roles/

First, they began by doing research on a set of proxy tests that would be used to screen for combat fitness. The proxy tests, 6 largely upper-body, strength-based tests, were used to evaluate the performance of 409 male and 379 female Marines. Although the link between these 6 events and the “knowledge, skills, and abilities needed” for various combat jobs is not clear the research yielded some interesting results. In the “good performers” category 66% were male Marines while 34% were female Marines. In the highest performing category 92% were male while 8% were female. Clearly, there are a percentage of women that can compete in both categories. Despite these results the Marines seem to have dropped the use of proxy tests to screen for combat jobs.

[...]

Later in 2013, the Marines decided to expand the infantry training research to enlisted women. Similarly, they invited enlisted women to volunteer for the enlisted infantry course and were more successful. Out of more than 240 volunteers more than 98 have graduated. When enlisted women began graduating from the infantry course the Marines decided that perhaps initial entry training was not a good test of whether women could perform in infantry units. Instead, they said that collective tasks that Marines perform out in the fleet are harder and would provide the true litmus test of women’s combat potential.

To me this sounds like they had some women succeed and then always went "yeah, but..." because they didn't like the result.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...fficer-course/

In this case they all failed, but 29 is also not necessarily a representative sample. And if you look at the first link, you may see why the IOC test with women is a huge failure (and even less representative):

Instead they pursued other research efforts. The first and most controversial has been their research at the infantry officer course (IOC). They invited women officers, on a voluntary and trial basis, to attempt to complete IOC. While they sought to evaluate 92 volunteers over three years they have not been able to recruit anywhere near that number and none of those who has volunteered has graduated. Critics cite a lack of any possible incentive for women officers to volunteer coupled with a disclosure form that volunteers must sign that states that, “If a volunteer is unable to successfully complete the program of instruction, it is unlikely they will be recycled due to impact on delaying attendance at their PMOS school, possible negative impact on fitness reporting cycles, potential harm to the volunteer’s career path, and complication with equitable career designations.” In short, a woman failing on her first attempt would likely not be offered a recycle opportunity, generally expected of men, due to negative career impacts—a rather large disincentive.

Also: http://www.theonion.com/article/us-m...tral-kil-31015

[Brenus]

"If a woman can drag a 200 pound teammate who has another 50 pounds of body armor and gear then that is great" Isn't it the job description of a field medic? Women are field medic for year... And women is other armies did quite a good job, (even it was denied later) i.e. Roza Shanina


I could do the same for tank crew, pilots, air crew etc.

[a completely inoffensive name]

It's really a non-issue anyway if you just have all male and all female units. Given the terrible treatment of women in the military, it is probably best to separate the sexes anyway as a transitioning period until the old conservatives have retired.

[Montmorency]

Bad idea. Retaining some segregated units would be a good study, but pulling back on the whole institution? And given the complaints most bandied about, segregation would solve nothing unless you either maximize segregation (i.e. women can only be pilots, artillery crew, MPs, orderlies...) or segregate the battlefield on an operational and strategic level such that, for example, one all-female army covers a given area, while an all-male army covers another, largely independent of each other.

It really makes no sense to propose it.

[Hooahguy]

"If a woman can drag a 200 pound teammate who has another 50 pounds of body armor and gear then that is great" Isn't it the job description of a field medic? Women are field medic for year... And women is other armies did quite a good job, (even it was denied later) i.e. Roza Shanina


I could do the same for tank crew, pilots, air crew etc.

Yes and no. Just because one is a medic doesnt mean one will be in the infantry units fighting in the streets. They can also be in the field hospitals and things like that.

Not saying that there arent women who can meet or even exceed the capabilities of men. There certainly are are that is a great thing. But most people are merely worried that the standards, which exist for a reason, will be lowered to meet a political goal. That is it.

[Brenus]

"Not saying that there arent women who can meet or even exceed the capabilities of men." I agree. What I challenged is the assumption that in order to have women in fighting posts/position, it will be a need to lower the standards. I knew a lot of soldiers who couldn't drag a "200 pound teammate who has another 50 pounds of body armor and gear". But because they were draftees, they were still soldiers. And I saw them be faster and more efficient than a platoon of Foreign Legionnaires on obstacles courses. My best sniper was probably as light in weight than young women I met during my life, but he could put a bullet where he wanted, wind (whatever direction), rain or fog didn't really mattered. However, he didn't match the "dragging a teammate of 200 pounds" etc. But the fittest and strongest enemy would have some trouble with him.

[Montmorency]

That's pretty tangential to my question.