USA gives bigger guns to women

[Montmorency]

But just taking an MBT crew as a fixed (for our purposes) example, then why would we expect a de facto lowering of standards with females in tank crews?

Aren't tank crew are trained and evaluated based on performance in maintenance and various combat-relevant tasks? What would the difference be with female applicants included in the mix, unless you make the specific prediction that female tankers will be more likely to 'burn out' in a sustained combat environment (or other such things that might be more difficult to catch in training)?

[Fisherking]

But just taking an MBT crew as a fixed (for our purposes) example, then why would we expect a de facto lowering of standards with females in tank crews?

Aren't tank crew are trained and evaluated based on performance in maintenance and various combat-relevant tasks? What would the difference be with female applicants included in the mix, unless you make the specific prediction that female tankers will be more likely to 'burn out' in a sustained combat environment (or other such things that might be more difficult to catch in training)?

I spoke of it as an engineering problem. You can not expect the average young woman to be up to the physical strength and endurance necessary to perform to current standards. Either tanks get reengineered or standards fall. In a tank crew you cannot exclude crew duties based on physical strength. Everyone has to be able to do every job but the loader’s job is the basic entry point.

In most jobs, via federal regulation workers aren’t permitted to lift over 40lbs. As a tank crewman, it is a basic requirement.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...05&oe=56F5C277

[Montmorency]

But they're not going to be vetting "the average young woman", right? Given current standards, very few female applicants would be able to qualify as tankers - and so the standards don't change, unless you posit a hidden or long-term deficiency in even the qualifying female tankers. If your complaint is that they will inevitably lower standards so as to include more women, then that would be more understandable, though I don't see that happening outside the context of a mass-draft war.

[Fisherking]

But they're not going to be vetting "the average young woman", right? Given current standards, very few female applicants would be able to qualify as tankers - and so the standards don't change, unless you posit a hidden or long-term deficiency in even the qualifying female tankers. If your complaint is that they will inevitably lower standards so as to include more women, then that would be more understandable, though I don't see that happening outside the context of a mass-draft war.

To assume they will not lower standards is to ignore all which has gone before.

Standards were altered or ignored with regard to the recent female ranger graduates. It occurred in most every field they have been brought into. To assume that standards won’t be altered for political reasons is to ignore the history of women in the military.

I am not saying that ALL standards need to be maintained or that there are not other solutions. All I am saying is that the groundwork to implement women in combat has not received more than political declarations that they should.

[Brenus]

Lowering Standards? Military did it yet, because the boys are too fat and lack strength and will, so I was told, due to a change of habitat and food habits.
As other mentioned, selection for weapons and units is based on capacities... I was quite short, so APC were for me, when taller ones were for mortars or foot soldiers. Your tank-man will be crap as divers (muscles don't float), and as recon, hmmm...
As tanks matter, a pilot is short, and the fact is the crew has to work together for the maintenance. Perhaps a muscular one will help to pull the caterpillar out, but the small and slim one will do to go under the tank to help in breaking it (for repair). And all soldiers are far to be as strong and big than what images seems to induce...
The fact is the image of militaries of themselves will suffer more than the Armed Forces themselves.

[Fisherking]

Lowering Standards? Military did it yet, because the boys are too fat and lack strength and will, so I was told, due to a change of habitat and food habits.
As other mentioned, selection for weapons and units is based on capacities... I was quite short, so APC were for me, when taller ones were for mortars or foot soldiers. Your tank-man will be crap as divers (muscles don't float), and as recon, hmmm...
As tanks matter, a pilot is short, and the fact is the crew has to work together for the maintenance. Perhaps a muscular one will help to pull the caterpillar out, but the small and slim one will do to go under the tank to help in breaking it (for repair). And all soldiers are far to be as strong and big than what images seems to induce...
The fact is the image of militaries of themselves will suffer more than the Armed Forces themselves.

All those weight and strength issues were addressed in the 1970s. Todays US Army and Marine Corps could be termed as fitness obsessed.

As for making accommodations for strength of females, that is very unrealistic in a combat situation. You can’t assume that a whole crew may not be female and that men will be there to take up the slack. Isn’t that rather sexist of you?

People tasked with a job have to be able to do the job, without reservation. No caveats.

That is why I said it is an Engineering Problem. You want women to do a job, you engineer it so they can. Not socially but mechanically.

[Brenus]

"As for making accommodations for strength of females, that is very unrealistic in a combat situation. You can’t assume that a whole crew may not be female and that men will be there to take up the slack. Isn’t that rather sexist of you?" Men are not all with the same strength... It doesn't mean the weakest can't be in a tank crew. So, when choices are made at the recruitment center, if the recruiter knows his/her job, women able to "man" a tank will be directed to the Tank school, whatever the name, and others will be directed to others arms... It is how it works... Well, in France at least, following your tests results, and then the physical one, then the training itself which made my platoon going from 36 to 17... And all the "failures" were men, and some much stronger or fitter than I was.
The French Army thinks it is matter of will/motivation... And I tend to agree...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Oktyabrskaya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Samusenko

Have a look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
for the Air Forces

True enough, after the War, Stalin, being a XIX century man, denied and in fact diminished the women's role to the more "conventional" fields of nursing, compassion and other "soft" duties.
The reality is women are as deadly and aggressive than men.