Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

US to allow women into combat arms roles.

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    Since 2001, 146 U.S. service members who are female have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom

    At the application below, each picture (2 pages) is an active link to a brief military bio

    Faces of the Fallen - Female
    sigpic

    Comment


    • #17
      Mr. Smith's picture of the advance to Baghdad is closer to the reality for which we must train. Or combat as imagined against the Warsaw Pact. Or the Golan Heights 1973. Continuous ops in a high intensity combat environment is the standard demanded upon our fitness posture. In the Bulge a twelve gun 105mm arty battalion fired 3600 rounds in an hour. 300 35lb. rounds per tube over that one hour period. 5 rounds per minute after minute after minute.

      Authorized max rate of fire for that weapon, btw, is 10 rounds per minute for THREE minutes.

      Oh! It's just not loading a breech, shoving in a round and pulling a lanyard. That's the easy part. It's the work parties pulled from the gun to off-load ammo and carry it to the guns. It's breaking open the crates and pulling out those rounds, cutting charges and fuzing the weapon. It's pulling fuze boxes off your prime mover or hustling to another gun to cross-level ammunition. It might include fending off a simultaneous infantry assault. Or checking a break in the battery hot loop.

      And five rounds per minute, every minute. In 20 degree farenheit weather.

      Crapping with dysentary six inches from somebody's face while crammed 20 to an Amtrack is a vacation compared to the act of fighting a war like that. 24/7 can be unreal over a month's time with no rear area in which to retreat. Wars like Afghanistan and our occupation of Iraq are NOT the standard to which we train. Despite the immense mental strain of daily patrols over IED covered trails and the spasms of adrenaline-induced contacts these men (or women) were not fighting a war of constant movement and non-stop battle. History is replete with examples of exactly that and woe be the soldier unable to tolerate the physical abuse imposed.

      Call me dubious and questioning what we must accomodate in training and unit cohesion to adjust for such.
      Last edited by S2; 26 Jan 13,, 22:57.
      "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
      "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by S2 View Post
        Call me dubious and questioning what we must accomodate in training and unit cohesion to adjust for such.
        Yeah

        I remember asking this question many years back to a friend and was told in a fire situation and you're injured and what if they cannot carry you back. Cohesion right there.

        Comment


        • #19
          Nations that officially permit women to serve in combat roles:
          Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Eritrea, Israel, North Korea

          Note: No nation permits women to serve in submarines

          Nations that officially permit women to serve as jet/helo pilots etc:
          Pakistan, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States



          An interesting 2009 study (PDF format) by the UK MoD regarding women in combat.

          Although I am dubious, nations that have women in combat roles in Afghanistan have reported no strains on combat effectivness and/or unit cohesion. I personally think that infantry standards should be uniform regardless of gender. IMHO, combat units should be segregated by gender such as the IDF Caracal Battalion. On a personal note, anyone who can successfully complete the IDF paratrooper school final exercise can survive just about anything in the military.
          sigpic

          Comment


          • #20
            First,there's not much combat to be strained from in A-stan.Like S2 said,combat means HIC.The thing where batallions are gone in 2 hours,brigades are combat ineffective in half a day and divisions are out in 2 days.Those were,more or less, Cold War assesments.Modern day is 2 generations of developments after our cold war friends service.Meaning war is even more lethal and the character of the operations even more decisive.

            Second,don't know about others.But I'm underwhelmed from what I've seen.Concerned even.Not for the women(I make a deliberate effort not to be).But for the rest.There is a place for women.But unless you prepare to lose battles and have higher casualties than need be,there's no place in combat units.We allow politics to influence military affairs,and that's a disaster in waiting since good ole Sun Tzu's days.

            ''You don't chain the king's hound and then expect it to catch rabbits''(if my memory doesn't play games on me).
            Those who know don't speak
            He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
              Yeah

              I remember asking this question many years back to a friend and was told in a fire situation and you're injured and what if they cannot carry you back. Cohesion right there.
              I remember someone posting this before. Fits perfect to your comment.

              Attached Files
              No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

              To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Minskaya View Post
                Note: No nation permits women to serve in submarines
                I'm not sure where you got that information from, but it's badly out of date:

                Norway (1985)
                Denmark (1988)
                Sweden (1989)
                Australia (1998)
                Canada (2000)
                Spain (2000)
                United States (2012 - Officer program, SSBN/SSGN only. SSN Officer program to commence 2015)
                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Minskaya View Post

                  Note: No nation permits women to serve in submarines
                  The Navy times reports, 5Dec 2012, that three female officers were pinned with their submarine warfare insignia, the gold chest device that confers their status as fully qualified submarine officers. Is this a sign of things to come ;)

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                    I'm not sure where you got that information from, but it's badly out of date
                    You're absolutely right. Not sure where I saw that. My bad :red:
                    sigpic

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Minskaya View Post
                      You're absolutely right. Not sure where I saw that. My bad :red:
                      No biggie. Until I checked, I hadn't realized that Spain had opened up subs to women.

                      Interesting, though unsurprising, that the Scandinavian countries were by far the first.
                      (Finland, missing from that list, scrapped its last subs in the 1950's...although they're not properly a Scandinavian country anyway)
                      Last edited by TopHatter; 27 Jan 13,, 19:47.
                      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Doktor View Post
                        I remember someone posting this before. Fits perfect to your comment.

                        [ATTACH=CONFIG]31735[/ATTACH]
                        Easier to convince the layperson, how about the pro's. The ones whose lives depend on their colleagues.

                        When i mentioned this to a friend, she told me to ride piggy back and jogged a hundred yards and then asked me what i thought ;)

                        Take a section out on patrol in a hot area.

                        Lets say the section is 8 people.

                        How many women in that section is acceptable ?
                        Last edited by Double Edge; 27 Jan 13,, 21:39.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by DPrime View Post
                          And here's one on the other side... Should be pretty jarring to anyone contemplating life in the infantry, whether male or female.

                          Though I'm not sure "it's too gross" is much of an argument for many. Just talk to a nurse or anyone who has worked at an old folks' home. ;)



                          Violate societal norms?

                          Hey, just because I'm a guy doesn't mean I want someone crapping six inches away from my face.
                          I do not doubt the account given by Mr. Smith, but his discription of the advance and convoy movement in Iraq 2003, just tore up everything I had learn't about cobney management and advance in battle.

                          Cheers!...on the rocks!!

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                            Easier to convince the layperson, how about the pro's. The ones whose lives depend on their colleagues.

                            When i mentioned this to a friend, she told me to ride piggy back and jogged a hundred yards and then asked me what i thought ;)

                            Take a section out on patrol in a hot area.

                            Lets say the section is 8 people.

                            How many women in that section is acceptable ?
                            Up to 8.
                            No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                            To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                              I do not doubt the account given by Mr. Smith, but his discription of the advance and convoy movement in Iraq 2003, just tore up everything I had learn't about cobney management and advance in battle.
                              Just as no battle plan survives first contact, no lesson survives first assessment. Those lessons, Captain, serves as a baseline as what is optimal. The reality is how far you can deviate before you become combat ineffective.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Doktor View Post
                                Up to 8.
                                Up to ?

                                Why not 8 and no less.

                                An all women section.

                                It would seem that mixing is the issue, so if we get around that then does the problem go away.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X