Stressed, I would absolutely agree that they should have to pass the same VERY strict physical that the men do. Otherwise the other points you raise are quite valid. No PC at all here, if they can't hack it, they don't belong. That's my feeling on it.

'Ijust took a look at the Physical Tests, and tried to remember what we needed to score in our UNit (the army requirements were MUCH lower, but our unit commander was a hard ass, so he required higher of us).

For a 22 year old man to reach HIS standards, it was 68 push ups in 2 minutes, 73 sit-ups in 2 minutes, and a 2 mile in 13:54

So I just happened to look on the female side, to see what they needed to score the same 288, and this is what I found 37 push-ups in 2 minutes, 73 sit ups (shorter people actually have an easier time with this, so this did not shock me, as I am tall and struggled getting 100 in this area often) and 20:30 on the 2 mile.

So, let me ask this question. Would said female be required to pass these same 'unit standards' by the male #s or by the female #s? Will she cry discrimination if she fails to meet 'unit standards'?

A commander of a company, or battalion can set his own standards that are above thatof the Army, but, if she is going to be serving with all men, which set of scores will she be required to reach?

btw, I know of no woman I met in the service that could reach the lofty goals of my company, and I knew some healthy girls.

they could score a 290 on their own scale, but never get close on ours.

I do think there ARE women who can reach those #s, but they are VEry rare.
These tests are scaled by age, so I used 22 year old man, since that was the age I was when I went to Saudi/Kuwait."
As long as the women are put up to the same standards they should be on the front line. If a female can do 68 pushups in 2 minutes etc. then she should be on the front line.

As a proud (former) member of an Army that does allow women into combat units. I can personally vouch that this wont cause any more problems than the lack of cartoons on the frontline will.

The chivalry argument, or whatever you would call it, does not apply. Its traumatizing losing buddies no matter what, and in uniform everyone are soldiers. This is tried and tested in all countries that allow women to serve. Female soldiers does not make male soldiers any more stupid than we already are.

If you are in a unit where the soldiers can't control their dicks after six months with only jerking of, that is a problem with the men. Hell, If you are single for a year do you start raping girls in your close proximity? Cause if you do, you need to talk to someone.

The demands of war are what they are and no less for a woman. If you are up to these demands, the gender really couldn't matter less.

Yes it is true that women are not as physically strong as men on average. They are offcourse free to apply for the ranger units, no one have to this day succeded, but hey, damn few men succeed at that. Contrary to popular belief there is a lot of combat going on that does not require you to lug around 200lbs of equipment. Just as men are (on average) stronger than women, women are (on average) better at information processing and multitasking. Combined with their smaller frame this often make women the preferred choices as crews and commanders in combat vehicles.

If your commanders are doing their jobs right, they allocate the soldiers to where they can be of greatest benefit to the whole, no matter gender. Yes this means that frontline infantry fighting units will have relatively few females, but its not the same as to say that women shouldn't be there. They are just as fine killers as men.

If you need all your soldiers to be clones in order for no one to be disruptive to unit cohesion you have a command problem. Sort it out!

yj, sure, but we all had to reacha minimum ability, and that is what our commanders would gear unit capability from.

We were only as good as our worst soldier.

Example, eery morning we ran 5 miles, and he wanted us to run that at an 8 minute clip. However, we had to run exactly in formation, and if someone dropped out, we slowed down for him (there was no females in my platoon obviously)

+1 to Olai. What army where you in?

Very nice, Olai. What army?

How is it that Al schwingading hasn't chimed in yet? I opened this just to see his thoughts on the matter.

"We were only as good as our worst soldier."

Ugh, you keep coming back to that, and I feel I've already addressed it. The best woman is better than the worst man, yes or no?

If yes, you can't make that argument for keeping women out.
If no, I'll just laugh at you because its obviously untrue.

Thomas, not sure which army, but I am sure not US Army, as our Ranger units have higher standards than our Infantry Units do.

maybe you mean scout or FOs? Rangers are paratrooper units that specialize in capturing airstrips (they server a lot of roles, but that is one of their main functions)

Differentiated tests for males and females are a disgrace. I know its done many places to get more women in uniform and make the politicians look good on TV. An artillery strike does NOT allow you an extra 5 minutes to run out if you happens to be female.

I think we should integrate pro basketball, football, and baseball, too. Let the REAL women show the boys how tough they are.

Yeah, why should women have separate sports teams?

lol sorry, dip lets stay on target, that's a whole different conversation. Start a new thread if you want to pursue it seriously :)

Yj, as i said before, this is just my initial thoughts. I am trying to find nations that use Women in real combat units, that have seen real action and see what the results are.

I know the soviets loved to use them as snipers, which I am ok with I guess.

I used to hear that women were in IDF combat units, but itis not true thjey have been banned from combat since 1950 because in teh 1948 war, the Israelis discovered, and this is THEIR words, from THEIR study that "
The study revealed that men tried to protect and assist women rather than continue their attack. As a result, they not only put their own lives in greater danger, but also jeopardized the survival of the entire unit. The study further revealed that unit morale was damaged when men saw women killed and maimed on the battlefield,”
This was a study done by the IDF, after a war in which women served in combat.


Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld has written extensively about the failure of the IDF to successfully integrate and use women in combat.

As of toda, only 88% of jobs in the IDF are open to women. This is a country that is numbers starved, and is on constant war footing.


Can someone point to a country that had women in full combat units, in a war setting?

Yes, our rangers also require higher standards than infantry, thats probably why women have never made it. No, they dont have the excact same role, no airstrip capturing, we leave that to you guys. they are the long range recon of ISTAR-units and are quite small compared to your Ranger regiment.

But to stay on topic: women are allowed to attempt to be accepted into these units.

"I think we should integrate pro basketball, football, and baseball, too. Let the REAL women show the boys how tough they are."
This is a tough issue that I have found myself on both sides of the debate. While in theory that would promote equality, I think we would see less female athletes as a result. Even if the best WNBA players are better then the worst NBA players, allowing all the good WNBA athletes from joining the NBA would likely see the WNBA ratings go down and would probably see the league disbanded. As a result there would probably be less pro-female athletes in the long run, at least in theory.

That said I am pro-freedom. I think its up to the sport to decide, for example if FIFA thinks women should be in prosoccer then that is fine.

"Differentiated tests for males and females are a disgrace. I know its done many places to get more women in uniform and make the politicians look good on TV. An artillery strike does NOT allow you an extra 5 minutes to run out if you happens to be female."
I could not agree more.

Thomas, which nation?

I hear what you're saying, stressed, but it's kind of a self-fulfiling prophecy.

We refuse to let women join the front lines, and thus feel they need to be protected, and then we let our own chivalry influence our decisions to the negative when they DO fight on the front lines, and then conclude that we should refuse to let women join the front lines.

I guarantee you once women have been in combat long enough to break our instincts off, this will no longer be a concern.

I think the decrease in moral would be temporary, and yes for now we need to feel the need to protect them.

But eventually soldiers would get use to having females in their units and the moral would go back to normal.

As Yellow so, its a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anyways, even if it hasn't been done before, that alone is no reason not to try it, after everything else has been taking into account. Otherwise we'd all be serfs, right?

but the IDF said it caused them big problems, so they stopped it, and they did useit in combat. They said it effected moral, and put entire units in bad situations. This was my first fear when I heard this, and after some research the IDF has confirmed it.

Men WILL risk themselves to protect a woman naturally.

how many must die so that we can 'break our instincts'? btw, instincts are exactly that, so they are not hard to 'break'.

Even if I accept all of that at face value (that lots will die), if it raises the overall competency of our military in the long term, we should do it. And that's from a coldly analytical standpoint.

How many Romans died on the spears of the phalanx before they got their tactics down right?

Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Israel of the top of my head. Some of these countries have some limitations wich I dont know all the specifics of, like serving on u-boats, but women have no restriction about serving in combat units.

Im Norwegian

it was tried, by the IDF, with bad results. I guess nobody read that part.

In On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman briefly mentions that female soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces have been officially prohibited from serving in close combat military operations since 1948. The reason for removing female soldiers from the front lines was due less to the performance of female soldiers, and more due to the behavior of the male infantrymen after witnessing a woman wounded. The IDF saw a complete loss of control over soldiers who apparently experienced an uncontrollable, protective, instinctual aggression, severely degrading the unit's combat effectiveness.

Let me see if I can put this into an example easier to understand, after reading more of theIDF experiences.

I am put on a flank, and am on a M 60 (which is a true assault weapon btw)

Sandra, a woman in my platoon is 30 meters to my left. During an intense fire fight, she is hit, and wounded. I decide to leave my post, to go help her (and this is what the IDF reported happening) Now the enemy has seen the flank, and an M 60 gunner abandon his post, and roll that flank, and end up killing/wounding a LOT of soldiers for the actions of 1. Is this worth the cost?

This was my initial thoughts on this, and Iam glad I read this IDF report.

Well that settles it. If the country with the scientifically-proven hottest women in the world can have an integrated military, then so can we.

Long term, yes it is. There's always gonna be growing pains when you make changes. But you can't refuse to attempt to make them for all eternity just because of short-term consequences.

thomas, that is not true. The IDF has banned women from combat since 1948, as I have posted several times now. 100% false myth about the IDF.

Theother nations you named, Sweden, Germany, Finland have front line combat experience? Really? I think the constitution of Germany forbids their armed forces of being combat involved outside their own borders, or if involved in NATO exercises/actions.

The IDF, which has a lot of combat experince though, has banned it. That much I am sure of, because the results were VERY bad.

Norway/Denmark may have seen some combat, and they had women in FRONT line combat units under fire?