Hmm, I served in the Army field Artillery in the late 70’s and don’t remember this, pinging another FAer.
It looks to me like they still hump those shells, which I guess, in an extreme combat situation where you don’t have a nice little machine that helps out in some way (I don’t even know if they have those or not) you would have to revert to.
Is it as nut crunching as it seemed from the video (relatively high fire rate, it seemed)?
I was out of artillery units and at the pentagon by ‘81. I’ll do some searching.
The Department of the Army Historical Summary for 1978 has this section as part of Chapter 5:
In December 1977 the Military Personnel Center completed
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a study of the effect on Army personnel management of increased women accessions and end strengths of 60, 80, and 100 thousand. Data was insufficient to determine the optimum female force, but the study concluded that the impact would be most severe if the Army were required to enlist women quickly. A comprehensive review of programs and policies for women in the reserve components was conducted by the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. It indicated that much work remained to be done before women strength objectives could be determined.
The Human Engineering Laboratory studied the impact of increasing numbers of women soldiers on Army equipment design. It demonstrated the need for further research. A historical review by the Center of Military History showed that through the ages and throughout the world women have performed remarkably well in combat and as military leaders.
Another major project, Evaluation of Women in the Army (EWITA), was conducted at the U.S. Army Administration Center at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. The final report was released in May 1978. It was quite controversial because some recommendations ran contrary to Army policy. The original purpose of the EWITA study was to determine how many women by specialty and grade could be assigned to an Army unit without reducing the unit’s ability to accomplish its primary ground combat mission. The study group was unable to develop a methodology for setting limits to female participation in units.
On the basis of revised objectives, EWITA stated that certain officer and enlisted specialties should be closed to women while others should be opened. The first category included fourteen enlisted specialties recently opened to women which EWITA charged required physically demanding tasks beyond the average woman. The study recommended that the Army establish specific physical strength requirements for each specialty and develop standardized tests of the strength potential of enlistees.
The EWITA study found that officers and warrant officers in the field regarded pregnancy as the greatest impediment to full integration of women in the Army. During fiscal year 1977 15 percent of enlisted women on active duty became pregnant. Of these, 25 percent chose to leave the Army, 36 percent had abortions, and 39 percent carried to full term with an average time loss of twenty-one weeks. Many problems were associated with pregnancy, including reduced unit readiness, deployability, and morale. EWITA concluded that the Army’s current pregnancy policy was not cost effective and suggested two alterna-
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tives: involuntary separation or absence without pay. The study also called for reevaluating policies pertaining to sole parents and intraservice marriages, redefining unacceptable fraternization, improving coed housing overseas, and placing greater emphasis on human relations in leadership training.
In June 1978 the Secretary of the Army established an EWITA II team to reexamine unit and specialty openings and closings to women based on the 20 December 1977 combat exclusion policy. Meanwhile the Army kept working on physical strength requirements and tests for military skills and specialties. A seminar held in January 1978 to examine the leadership problems and challenges caused by increased numbers of women in the Army identified many of the same areas of concern as the EWITA study. Other evaluations completed this year did likewise. The most pressing issues were pregnancy and sole parenthood.
In June 1978 field commanders were asked to provide feedback on their experiences with women soldiers. They were requested to address pregnancy, sole parenthood, the assignment of intraservice married couples, fraternization, physical capabilities of women, training, leadership, housing, uniforms and equipment, and proper employment. Once again pregnancy and sole parenthood emerged as major areas of concern. They were reported to have negative effects on deployability, morale, operational readiness, field training, time on the job, military specialties, and harmonious relations among unit members. Many soldiers felt that pregnant women and sole parents received preferential treatment and did not perform a fair share of various duties. The Army has been aware of this situation for some time and has taken a number of actions to alleviate it.
Starting in November 1977 commanders were required to advise pregnant soldiers of their option to remain in the service or be discharged and to explain their entitlements and responsibilities. The primary purpose of this counseling was to allow the pregnant woman to make an intelligent decision without pressuring her to be discharged.
While pregnancy is restricted to women, sole parenthood is not. Although a higher percentage of women soldiers are sole parents, there are more male than female sole parents in the Army. In fiscal year 1978 about 2 percent of the active force and 4 percent of reserve component personnel were sole parents. Effective 1 May 1978, dependent care counseling was required for all personnel, male and female, with three years or less service, who were sole parents or married to another service
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member and had dependents. Commanders directed these soldiers to arrange for the care of their dependents so they could perform their military duties without interference and remain eligible for worldwide assignment. The Army advised commanders to stress that no special consideration would be given in duty assignments or stations solely on the basis of responsibility for dependents.
The Army changed the regulations pertaining to pregnant officers in May 1978. Regular Army officers must complete at least three years of active military service before they can submit resignations for reasons of pregnancy. All pregnant officers will be counseled by their commanders, whether they plan to remain in the service or resign their commission. The officer who wishes to remain on active duty will have to outline a plan for the physical and financial care of the child and make arrangements for child care during duty hours. Although commanders generally considered the new counseling policies effective, pregnancy and sole parenthood were still major problems, and further studies were under way at the end of the fiscal year.
Link is:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/dahsum/1978/ch05.htm