Posted on 08/08/2017 5:17:25 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
In 2013, the US military lifted its ban on women serving in combat. Shortly after, the Marine Corps began what it calls an “unprecedented research effort” to understand the impact of gender integration on its combat forces.
That took the form of a year-long experiment called the Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force, in which 400 Marines — 100 of them female — trained for combat together and then undertook a simulated deployment, with every aspect of their experience measured and scrutinized.
All branches of the military faced a January 1, 2016 deadline to open all combat roles to women, and the Marine Corps used this experiment to decide whether to request exceptions to that mandate. The Corps’ summary of the experiment concludes that combat teams were less effective when they included women.
Overall, the report says, all-male teams and crews outperformed mixed-gender ones on 69% of tasks evaluated (93 out of 134). All-male teams were universally faster “in each tactical movement.” On “lethality,” the report says:
All-male 0311 (rifleman) infantry squads had better accuracy compared to gender-integrated squads. There was a notable difference between genders for every individual weapons system (i.e. M4, M27, and M203) within the 0311 squads, except for the probability of hit & near miss with the M4.
All-male infantry crew-served weapons teams engaged targets quicker and registered more hits on target as compared to gender-integrated infantry crew-served weapons teams, with the exception of M2 accuracy.
All-male squads, teams and crews and gender-integrated squads, teams, and crews had a noticeable difference in their performance of the basic combat tasks of negotiating obstacles and evacuating casualties. For example, when negotiating the wall obstacle, male Marines threw their packs to the top of the wall, whereas female Marines required regular assistance in getting their packs to the top. During casualty evacuation assessments, there were notable differences in execution times between all-male and gender-integrated groups, except in the case where teams conducted a casualty evacuation as a one-Marine fireman’s carry of another (in which case it was most often a male Marine who “evacuated” the casualty)
The report also says that female Marines had higher rates of injury throughout the experiment.
While the conclusions make it look like having women in combat isn’t a good idea, one important caveat of the tests is that many of of the male study participants had previously served in combat units, whereas female participants, by necessity, came directly from infantry schools or from noncombat jobs.
Hopefully, with more training in combat, women will be a strength for the military, but the most important thing to remember is that risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires of an individual is not only bad, but very dangerous military judgment.
How many of the women got pregnant to get out of this research experiment?
Why mixed-gender? Let’s put it all men against all women and see what happens.
This continued social experiment is going to get a lot of good people killed unnecessarily.
I’m shocked, shocked I tell ya!! As a retired 0311/0331/0369 grunt I’ve often said that I’ve never personally met a woman who could do a tour in the grunts. I’m not saying these women don’t exist, but I haven’t met one. My question has always been, are we going to change the whole structure of the Marine Corps infantry so that we accommodate perhaps 20 women who are able to do it and who want to do it?
If there’s a woman out there who can hump with an 81 mm baseplate strapped to their pack for even three miles, I’d like to meet her. She’s quite a woman....
Geez. I hope we didn’t pay taxpayer money to fund this research.
Though I am sure we did.
I can tell you what they are doing, though. They will likely repeat this process, again...and again...and again, modifying each time, until they get the results they want.
Then, you won’t hear anything about the other studies, and they will point to the one that fulfilled their requirement that the mixed units perform as well as male only.
Only people who look hard will be able to tell they changed the requirements over time.
Here in Clown World we spend money to study the obvious, then act surprised at the results.
But for me, until it is a 1 to 1 matchup, women in combat roles is a non-starter.
Homowood is constantly promoting the physical equality issues in movies and cartoons. It is all fantasy, but many people actually believe their movies reflect reality. The stupidity of some people especially in blue states is a constant source of amusement.
I love how the optimistic moron ends the article “hopefully”
Hope is not a method- I don’t think we should have to tell dead Marines and soldiers families “hopefully” anything.
Agreed, The point is, there is likely a woman out there who can do it, somewhere. Until you get up to the peak of the pyramid of physical performance, there will be some woman who can beat out a guy at the lower end of things. But you will always, always, always, be able to find a man that will beat her out.
Some people like to foolishly say “Well, if she can do it, let her do it” which is preposterous BS for combat.
It isn’t the corporate world, it is the military.
Because there are a small percentage of women who can perform as well as the lower half of the men, that doesn’t mean we should alter logistics, procedures, etc. to accommodate them, never mind the impact on unit cohesiveness and capability.
What?
No Hollweirdesque kick-ass super-femmes arose to tilt the balance back in favor of female super-troopers?
No Ripleys or Buffys or whatever?
I am just sooooooo surprised...
Sounds to me as if she's quite a man.
This can’t be right. In most Hollywood movies I see, the small female soldiers can easily take on and defeat a muscular, 220 lb. man with karate moves.
No surprise at all.
“While the conclusions make it look like having women in combat isn’t a good idea, one important caveat of the tests is that many of of the male study participants had previously served in combat units, whereas female participants, by necessity, came directly from infantry schools or from noncombat jobs.”
Scientifically, another duplicate test should be run. Both all male and gender mixed teams should both come only from infantry schools and noncombat jobs. That will demonstrate how much, or if, the difference is gender mixed teams or teams with no combat experience verses teams with combat experience.
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