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.
I would assume that the remaining 31% of the activities were equally performed, not that the mixed unit did better.
The Marine version of DACO Witch jn SERVICE.
‘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.’
gee, y’think...?
“I have never been a supporter of women in combat units. If they want in, let them do the same PT test everyone else has to do.”
AGREE. They want to be “equal” to men; let them PROVE it.
‘In most Hollywood movies I see, the small female soldiers can easily take on and defeat a muscular, 220 lb. man with karate moves.’
while applying makeup and cooking dinner for the kids at the same time...
Read an article from a commanding officer and stating integration also created some new challenges. For example, 9 soldiers with 1 female usually resulted in 5 wanting to protect her like a little sister, 3 wanting to date her and 2 just hated her for being there.
I recently saw a pic of the obstacle course from Navy OCS. The women have to scale smaller obstacles.
I think there is little doubt that in general men and women have differences in physical abilities, endurance and other things.
I think there are also exceptions, on both sides - men who rank below the male-average on “combat readiness” tests, and women who rank above the female-average on those tests.
I think it likely that not all male enlistees as well as not all female enlistees are those exceptions (though I may be wrong on the later).
I think some portion of female enlistees are not exceptional, not above average for females in general. What portion? Who knows?
I think that means that gender-mixed teams will not match performance of all male teams no matter what,
UNLESS the male team is composed not of the most general male enlistees, but is somehow composed with a larger than average complement of males of below average combat readiness ability.
Then again, we could be wrong, IF, IF, IF the females most inclined to enlist and land in “combat” roles represent a larger than average (as far as the general population) share of females with above average physical abilities.
Am I trying to make a case for women in combat? No. I am stating questions I hope and expect our military officials are grappling with.
More than merely allowing women in combat, my preference is that no standards be lowered or changed in order to accomplish that. I think as long as that remains the case, there will be a minority of women who will be exceptional, above average compared to females in general, and some who will match the average performance of males, even if they don’t match the highest male performance.
A nit to pick, if you can bear with me: It’s not so much “Clown World” as it is the world of “the letter of the law is the once and final word on any subject” which allows us no recourse against the enthronement of corrupt principles in positive law.
I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you!
I just saw Atomic Blonde, and I was happy that they at least tried to make it more believable by picking a woman who is 5’11”, fairly sturdy, and rarely uses her bare hands in a fight. When an anorexic model is supposed to be able to knock a guy out with a single punch, it’s silly. When an Amazon is able to bash in a guy’s shin with a hot plate, or gouge his eye out with a wine bottle opener, it is at least a bit more believable.
That’s what I thought Wuli. They destroyed their credibility by using combat troops against non-combat females. I don’t believe that women can match men in physical activity, but at least do a credible test to prove it or no one will believe your results.
Perhaps.... or perhaps the tasks were of a subjective nature with no real definition of what was more effective. Thanks for the correction on the percentage.... 31%, not 21%.
Why don’t they publish male vs. female pugil stick training outcomes?
There’s a reason there are no women in MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. That is that they can’t cut it. But, sure, we’ll put them in combat roles.
The insanity is stunning, and will prove deadly.
My problem is that the “letter of the law” is applied in some circumstances (usually to White males) and totally ignored in others (usually for “protected” groups). Basically, it has become a two-tier society. Maybe it was always like that to some degree, but it feel like it has gotten worse.
The “Clown World” situation occurs when thousands of years of tradition, or just plain common sense, is thrown out the window because some victim group decides things should be different—regardless of the actual consequences for Society.
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