I happen to think that the dividing line should be combat support vs. combat arms - at least for most types of combat arms. Combat support roles include transportation, MPs, etc. IIRC, field artillery and air defense artillery are both combat support roles.
Combat arms are armor, infantry, etc.
The integration of women into combat support bothers me little - even though I have seen the issues it raises first hand. They can be overcome by good unit discipline, especially discipline at the platoon and company levels.
In a combat unit, designed to be the front line of offense and defense, I’m not convinced that integrating women won’t cause insurmountable issues. To integrate in the face of dangerous issues is simply to say “the soldiers’ lives don’t count”.
JMHO, naturally.
My problem is we’re blown off without even having a shot at it. Let us try. If we don’t make it, we don’t make it but don’t go pushing us off because we’re women. I’m a pilot. I fly jets. I had a bf who was a pilot (is a a pilot). I waxed his butt so many times when we flew air combat sim’s in real planes it wasn’t funny. We’re pulling almost 9g’s and he couldn’t take it. So, some people can make it and some can’t. We shouldn’t be discounted because of our sex. Just saying.
Sorry, Field Artillery is a Combat Arm.
Even in support, like the mess haul and truck driving, women fail, figure a liquid at roughly 8 lb.s per gallon, then look at mess hall pots, or a giant slab of beef, or a truck driver that can't lift the tire to replace it.
The military is mostly moving and lifting stuff, out in the country, and not on your own schedule.
Scenario: I can't give you enough time, but men are dying and the only thing that can save some of them and keep our front from collapsing is getting these supplies loaded back up on the trucks and moved through 30 miles of mud, fields, hills, and a creek before the counterattack, you will become infantry once there, until replaced.
The only help that I can give you is to offer you the option of a male crew, or a female crew, whichever you choose will be short handed, and they haven't slept in 3 days, and rations have been short for 6 weeks.