Women in combat, bad/good idea?

[TerraPrime]

in 2006 I spend 3 days with no food ample supply of water and long march's in hostile territory with over 35Kg on my back, present to me the women that can deal with this terms and I'll take her to my company

You're muddling your own argument.

You went from "there are no women who can do this" to "if you can find me one who can then I'll accept her."

Of course, the latter is the more reasonable approach.

The presence of female athletes who endurance for long-distance running will argue that there are some females who are likely to qualify for those conditions that you set out. Whether they want to join the military is another matter.

Not to mention, people have posted news articles with quotes from men in the armed services who said that they have witnessed female soldiers who performed at the same, or better, level as the male soldiers. So your objection was answered before you even raised it.

And if you think this is not an issue about penises and vaginas, you just haven't been reading this thread.

[OldLordPlumm]

very well

maby they can fit in an army which most of his operations are short termed or peacekeeping at best

but on a full scale war that most western countrys had not seen in a long time I doubt women could fit in infantry formation

I'll take Israel as an example...they could fit in light infantry units deployed in the area commonly reffered to as the west bank...or border patrols along the jordanian border...but I doubt they could fit in the heavy infantry\mountain infantry roles that a war in the golan\south lebanon would oppose

in 2006 I spend 3 days with no food ample supply of water and long march's in hostile territory with over 35Kg on my back, present to me the women that can deal with this terms and I'll take her to my company

Just for clarity mate if said woman existed, would you accept her? Or is your argument that such a woman does not exist in your opinion?

[TerraPrime]

Speaking of female capabilities....Anyone who thinks that women cannot be trained to lift heavy weights, etc., should spend some time looking into the plethora of female power lifters from all over the world. Bench-pressing about double of one's body weight are not unheard of. The Olympics for lifting in both clean-and-jerk and snatch also posted some very impressive numbers even in the qualifying rounds. This, of course, requires dedicated training and a high level of discipline, but it also demonstrates the top-end of the physical limit of female physiology.

This should lay to rest the idea that women simply cannot reach the limits needed for serving in whatever capacity. Women most assuredly can meet any physical demands. The question is whether those women who can would want to join the military or not.

[tzanth]

in 2006 I spend 3 days with no food ample supply of water and long march's in hostile territory with over 35Kg on my back, present to me the women that can deal with this terms and I'll take her to my company

Based on Datepalm's posts it seems like there already are plenty of such women in the IDF.

[King Nobody]

You're muddling your own argument.

You went from "there are no women who can do this" to "if you can find me one who can then I'll accept her."

No he's not. In his first post he said

true there are some women who are capble of it but not most of them...

So he has already acknowledged there are some women he believes are capable of it, he never said there were no women capable of it.

In his second post he is saying he doubts they can, but if there is one that can, he would accept her. Again, at no point did he flat out say they can't do it.

[TerraPrime]

No he's not.

Maybe you forgot his first post?

So my characterization of his sequence of post is correct: initially he said that no, he doesn't want them, and then he modified to say that he'll accept the ones who can pass the physical requirement.

[King Nobody]

Maybe you forgot his first post?

So my characterization of his sequence of post is correct: initially he said that no, he doesn't want them, and then he modified to say that he'll accept the ones who can pass the physical requirement.

You're muddling your own argument.

You went from "there are no women who can do this" to "if you can find me one who can then I'll accept her."

No Thank you.

as a former infantry man I wouldn't have wanted a female in our company...with all the progress and shit people tend to forget that women in the combat zone tend to be a liabillity

He also posted that 3 days ago. Why are you even arguing if not to change people's minds?

[OldLordPlumm]

He also posted that 3 days ago. Why are you even arguing if not to change people's minds?

I started this thread to learn from others by seeing what's on their minds. People can change their minds or clarify things. I asked him to clarify his opinion a few threads back, hopefully that will allow him to clear things up.

[Werthead]

but on a full scale war that most western countrys had not seen in a long time I doubt women could fit in infantry formation

I'll take Israel as an example...they could fit in light infantry units deployed in the area commonly reffered to as the west bank...or border patrols along the jordanian border...but I doubt they could fit in the heavy infantry\mountain infantry roles that a war in the golan\south lebanon would oppose

In WWII more than 800,000 women served in the Red Army, often fighting in conditions that make the worst combat conditions Israel has seen since 1948 look like a summer vacation in the Bahamas. They fought on the front lines, as fighter and bomber pilots, as snipers in elite formations, in tanks and in special forces operating hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. They fought in the largest urban battle of all time in Stalingrad, the most devastating siege of all time at Leningrad, the greatest armoured battle in history at Kursk, in the devastating fall of Kiev and Minsk, in the Battle of Moscow and the advance on Berlin, and they did it for five years. They had to lug their own equipment across hundreds of miles, they had to fight in mountains, hills, swamps, steppes, forests and urban areas, they put up with every single problem raised in this thread and more, and overcame them.

Lots of them couldn't withstand the pressure of events, lots of them died, just as many of their male counterparts couldn't take the pressure, and lots of them died as well. Similarly, thousands of them were decorated, such as the all-female bomber squadon known as the 'Night Witches' who flew 24,000 sorties and took part in the bombing of Berlin, who won 23 Heroes of the Soviet Union medals between them. Or the Soviet female snipers Lyudmila Pavlichenko, Nina Alexeyevna Lobkovskaya and Roza Yegorovna Shanina, who are the 5th, 6th and 7th most highly-decorated Russian snipers in history respectively.

Interestingly, in 1967 the Red Army apparently began a policy of favouring female recruits, since the female population of the USSR was larger than the male and they thus represented a larger potential recruit pool.

That's as much 'evidence' as I think anyone in this thread needs to show that women can fight as well as men under desperate circumstances, actually under considerably more desperate circumstances than anything any modern nation is likely to face, for considerably longer periods of time than will be called for by any modern conflict with considerably less resources than those available to almost any modern nation, certainly any Western nation.

[Relic]

In WWII more than 800,000 women served in the Red Army, often fighting in conditions that make the worst combat conditions Israel has seen since 1948 look like a summer vacation in the Bahamas. They fought on the front lines, as fighter and bomber pilots, as snipers in elite formations, in tanks and in special forces operating hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. They fought in the largest urban battle of all time in Stalingrad, the most devastating siege of all time at Leningrad, the greatest armoured battle in history at Kursk, in the devastating fall of Kiev and Minsk, in the Battle of Moscow and the advance on Berlin, and they did it for five years. They had to lug their own equipment across hundreds of miles, they had to fight in mountains, hills, swamps, steppes, forests and urban areas, they put up with every single problem raised in this thread and more, and overcame them.

yeah man, but russian women are like hardcore and shit.

[Werthead]

yeah man, but russian women are like hardcore and shit.

That actually raises a valid point. The women in the Red Army weren't just Russian either, they were Ukrainian, Kazakhs, Belarussians, Siberian and from every corner of the USSR as well. Even a lot of Poles fought alongside the Red Army (although I can't find references to Polish women doing so), although in a rather pissed-off manner after they failed to support the Warsaw Uprising.

So you can't cite Inherent Russian Badassery as the sole explanation here ;)

[Horza]

That actually raises a valid point. The women in the Red Army weren't just Russian either, they were Ukrainian, Kazakhs, Belarussians, Siberian and from every corner of the USSR as well. Even a lot of Poles fought alongside the Red Army (although I can't find references to Polish women doing so), although in a rather pissed-off manner after they failed to support the Warsaw Uprising.

So you can't cite Inherent Russian Badassery as the sole explanation here ;)

They were commies. Wert is trying to get us to admire communist hell-cats.

Why do you hate America, son?

[Relic]

although in a rather pissed-off manner after they failed to support the Warsaw Uprising.

Failed to support? Lol...that's one way of putting it...

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Lots of them couldn't hack it and lots of them died, just as many of their male counterparts couldn't hack it and lots of them died as well.

For the record, the dying did not necessarily have anything to do with not being able to hack it. That 105mm shell that's about to land on you doesn't care how in shape you are, or how good your aim is, or that you move like greased lightning, or that your Christian Faith makes you immune to PTSD (thank you, OSC).

I'm sure you weren't intending to imply that only pansies die in war, but, well, I thought it needed to be said anyway. Because I'm a tool like that.

[Werthead]

For the record, the dying did not necessarily have anything to do with not being able to hack it. That 105mm shell that's about to land on you doesn't care how in shape you are, or how good your aim is, or that you move like greased lightning, or that your Christian Faith makes you immune to PTSD (thank you, OSC).

I'm sure you weren't intending to imply that only pansies die in war, but, well, I thought it needed to be said anyway. Because I'm a tool like that.

Oh yeah, I meant that the people who couldn't take the pace (you know, of the most devastating land war ever fought so fair enough, I probably couldn't do it either) were of both sexes. Poor word choice on my part.

[tzanth]

Excellent posts, Wert. :thumbsup:

[Datepalm]

The women who fought in the Israeli war of Independence and started this whole "Israeli Soldier Chick" thing were probably overwhelmingly pretty radical leftie as well. Communist women are just cooler. It is known.

hnv - I agree about Lebanon, fwiw. (Right now anyway. I don't know if we could have hacked it in the last war - but the last war sucked - but I do know that our...dammit, sorry יכולת מבצעית has come forward in massive leaps and bounds over the past couple of years and i'm not certain we couldn't have hacked Lebanon either. I've seen a lot of girls who you would seriously not have expected it from get through startling bits of physical endurance, and thats without really having been pushed as far as we should have been during training. I'm not saying its not a strech, but frankly, we just don't know. Its not like i've never marched tens of km in gear - but it was never under war conditions.)

but...99% of the armys (and a lot of other armys) combat activities are exactly West Bank and Otef Gaza and so on. Which women are already serving in in various capacities and which youve already said you could see a mixed unit holding (which Karacal did in 03 in Qualquiliya for a bit, but that was checkpoints. And חילוץ והצלה were in Gush Atzion when I was in service, but i've no clue where they are now.)...so that pretty much puts you exactly where mixed units see themselves - I think we'll be content to move on to proving ourselves in the Bank or Gaza as a next step, then we'll see what happens in the next war when it happens.

האמת היה לי איזה זימון מילואים מונפץ לפעילות בגזרת יריחו, אבל זה קישקושים לעומת שגדוד מעורב יתפוס גזרה כמו שצריך בשטחים, שזה הצעד ההגיוני הבא מבחינת ההתפתחות של גדוד קרקל למשל, בעוד שנה-שנתיים. השאלה אם זה יקרה.

[hnv]

A/ You keep bringing on the women athlet and such...well these women trains for years to reach the status a normal infantry soldier has a training section of ~9 months...

the IDF tried to fit women in normal infantry training the overwhelming majority of them failed and snapped and their body realy suffered from bone breaking under stress and such

You mentioned Karkal battlion when I already said that women are able to serve in light infantry\peacekeeping roles...it's heavy infantry which is in question

regarding russian women in WW2, the conditions are bad but not so much on the physical matter, the red army used to send trops with a rifle\pistols so ammunition and not much else....plus russian women are HARDCORE :)

[Chaldanya]

hnv: Are you even reading Datepalm's posts? Or Lany's posts?

N

[Lyanna Stark]

regarding russian women in WW2, the conditions are bad but not so much on the physical matter, the red army used to send trops with a rifle\pistols so ammunition and not much else....plus russian women are HARDCORE :)

Oh yes, the rest of us are all delicate little flowers, right?

I wish you'd met some of the mountineer women I encountered. Their hobby was to run up very steep hills. And yes, they carried a lot of weight in the backpacks, slept on mountan outcrops and thought the midnight sun was great, cos that meant they didn't have to stop climbing during the night.

Clearly, they must have hidden their russian identity from me.