Re: Female armed forces changes.

This reflects my own opinion on the matter exactly.

Armed services personnel are of all sorts and many differing abilities. When I was in the RAF, there is no way I could possibly have achieved the physical requirements of the Marines or Paras, let alone the Special Forces!

My view is that women should be permitted entry to any branch of the armed forces providing that they can meet the entry requirements, which should never be compromised for politically correct reasons.

Re: Female armed forces changes.

Both my sons are in the Navy and both have been on active service either in the Gulf or turning back the hoards of refugees.

I would guestimate that up to one third of the crew of any RAN ship is female.

The defence force realised a long time ago that if they enforced their desired high standard of recruits then they would not have enough to keep the military up to strength unless they opened it up to females.

The helicopter pilot on my son's frigate in the Gulf was a female Lieutenant as was the navigator, on his current ship (an oiler) I would say there are even more females.

Neither of them have any problems with having female crewmen (?) or officers

Re: Female armed forces changes.

Woman are strong, and will do as well as the males, imo.

Re: Female armed forces changes.

Good grief, I was just reading the SAS selection for joining. I appreciate there are some really tough women in the forces but wonder if they would really have a chance of getting through. Just reading the stages they must go through would put me off immediately.

It says that on an average intake of 125 candidates in the SAS, the gruelling selection process will weed out all but 10.

It states that the first part is the hill stage that takes part in the Brecon Beacons and Black Hills of South Wales. It last for 3 weeks and candidates have to carry ever-increasingly heavy bergen over a series of long times hikes, without any encouragement or criticism from the supervising staff and ends with a 40 mile trek carrying a 55lb bergen. This has to be completed within 24 hours.

Stage 2 is Jungle Training. Those who manage to get through the first stage then have to travel to the deep jungles of Belize where they have to live for weeks at a time in 4-man teams, learning survival and patrolling in the harshest and most horrendous conditions.(whilst still keeping themselves and their kit in good condition). They are tested on mental as well as physical components.

If they are lucky enough to get through that, Stage 3 is the final stage. Escape & Evasion & Tactical Questioning. This is where they must know what to expect if a special ops goes wrong behind enemy lines, and what to expect if captured and interrogated.
One can only imagine what goes on with this stage but I bet it’s not nice at all.

It says they are only allowed to say the “big 4” name, rank, serial number and date of birth. Every other answer must be answered with “I’m sorry, but I cannot answer that question”. It Tricks and Humiliation then follows to make one talk, friendliness, screaming unfavourable remarks about the sexual habits of their mothers. Female interrogators may laugh at the size of their subject's manhood. Failure to reply with only the big 4 or the other answer means they are out of the selection with immediate effect.

Now, I would be the last person to say that a woman is incapable of doing what a man can do when it comes to the Forces, but….. I just cannot see it happening with respect to the SAS. If a woman is in a 4-man team hunkered down in camouflage in the jungle behind enemy lines, remember, this could be for weeks. how is she going to go to the toilet? She can’t exactly go off to have a pee behind a tree!! And what about her monthly?
I really feel disloyal asking such questions, but surely it would be a hinderance to men to have a woman with them as surely it is ingrained in men to protect a woman.
Would a woman be able to withstand a real interrogation from the enemy?

I hate to say it, but I don’t think they would. As much as how brave and resilient they have been. I say this as ex-forces but would never have lasted a minute having to go through anything like the above.

Re: Female armed forces changes.

I always think there is a reason men and women don't box each other, physically the strongest woman isn't as strong as the strongest man.

Re: Female armed forces changes.

I read somewhere that only one woman had applied to join the Australian special forces but, like the majority of male applicants, she had failed to pass the selection tests.

Re: Female armed forces changes.

The military PFT, (Personal fitness TEST) has been replaced by the PFA (Personal fitness ASSESSMENT) which is more of a fitness for role guide, each Corp/Regiment requires a different degree of fitness in order to carry out that role, a sort of horses for courses approach. The standard of fitness between a SAS Trooper and a Cyber warfare operator in the Corps of Signals is quite different.

Project Thor seems to have nailed this.

Quote from Combat, 2017; Soldier Magazine, May 2018 .

Re: Female armed forces changes.

aren't we forgetting a few basic human biology laws? - women and men have been 'designed' 'created' or 'evolved' differently. Men usually have more muscularta than women - men have more ' aggression hormones' than women - men together share different humor than women - women have been designed to produce offsprings and have a gentler more caring nature - usually - so all this garbage about equality in the forces is just pandering to the 'equality brigade'

yes men and women should be considered equal as humans and with human rights but this shouldn't mean they can always do the same job as each other - biologically producing offspring springs to mind as an impossible achievement for men. There are many jobs available in the armed forces that women are capable of doing but does that mean that the quieter, more sedentary jobs and less dangerous once should be reserved for women just to prove we are all equal in the forces??

if you can't pass the test then you don't join the rest ?

Re: Female armed forces changes.

Not quite on topic but very much related



An interesting article:

Dressed in green camouflage, a woman crouches by the edge of the Zambezi River.

Her task: to stop illegal elephant poachers — through might, mediation, or a combination of both.

In Zimbabwe, where conservation is increasingly a battlefield, a group of all-female anti-poaching rangers are on the frontline — protecting one of the world's largest elephant populations.

Known as Akashinga, the Shona phrase for "the brave ones", the anti-poaching group of 39 women are selected and trained by an Australian.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-...babwe/10418542

Re: Female armed forces changes.

That's great Bruce but what worries me is hand to hand combat. I can't imagine any woman doing well against a really fit determined man. As I said if we could we'd have mixed boxing matches and we just don't. I can't remember the woman's name but one female boxer tried it and said no matter how big and strong the women she had fought were she had never been hit as hard as an equal weight man hit her in the ring. We just aren't equipped for it.