Women and the draft

[KrazyHorse]

You want people to have a certain hieght, marksmanship ability, etc before they can be drafted?

Not necessarily. Height used to be a requirement. Not sure about any more. I think it was 5'7. Kills off 90% of women if so. Secondly, marksmanship among women lags even after training. It's similar to muscular strength in that sense. You can't test for it immediately. You have to put money into training and only find out it was wasted 8 weeks later.

I cannot, however, imagine this equates to ten times the training cost.

Uhhhh...if you only graduate a tenth as many women as men, then yes, it does equate to ten times the training cost. You can't reject somebody after 2 weeks based on lack of progress in strength. You have to wait at least 6-8 weeks to see reasonable amounts of progress. Which is, coincidentally, near to the time it takes to pump out a soldier from basic training. And if your country is busy drafting people to go fight in some sort of national emergency, that's probably all the training they're going to get (well, maybe another 4 weeks of advanced infantry training if the situation's not too desperate.

I also have a hard time imagining there are not plenty of jobs in the military for whatever percentage the men and women who simply have a lower maximum muscle mass.

And most of these positions require little to no physical fitness at all. If you're going to be drafting people to sit in the rear with the gear, you don't really give a **** how weak they are or how badly they shoot, so why waste time training them to run and fire a rifle? If a draft comes down in a country like the US or Canada it's because the end of the world is at hand, and we need a fighting force lickety ****ing split. You don't waste time training a group of recruits in skills which 90+% of them will never use. If they're going to be quartermasters teach them to be quartermasters, not how to run 3 miles in 18 minutes or how to fire a rifle or how to hump their gear.

Finally, I think you are overestimating how many spots are going to be completely isolated from fighting. As dis said, there's already plenty of marginal male recruits to fill these spots (people who had a much better chance of making good soldiers, but ended up missing the grade) and more of these will be at least slightly better than most of the female soldiers. A conscript army tends to oversupply these, in fact, since a professional army is more interested in quality than quantity.

[KrazyHorse]

Basically, women could well be drafted if necessary, but barring extraordinary circumstances, most should be classified among the lower rungs of suitability for military service (combat military service, that is). All the objections you're raising can be raised against rejecting male candidates just because they have asthma or diabetes or some other health problem. Sure, some of them would make great soldiers. But why draft them when there's a much better pool of people still around. If you start to run out of the first group, then you might start thinking about some people lower down on the food chain.

Men in their 20s with no health problems are always going to be the first to go. After that come the slightly older men, the men with health problems and the women.

[Dis]

and of course there's the argument women don't make good mechanics either. . So their positions are limited. But they do good in supply and paperwork stuff. That's basically all they did in the navy. Even the female machinist mates.

[Flip McWho]

If ya wanna hear something kinda funny then the other day I was reading on a nz news website how that now that the population is getting fatter and less fitter maybe its time we dropped the tests to get into the police force to reflect the fact that the population is getting fatter and less fit. (this was brought about because increasing numbers of new recruits can't pass the fitness test)

Wonderful logic yes.

[Dis]

only if the criminals are getting fatter. Then you don't have to worry about losing foot chases.

[Sikander]

I agree with Krazy in that his facts are largely on target and he makes the utilitarian case very well. In a time where utility trumps everything it is best to ignore women until they begin to justify the effort (ie cheaper solutions have played out). I might add the rather huge discrepency in their remaining in the service in comparison to male service members, which increases the training costs even more. But in terms of citizenship I think that if some sort of national service requirement is put forward by the government, all citizens of similar circumstances should be eligible.

[Dis]

but of course if **** really hits the fan, and we start losing, and are in danger of losing the country, by all means. draft women. If that's all you have left.

The real question is whether the average woman would be better than the young or old. Which some nations such as germany had to resort to using at various times.

[AnnC]

I think testosterone level should be the deciding factor (if we had a draft), with high testosterone levels selected and low testosterone levels rejected.

That would exclude almost all women, and some men.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Basically, women could well be drafted if necessary, but barring extraordinary circumstances, most should be classified among the lower rungs of suitability for military service (combat military service, that is). All the objections you're raising can be raised against rejecting male candidates just because they have asthma or diabetes or some other health problem. Sure, some of them would make great soldiers. But why draft them when there's a much better pool of people still around. If you start to run out of the first group, then you might start thinking about some people lower down on the food chain.

Men in their 20s with no health problems are always going to be the first to go. After that come the slightly older men, the men with health problems and the women.

The crux of the matter it seems is just how much the additional cost would be. If you take a group of men and women, vs. only men, and choose the fittest among them, how much would it cost, either in quality or quantity of soldiers? I don't think anyone doubts there would be _some_ impact, but the question is it is a trivial one. All either of us have to go in is a sort of gut feeling, and anecdotal evidence. From my point of view, raw strength does not seem so important in the modern military, and with skills I strongly suspect any statistical difference is comparable to many other demographics you care to sort by.

[KrazyHorse]

From my point of view, raw strength does not seem so important in the modern military

The average soldier's combat load is ~80 lbs (and has been since the dawn of time). He is expected to both run over long distances and to sprint quickly while carting that around. His rifle weighs ~8 lbs while loaded. He may be expected to dig himself a foxhole at a moment's notice, to carry a wounded comrade or to unload a supply truck.

When, exactly, does brute physical strength not come into it?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by quantum_mechani
The crux of the matter it seems is just how much the additional cost would be. If you take a group of men and women, vs. only men, and choose the fittest among them, how much would it cost, either in quality or quantity of soldiers? I don't think anyone doubts there would be _some_ impact, but the question is it is a trivial one. All either of us have to go in is a sort of gut feeling, and anecdotal evidence. From my point of view, raw strength does not seem so important in the modern military, and with skills I strongly suspect any statistical difference is comparable to many other demographics you care to sort by.

It's important to be strong and have good stamina simply to haul around you body armor, weapons and any other equipment you need to do your job. Sure, there are office jobs etc., but a large portion of the force has to be able to operate in a combat environment.

[KrazyHorse]

I think we're on the same wavelength

[quantum_mechani]

Originally posted by Sikander


It's important to be strong and have good stamina simply to haul around you body armor, weapons and any other equipment you need to do your job.

Everyone has had different experiences I suppose, but in long term endurance I have not noticed much of any difference between men and women in similar shape. As for when short bursts of strength are needed, the question is how common and how critical they are, and how many women would be unable to accomplish them. Also keep in mind even if the distribution of men and women were 50/50, a large number of these occasions there is no need for _everyone_ to be at the top of the statistics in strength (i.e. I'll haul the wounded, you lay down covering fire).

Again, I'm hardly saying there would be no impact, but I also have a hard time imagining a unit made up of 50% fit and trained women would perform so much worse than one of 100% men.

[DaShi]

I voted no.

First they get the vote.

Now they get the draft.

Let's just hand over the whole country to them while we're at it.

[KrazyHorse]

but in long term endurance I have not noticed much of any difference between men and women in similar shape

~15% speed difference over all ranges (both endurance and sprinting)

And you've managed to completely ignore the weight of the gear.

80lbs is less than half the body weight of most men (who are stronger per pound than women) while it might be closer to 2/3 the weight of women in decent condition. If you increased the load of the men to 130+ lbs then you'd start to see a lot of them dropping from exhaustion. People aren't machines. They have limits. Women's limits are significantly lower than men's.

What do you take out of a woman's kit? Whose kit do you put it in? Why the **** should we add another worry into the minds of frontline soldiers and officers (making sure the women don't get bunched up and get ****ed when they need to dig themselves in or grab an ammunition case or drag their friend to safety)?