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Posted
7 hours ago, seahawk said:

Those are often remains of the conscription times, when you had plenty of young and able bodied males, that stayed for a short time. If you have soldiers staying on for years, you would learn that the knees won´t take it for years.

And not so abled bodies as I can attest, but plenty of bodies nevertheless. And women. If the human meets the requirement, fine, if he doesn't, kick him out. 

 

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Posted
17 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

And not so abled bodies as I can attest, but plenty of bodies nevertheless. And women. If the human meets the requirement, fine, if he doesn't, kick him out. 

 

Yes, but the requirements also need to adjust to changing realities. You could demand that conscripts do such a 10km run with the full load out every months, because they left after a limited time. If you would enforce this on a professional force, where soldiers stay decades, very few could meet this requirement after 10 years in the force, as their knees would no longer take it. I am against changing the requirements for gender reasons, but I am all for looking at it with the goal of protecting the health and fitness of long serving soldiers of every gender.

Posted
11 minutes ago, seahawk said:

Yes, but the requirements also need to adjust to changing realities. You could demand that conscripts do such a 10km run with the full load out every months, because they left after a limited time. If you would enforce this on a professional force, where soldiers stay decades, very few could meet this requirement after 10 years in the force, as their knees would no longer take it. I am against changing the requirements for gender reasons, but I am all for looking at it with the goal of protecting the health and fitness of long serving soldiers of every gender.

They do, but not necessarily for the best.

Ova'here academic and physical requirements have gone up and down depending on the number of volunteers, which is driven by the labor market, not by the needs of the force. If you can't attract people with money (always an issue) requirements are lower to increase the pool. When economy goes on recession and the salary again is competitive, requirements go up as the number of aplicants increase.

Needless to say, you need women to have an adequate size pool, so in the end, it's down to the unit to establish the standard and to raise the people to that standard if they fail to meet it, not Big Army.

Posted
8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Exactly.

 

So the British army needs no standards. Good to know. 

You need a scratch company for the latest show of British military support send the press gang down to some random train station in London, or Islington, conscript the first 100 folks off the tube on the spot, of all ages, sizes, types and put them in the army, with a rifle, a uniform, a pith helmet and send them down range to be infantry for a few months. No need to spend money on training, pt testing, or anything else. It'll be a nice random cross section, diverse, take from the finest of the nation's people and be equitable as well. Other countries drafted like that....why not the UL? 

Everything will be fine.

Posted

https://sofrep.com/news/army-ltc-to-troops-if-you-are-a-white-male-youre-part-of-the-problem/

Quote

LTC Andrew Rhodes the commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, is under scrutiny for remarks against white males made to his troops. The controversy began with screenshots of direct messages between the owner of an Instagram account @terminacwo, which is run by three former Army warrant officers, and soldiers serving in the 1-8 under LTC Rhodes.

https://humanevents.com/2021/06/09/behind-the-beret-battalion-commander-reportedly-tells-troops-white-people-are-part-of-the-problem/
 

Quote

 

 

Posted
On 6/4/2021 at 4:16 PM, rmgill said:

So the British army needs no standards. Good to know. 

You need a scratch company for the latest show of British military support send the press gang down to some random train station in London, or Islington, conscript the first 100 folks off the tube on the spot, of all ages, sizes, types and put them in the army, with a rifle, a uniform, a pith helmet and send them down range to be infantry for a few months. No need to spend money on training, pt testing, or anything else. It'll be a nice random cross section, diverse, take from the finest of the nation's people and be equitable as well. Other countries drafted like that....why not the UL? 

Everything will be fine.

And once again, you refuse to read what anyone else says and pretend they are making an argument that they are not, just so you can agree with it. Im not saying there should be no standards. Im saying there is a standard that should be met, by whatever gender, and it should be one that is high enough for the actual requirements, not to suit political demands of either gender.

How many times should I write it Ryan? How many times are you going to ignore it and pretend its the Loony left talking again and you are going to respond in rote? You guys have been doing this for the past 20 years and its got boring.

Posted
5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

And once again, you refuse to read what anyone else says and pretend they are making an argument that they are not, just so you can agree with it. Im not saying there should be no standards. Im saying there is a standard that should be met, by whatever gender, and it should be one that is high enough for the actual requirements, not to suit political demands of either gender.

How many times should I write it Ryan? How many times are you going to ignore it and pretend its the Loony left talking again and you are going to respond in rote? You guys have been doing this for the past 20 years and its got boring.

The problem appears to be that the original intention to maintain standards cannot be maintained and invariably turns into quotas in which standards are relaxed in order to fill them.   The delay between the two phases can be over the course of decades, but the one seems to follow the other at some interval.

 

Posted (edited)

Any standard of fitness has to be a compromise between what the military wants, and what it can realistically get. In WW1, the British Army had to downgrade its standard of fitness, because all the conscripts they were getting out of industrial areas didnt fit to the metric of what they wanted. Did it matter? No, not very much, because it turned out, nobody could outrun a Maxim gun anyway.

Most modern Armies are not great at getting recruits. Even Russia, with one of the proudest histories and loudest efforts to appeal to nationalism, simply cannot turn to an all contract force because hardly anybody wants to do it. Thats why they are embracing robotics. We all know the UK recently faced the British Army disolving, because the method of recruiting wasnt working. I dont doubt other Armies have exactly the same problem, because even now, there are much better paid jobs than joining the military.

Personally Id rather have a military made up half of women with a slightly (not massively) revised fitness standard, than I would empty billets. Which strikes me is the problem with all have.

Not all women will meet that standard, nor should they. But if they are interested in joining they will, and if they cant commit themselves to meeting that standard, its no loss.

 

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
Posted
1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Personally Id rather have a military made up half of women with a slightly (not massively) revised fitness standard, than I would empty billets. Which strikes me is the problem with all have.

It's not an either-or situation.  There are many ways to resolve the problem including better pay, recruiting foreign fighters, mercenaries, more AI systems, and more automation and firepower in general.  It is NOT clear that going to 50/50 male and female in combat units is a good solution.  It sounds on the face of it more like a fighting unit that also dates and a fighting unit that the public will not tolerate casualties or POW scenarios in as easily.

I can see some women in combat as being a force enhancer, because some women are much better than the average male at fighting.  I have a harder time seeing how or why a 50/50 force split in combat units is a good solution in comparison to any of the alternatives I listed.

Posted

I'm of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it mentality." My concern is people tweak for the sake of tweaking with the added benefit of saying how successful they were when they tweaked. 

I believe there will always be basics to soldiering, even if there are tasks your push button job in a military doesn't do everyday-- or even rarely to never. Part of that is a esprit de corp, belonging to a long running tradition. 

Push-ups, sit ups, a run, pull ups measure basic fitness only. Militaries should remember that. Road marches under weight are not simply fitness, but also gut checks. They serve multiple purposes; see the paragraph above. 

I am ok with with different standards for men and women because, at it is shown here (and everyone gets), physically women don't keep up with men. There are notable exceptions on both ends, but generally that is the case for 95% +. 

 

Posted
On 6/12/2021 at 8:04 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Personally Id rather have a military made up half of women with a slightly (not massively) revised fitness standard, than I would empty billets. Which strikes me is the problem with all have.

Not all women will meet that standard, nor should they. But if they are interested in joining they will, and if they cant commit themselves to meeting that standard, its no loss.

 

I am averse to any statement declaring the end goal is X% women or whatever, because if the measure of success is demographics not mission success, things will end badly. Which then creates a self-licking ice cream cone; who will volunteer if the probability of combat death or crippling injury is twice as high as before?

I believe success will come from properly designed standards, appropriate to MOS, combined with integrity. Keeping in mind that cooks and bottlewashers need to grab a rifle and get bloody, every so often.

 

Posted
12 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

I am averse to any statement declaring the end goal is X% women or whatever, because if the measure of success is demographics not mission success, things will end badly. Which then creates a self-licking ice cream cone; who will volunteer if the probability of combat death or crippling injury is twice as high as before?

I believe success will come from properly designed standards, appropriate to MOS, combined with integrity. Keeping in mind that cooks and bottlewashers need to grab a rifle and get bloody, every so often.

 

Yes, absolutely.  It has to been a balancing act between requirements and availabity of personnel. Politics shouldnt enter into it, and quite frankly, doesnt have to.

Posted
27 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Politics shouldnt enter into it, and quite frankly, doesnt have to.

...but it does. That's the whole point of the debate. You simply can't operate freely on the basis of pragmatism and sound principles. Yogi Berra summarized this perfectly with his quip

"In theory theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."

Posted

Yes, Its the ideal, and there is always some difference between the ideal and the achievable. OTOH if you are set right from the start on achieving Political principles and nothing else, you are likely going to get nothing else.

 

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