British Special Forces small arms 2017

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

Agreed and one of several reason I do not favour women in front line infantry units.

Hey !
I represent that remark !

As long as a female can meet the same physical standards as the males I don't see a problem (and only 10-25% can). I TOTALLY hate the idea of any sort of dual standards system.[/quote]

Originally Posted by DRG

OOPS....I hit "edit" instead of reply........my bad

[halstein]

In Norway we had "AG-gym", which was much the same as "pokey drill". AG-3 is the Norwegian licence-built H&K G-3. Gym is short for gymnastics, and it was often done to the chant "AG-gym er gøy", which translates to "AG-gymnastics are fun".

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Hey !
I represent that remark !

As long as a female can meet the same physical standards as the males I don't see a problem (and only 10-25% can). I TOTALLY hate the idea of any sort of dual standards system.

To get to start Officer/NCO training here in Norway, the minimum time for running 3000m is 14 min for men and 15 min for women. This is the same on all physical tests. (The qualifications and grading in Norwegian: https://forsvaret.no/karriere/krav/fysiske-krav)

[DRG]

Originally Posted by halstein

To get to start Officer/NCO training here in Norway, the minimum time for running 3000m is 14 min for men and 15 min for women. This is the same on all physical tests. (The qualifications and grading in Norwegian: https://forsvaret.no/karriere/krav/fysiske-krav)

suddenly I feel my age......

I was never a runner, even in my teens I'd finish a X-country at the back of the pack.....might have something to do with the wonky heart valve I was born with but that's been fixed and now I'm bionic

After I recovered from the open heart surgery and stroke I decided I didn't want to be quite as chubby as I had become so I set out to loose weight and because I am NOT a particularly patient person I went at it big time with a 1000 cal deficit diet...so if I burned 3000 cals I could eat 2000......it's hard to do but you get used to it ( so is self-flagellation I understand...)....6 months after my surgery I was 50 pounds lighter than I was when I started and I was walking 4km a day and that , at the time was a "big deal".....and I was even occasionally running 400-500 m at a stretch ( again.....a "big deal" for me)....this year I start going further....then further...then I FINALLY got off the Beta blockers and I started running 2km a day......now to put that into perspective I hadn't run a full 2km IN MY LIFE before that and in the last month I've run nearly 70 km and if ANYONE had suggested even 20 years ( even 40 ! ) ago that when I was 63 I'd be running 70 km a month I would have wondered where you were buying your drugs

Anyway..the POINT of all this was your "minimum time for running 3000m is 14 min"....... I have a ways to go to catch up to 20 year old Norwegians 14 minutes is a good time for me for 2km........3km in 14 minutes seems impossible ....but so did "running" in general not long ago

[IronDuke99]

There is a multi part documentary on YouTube about training future RN officers at Dartmouth (that I watched because my son is going there). These days the Royal Navy has a fair number of female officers (and ratings). It is called something like 'making an RN officer'.

During some of their training they do some Army type stuff on land, assault courses, PT, cross country marching, solving set problems in the field, etc. (although nothing very difficult by even average British Army infantry standards) They also do simulated ship damage control in flooding chambers, etc.

Now this being a modern TV show it goes out of its way to show the women officer trainees in a good light, but even so it is very plain that the women are all struggling with the more physically demanding stuff (and as I said most of it is not all that demanding by infantry standards) some of them really badly, despite the fact that the training staff are really going out of their way to help them. In the damage control stuff, battling against high pressure water that just keeps getting deeper, they were all next to entirely useless, with tears, etc. Frankly any damaged warship they are aboard that relies on them to save her will bloody well sink...

[IronDuke99]

In theory woman can now join the British Infantry but I don't think any have, as actual fighting soldiers. They are not allowed to join the Paras (I believe) and they are excluded from the Royal Marine Commandos (I know).

Why? Because those two elite forces are the most likely to actually be sent to fight someone...

[DRG]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

In theory woman can now join the British Infantry but I don't think any have, as actual fighting soldiers. They are not allowed to join the Paras (I believe) and they are excluded from the Royal Marine Commandos (I know).

Why? Because those two elite forces are the most likely to actually be sent to fight someone...

Yep......

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Hey !
I represent that remark !

As long as a female can meet the same physical standards as the males I don't see a problem (and only 10-25% can). I TOTALLY hate the idea of any sort of dual standards system.

Yeah well...the guys see it differently. A few thousand years of evolutionary attitudes to overcome and yes there are plenty of examples of women fighting in partisan units and there will ALWAYS be a small % of true amazon warriors out there but if I had a vote ( and I don't.... ) I'd keep women out of jobs that are within front line hand grenade range....there are plenty of jobs just as demanding that aren't frontline.

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Hey !
I represent that remark !

As long as a female can meet the same physical standards as the males I don't see a problem (and only 10-25% can). I TOTALLY hate the idea of any sort of dual standards system.

My point was a training NCO (unlike an enemy) simply could not ram a rifle barrel into a girls stomach in training, indeed even harsh words can lead a lot of women to tears.

Many years ago, I actually went out with a female British Army soldier, who shortly after women were made to start guarding their own bases in UK, told me that "she could not really shoot anyone."

I remember watching a TV documentary from Afghanistan in which a UK female (Sapper?) said that during firefights she would "get down on the ground and let the boys do their stuff."

The trouble is that they do tend to drop the standards: Women in the British Army for example being allowed to do 'knee' pushups!

The British Army have done extensive testing on women in infantry sections, all women and mixed sections both performed way below male only sections. My own belief is that there are a lot of roles women can fill in the military, but infantry soldiering is not one of them.

Anyway this is now a long way off topic.

[dmnt]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

The trouble is that they do tend to drop the standards: Women in the British Army for example being allowed to do 'knee' pushups!

I used to coach female athletes and from what I learned during the courses in coaching and the experience is that the rule "Women athletes achieve 90% of the strength level of men except for shoulder and arm strength where they achieve 67%."

The big question is if pushups are a good measure of combat readiness or if it is just strength training. If the latter, then knee pushups are fine although I personally never let my athletes do them if they were able to do real pushups.

I'm all for equal requirements as long as they relate to capability in combat.

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by dmnt

I used to coach female athletes and from what I learned during the courses in coaching and the experience is that the rule "Women athletes achieve 90% of the strength level of men except for shoulder and arm strength where they achieve 67%."

The big question is if pushups are a good measure of combat readiness or if it is just strength training. If the latter, then knee pushups are fine although I personally never let my athletes do them if they were able to do real pushups.

I'm all for equal requirements as long as they relate to capability in combat.

My view is you set a high standard and then you stick to it, for everyone. Anyone who cannot make that standard does not get in.

Trouble is that if recruitment is low due to no combat (and yes recruitment, to the British forces at any rate, is always actually higher when there is actual fighting going on somewhere. Operation 'stay in barracks' not being very exciting to young men) and/or a pay freeze, etc, they tend to lower standards, especially where women are concerned.

There is a reason that the more elite the military force the harder the training, in every way, is a unbreakable rule.

It is not just, or even mainly, about the physical, it is about searching for the mental breaking point where someone cannot take any more and just gives up. Evolution has not really fitted women for that, they have a very different evolutionary survival strategy. Neither is better, they are just very different.

In Ancient society - and to a more limited extent even today - men who lost in war mostly died. Women might end up enslaved, but they did not normally die, providing they 'changed sides' at the right point. You can even find evidence of this in what happened in WWII in Europe. You cannot just change millions of years of evolutionary psychology.