M14 Forum

CPTKILLER

I watch the Military Channel with what looked like an all female IDF Merkava crew. The question to tankers, how do you feel about this?

As an old tanker, I have to wonder if the crew has the brute force body strength to pull off routine & non routine maintenance tasks. Also the loader is a job that requires a good strong crew member (I know, I had a short loader fearful of the the breech). I had to spend too much time watching my loader and running a tank company.

As far as shooting and similar skills, they are definitely capable. The next question is should crews be all female or mixed with men & women? I can see issues with either situation.

hammer 1

I saw the show youre talking about, Israel is a different country. Ive been there, twice, both through my uncle sam. There are women serving in front line infantry units also. Alot of them have seen combat in the roll, so I would say they can perform the task. They will keep up with the men on road marches, and alot of them, look very good when theyre doing it

TheTinMan

Remembered wrong, but I'd still be afraid of Israeli women with weapons if I were Muslim.

I remember hearing a long time ago that during the 6-Day War, the Arab infantry was most afraid of the female IDF units. Might not have been true but if you were an intelligent Muslim, wouldn't you be?

RAMMAC

Actually, until 2000, women were not allowed in the combat roles in the IDF except during the 1948 war when they had no choice but to allow women because they had no real national army at that time, they were a new country fighting to survive.

After the 1948 war they actually had a separate women's unit and it was considered to be a non-combat organization. Some women were caught in combat while performing their duties but they were not assigned combat functions, they were just trying to survive.

Since 2000 the IDF changed it's policy and will allow women to volunteer for most combat roles but there are still a few areas where they are not allowed.

Docmonkey

The US Army is Physical Test score based the IDF is "Task based". In the Israeli Army women have to perform the same task as the men to have the job. Which isnt to say that they are or aren't physically "in shape" its just to say that there are very pronounced physical limitations to the average female body.

The IDF gets around this by having a "commanders discretion" type clause and a much more stringent physical requirement for women to take on combat roles. Heck their PT requirements are much harder than US womens...

For all that in the IDF there are still roles that are just not open to them. Im sure that if a woman wanted it bad enough she could be an amazing tanker... its not just the ability to do the job, its all the other stuff that comes with it, the esprit de cour, the camaraderie, the bond that is more than friendship. It is not however clouded by the constant thought about how your tank commander fills a Tshirt or how your loader just looks like she could suck start a Harley. This is the reality of the human animal, men seek sex, and it always gets in the way.

Probably my only real issue with women in the US military is the double standard. They get promoted on a different scale than their male counterparts but they dont have to do the same job to the same standard. Its incredibly slanted towards women "getting to play soldier". If it only takes them 18 pushups to be fit enough to be in uniform why should a man have to do twice that for the same privilege... theres a real issue there.

RAMMAC

I know that I'm going to step on toes but I've got to say that it ain't just the military. Our society, in general, pretty much gives women a pass on a lot of standards just so they wont accuse us of sexual harassment.

GARRARD

One of my biggest gripes with "equality" is how women don't register for the draft. If equality was practiced in the truest sense of the word, I wouldn't have a problem with it but the fact of the matter is that women are asking for all of the perks and none of the responsibilities. And don't worry Docmonkey, next year females and males will have the same APFT standards.

RegularGolf

As a 19K, this has been brought up quite a bit since Army Times started reporting Combat Arms will be open to women. My honest opinion is as a tanker or a grunt, I guess less than 5% in the entire Army could hack it. I have doubts a woman could sling 120s round after round in a timely manner necessary to stay in the fight. I have doubts a woman could manage track work, let alone the rest of the gamut of PMCS. I have high doubts a woman could drag an injured driver out of the tank through the turret. And as mentioned, men will always see women in that sexual light, no matter what our leadership would have us believe. They will always be granted the double standard, the favoritism, and the edge when it comes to contested leadership positions. Believe me, I see all of it now in Iraq (involuntarily transferred from an armor company to an FSC); and yes, women are on our gun truck crews that do leave the wire and my opinion of them has not changed.

CPTKILLER

As a former tanker, I have to agree with all of the above. This goes from fixing a thrown track to lugging & mounting a .50 cal to humping rounds to loading and firing to evacuating a fellow crewman (crew person for the sensitive types) with a tank on fire and being shot at. Tanks are a unique world. The reality is that a woman would have to start as a loader and work her way up. I've had guys who couldn't hack it as a loader.

The 105 was tough enough, especially when put a double ammo crate on a tanks back deck. The 152mm shell and missile were fun on Sheridans. The 120 on today's tanks is key to what a loader has to deal with.

The closeness of most crews is critical. You end up sharing everything sooner or later from bad breath to food to uniforms to the old bad jokes. Everyone has to trust each other and make four work as one. In good crews, this is seldom a problem.

Docmonkey

Have they posted the new APFT regs yet? Im interested to see if they just drop mens to half of what they were or will they grandfather all the women that are already in under the old standard?

Im gonna have to go do some reading, this is the first I heard about the new APFT regs.

coloradosherpa

I have some thoughts on this, that are mostly similar to the opinions already expressed. As far as combat arms goes, I have no issues with women doing the jobs (provided they meet ALL standards the men have to). The 2 exceptions to this are Special Forces & Infantry. My reasoning for this is based on field hygiene (spelling?). I have serious doubts that a woman could hump (no pun intended) 6 or 8 miles into the field, dig a fighting position, live in it for a week or two with no shower of any kind, & then hump the same distance out. "Monkey butt", "fromunda cheese", leg/ass chaffe, & other hygiene issues are bad enough for men. I would think that they would be magnified for women & would make them a casualty quickly. There are some jobs they are just not meant for. And I also agree that ALL women in uniform should do the male pt test. I am sure that some women honestly believe they could handle field conditions. But let's be honest for a minute (please put on thick skin now), what most military folks (even most combat arms)call "the field" is a joke to the Infantry. The real "field" is a whole different kind of misery that I feel their bodies wouldn't tolerate well. If you only have one owman in a unit, is a man going to crawl into a sleeping bag with her to fend off hypothermia? Sounds silly but it happens all the time & is just one example. Is the unit going to do a special run out of the field when they get crotch rot? Is it fair to the other members of that squad to be a "man" down? Men would be told to take motrin, drink water, change their socks, & suck it up. Is a woman going to be spared carrying the M240B on ruck marches? Is that fair to the males?

GARRARD

You can read an article about the new PT test at http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/0...ew-pt-030411w/. The scoring scales won't be put out until at least October because they are still testing around the Army to get a baseline.

There was a discussion on NCO Net about women being able to join combat arms MOS's. I chimed in with how every time I go to an M2 range, almost all of the females and some of the guys can't even charge the M2 without putting a foot on the traversing bar and pulling with two hands. I also said that at the NCO academies, if you can even get a female to lug a machine gun to a FTX, she damn sure doesn't finish with it. Of course a few people didn't like what I said but I've been a grunt and now I'm maintenance so I've seen both sides. Like coloradosherpa said, support soldiers and grunts have very different ideas about what the field is. It seems to me like Congress wants women in combat arms more than women do.

willriskit

As in our service, the only way that any of the gender equity issues appear credible is if you lower your requirements to unacceptable levels and then fudge the results. In combat, the only thing that matters is which side gets to go through the pockets of the dead, stack their weapons and march the prisoners off after the fight. Anything else is irrelevant and nobody cares how politically correct the loser's personnel procedures were. Those factors are of interest only to historians. Women in tanks? Sure. Tanks are more comfortable than dumpsters and all you need is a smaller air mattress.

Semper Fi!

FLRon

Just curious, how much do those 120's weigh?

carpshooter

No-way , as the females must preform the same tasks as the males !