Jesus H Christ Biggles, are you being deliberately obtuse?

A recent Army study showed that only 4.5% of females would pass the combat infantry course = approx 30 females a year. So the Army is *lowering* the standards but not to accommodate females it says, but to reduce the amount of injuries the current training would inflict on females as it recognises that men and women have different physiology. (Do you buy into that s**t?)

“We know that women are built differently to men — higher fat mass, less muscle mass, less cardio output, which leads to greater/quicker energy deficit than men and they have to work harder to achieve the same output,”

After months of research into the impact of frontline duty on the female body. The research found women were twice as likely to suffer musculoskeletal injuries during initial military training.

Army sources insist that any modified or new tests will not be designed simply to “satisfy a gender requirement”, but they will attempt to “drive down” the higher female injury rate.

Altering the army’s physical training, however, will prove controversial, with Colonel Richard Kemp, a former British commander in Afghanistan, warning that standards will fall. “You will have infantry soldiers who are less capable than they are today. I have spoken to people who are serving in the infantry who said that if women are allowed in, they will leave.”

But his comments were rejected by General Sir Nick Carter, chief of the general staff, who said: “I want to make it very clear that there will be no lowering of training or qualifying levels for soldiers in ground close combat roles.”

The selection tests for the elite Parachute Regiment and Royal Marines are also being examined to see whether they need to be updated. Only three women are believed to have passed the Royal Marines commando course and none has passed out of Pegasus Company, the Parachute Regiment’s selection unit. Katy Bray, 40, failed the marines’ course in 2002 during tests on the notorious “bottom field” assault course.

She struggled climbing a 6ft wall and up a 30ft rope while carrying full kit and a rifle. “I was good at rope climbing until I had the same weight as the blokes,” she said. Bray, now a GP, has “mixed feelings” about women serving in combat units and does not think the marines’ tests can be changed without lowering standards.

Colonel Stuart Tootal, a former commander of 3 Para, believes women will eventually pass the regiment’s selection tests, and says that these should not be changed.

The MoD said its review would ensure physical standards were “related to the required role rather than individual characteristics . . . No decisions have been taken and any claims of what this would involve are pure speculation.”

Like I said lowering the standard (for any group) is fundamentally flawed.

Posted By: Tombs, Sep 1, 19:02:51