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The Red Army in WWII integrated hard as nails women into their army with what I think we can agree on, a great deal of success. They were tankers, infantry, and some of the top snipers were female. If the Soviets could do it, I think the Imperium could manage.

 Lynata wrote:
"Every male on the planet is stronger than every female on the planet, ever" is an utterly ridiculous statement to make ... and with the wording you have chosen to employ, you've just made it.

Well, that's certainly an easier argument to refute than the one I was actually making.

Perhaps I can rephrase it in a manner that's more clear, and less objectionable to you. "For a given level of physical conditioning, a man will have lower body fat percentage, better aerobic capacity, and higher physical strength in areas that are militarily useful, than a woman."

Feel free to argue against biology, though. May I suggest starting with abolishing separate male and female events in the Olympics?

 Lynata wrote:

Genosaurer wrote:The Israelis are a perfect example

Which is why I'm advocating not looking to the IDF, as a lot of people (apparently you included) do, but to nations such as Canada, Russia, Germany.

Which Canadian and German integrated combat units have actually been employed on the battlefield? I'm apparently not familiar with those examples.

 Lynata wrote:
Oh, and as far as the Imperial Guard is concerned - guess which real world army the Valhallans are modeled after, and what they thought about female troops.

You tell me. How many integrated or all-female rifle divisions did the WWII Soviet Army employ? I'll give you a hint - it rhymes with 'zero'. For bonus points, how many female troops were still serving in combatant roles in the Soviet armed forces in 1946?

Granted, women did serve in a variety of combat support roles attached to infantry units, including small numbers with mortar and machine-gun companies, considerably more with signals and anti-aircraft companies, and a tiny number in tank divisions. But as far as I know, the only modern army to employ women in an organized fashion in the actual line infantry role was the 1948 IDF. Even in their most desperate hour, Stavka never considered putting women into the infantry en masse.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Your logic is sound except for a big issue smack dab in the middle: Assuming 75 pounds of kit ignores the fact that we actually have weight figures for a lot of Guard gear from Dark Heresy (a loaded lasgun is about half the weight of a loaded M16. Fancy that.)[...]

The weight of an M-G Short Pattern Lasrifle is 2.3kg, per the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. A Lee-Enfield Rifle (which, I believe I mentioned, was not included in the 75 pounds of kit on a WWI British infantryman's webbing) was 3.9kg. Sure, somewhat lighter. That said, the same reference also describes the amount of gear a Guardsman is carrying ("Some details may differ from regiment to regiment but certain standardization exists.", from the intro paragraph). I'd say that unless you also anticipate equivalent weight savings in things like bayonets, hand grenades, entrenching tools, raincoats and mess kits, the 75kg looks to be pretty spot-on, as the Imperial Guardsman's kit is very similar to his 1914 British counterpart.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Not to mention: Forty thousand years of tradition, training, altered cultures, selective breeding experiments, and Emperor only knows what else is going on throughout the Imperium between its millions of worlds could potentially scrap the muscular differential before the weight of the kit starts to matter at all.

Well, we get to see a close-up of Cadian society in Malleus, and they don't seem to be described as terribly physically different from you and me. You know, apart from the fact that they're all totally insane.

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
When you need endless amounts of bodies to throw at the enemy, sex makes no difference.

Err, when you need endless amounts of bodies, you typically need women to be popping those bodies out. (Kreig being the notable exception.) The fact that Cadia can maintain a relatively steady population despite being the only thing between the Eye of Terror and the rest of the Imperium for centuries, given the typical casualty rates suffered by Imperial Guard regiments, should be a pretty strong indicator of what Cadian women spend the majority of their time doing.

Of course, GW has a long and proud history of ignoring logistics and other boring aspects of the setting in favor of rule-of-cool.

Are we saying that the Imperium is wrong for throwing women and children to die just as readily as it is adult men? Because I think having poorly trained children get eaten by carnifexes after their parents also get eviscerated by said rampaging nine ton monster to be darkly humorous. In the sense that it shows that the Imperial guard gives no feths.

Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
When you need endless amounts of bodies to throw at the enemy, sex makes no difference.


Err, when you need endless amounts of bodies, you typically need women to be popping those bodies out. (Kreig being the notable exception.) The fact that Cadia can maintain a relatively steady population despite being the only thing between the Eye of Terror and the rest of the Imperium for centuries, given the typical casualty rates suffered by Imperial Guard regiments, should be a pretty strong indicator of what Cadian women spend the majority of their time doing.

Of course, GW has a long and proud history of ignoring logistics and other boring aspects of the setting in favor of rule-of-cool.

Well Kreig uses women all them, you just can't tell under all there gear. And I be a krieg Guardsmen would make a Space marine blush because the guardsmen blocked all of his melee attacks.

The women that can't birth, Either to genetics or age or even just recently given birth probably get rotated into combat.

Edit: for quotes.

Genowhatever, do you honestly think that you are "similar" to a Cadian?

Tell me, did you clean your gun before you were able to walk? Did you get drafted in to combat before you became a teenager? Did you participate in battles against daemons before you reached puberty? Did you participate in a military fitness and training regimen starting from the day you could walk? Do you come from a culture where there is no such thing as being a civilian?

Don't be ridiculous.

 Melissia wrote:
Genowhatever, do you honestly think that you are "similar" to a Cadian?

Tell me, did you clean your gun before you were able to walk? Did you get drafted in to combat before you became a teenager? Did you participate in battles against daemons before you reached puberty? Did you participate in a military fitness and training regimen starting from the day you could walk? Do you come from a culture where there is no such thing as being a civilian?

Don't be ridiculous.

Plus all the major "Model" worlds upon which other worlds often base their own tithed forces around have their guard units as their most major exports. It makes no sense to not double the amount of product you can send out, and in the case of mixed regiments, they can even self propagate as a gift to the Imperium that keeps on giving.

Which is something that is actually mentioned in the various Guard books even-- soldiers often do exactly that, and their children often join the unit when they're of age.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that some units have families where they have served several generations in a row all serving in the same unit without ever having set foot on their "homeworld". Now THAT is grimdark.

Genosaurer wrote:Perhaps I can rephrase it in a manner that's more clear, and less objectionable to you. "For a given level of physical conditioning, a man will have lower body fat percentage, better aerobic capacity, and higher physical strength in areas that are militarily useful, than a woman."

You're still missing the point - and make the mistake of placing entire population groups into neatly prearranged categories based on some artificial average.

Here's the thing, though - the military does not recruit this artificial average person. It recruits actual people. And actual people will have individual capabilities, which should be evaluated on an individual basis ... not gender, skin/hair/eye colour, ethnicity, or religion.

It's actually real simple, apply the same standards/requirements to everyone equally. If you're right, which I'm sure you still believe, you've got nothing to fear, no?

Genosaurer wrote:May I suggest starting with abolishing separate male and female events in the Olympics?

May I suggest separating African from other runners in the Olympics?

Actually, let me rephrase that. Why not drop the segregation? I think it could be interesting. And as I have just pointed out, the segregation of athletes based on biology is already applied unevenly.

Genosaurer wrote:Which Canadian and German integrated combat units have actually been employed on the battlefield? I'm apparently not familiar with those examples.

For Canada, the "Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry" would be a prominent example, as it had the first Canadian female combat soldier to be killed in the line of duty. Other names I dug up are the 12th Armoured Regiment and the Royal Canadian Regiment. To find examples such as these really isn't very hard with a bit of google-fu - the only thing that makes it a bit difficult is that the participation of female soldiers is only recorded whenever one of them dies or gets a medal.

For Germany, information such as this is a bit more difficult to find, as the Bundeswehr focuses more on patrols/protection, local training programs, reconstruction efforts and support for allied forces rather than fighting. Due to this, most units sent out would probably be considered support rather than combat. The unit where I served, "FlaRak Geschwader 2" of the 3rd Air Force Division, for example, is part of a NATO Quick Reaction Force, but it's just anti-air with some staff and ground protection elements.

I did, however, find this short report and this one about the first time a female German officer leads an infantry platoon in combat. Somebody did a translation here, in case you're interested.

Genosaurer wrote:You tell me. How many integrated or all-female rifle divisions did the WWII Soviet Army employ? I'll give you a hint - it rhymes with 'zero'.

This photo of the 62nd Stalingrad Army on the streets of Odessa says you're wrong about that. As does this statue of a famous female machine gunner in the 3rd Guard Shock Army's 21st Rifle Division.

As for all-female divisions ... I'll give you that, those existed "only" in WWI.

Genosaurer wrote:For bonus points, how many female troops were still serving in combatant roles in the Soviet armed forces in 1946?

What kind of question is this? Would you be able to name how many male troops did so?
But here's one example, a deputy commander of a bomber regiment (after WW2).

Genosaurer wrote:But as far as I know, the only modern army to employ women in an organized fashion in the actual line infantry role was the 1948 IDF.

Well, broaden your knowledge.
Use google, and/or read the British Army's analysis I posted earlier. Although out-of-date and thus missing at least one country that has since opened up to females in all positions (Australia), it is still an easy-to-digest overview of how many western militaries employ women in combat positions.

Or read about the female US soldiers which have been going on missions with infantry units, fighting side by side - at times unofficially, because the policy said they shouldn't, but the unit needed a combat medic and the only one on hand was a girl. Sure, you can debate that this doesn't count as "organised fashion". Yet I say "this is realism".

Seriously, this "attached =/= assigned" term-twisting was such a ridiculous show of conservatism. Using them because they're necessary, but then having the gall to go out and deny them the acknowledgement and claiming that "it's different", as if somehow a firefight wouldn't be a firefight unless only men are fighting.
It's a good example of an apparently deep-seated cultural issue, though.

Genosaurer wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Assuming 75 pounds of kit ignores the fact that we actually have weight figures for a lot of Guard gear from Dark Heresy (a loaded lasgun is about half the weight of a loaded M16)[...]

The weight of an M-G Short Pattern Lasrifle is 2.3kg, per the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. [...]

Please, don't get bogged down by conflicting details such as these. This is 40k. There is no uniform canon, and FFG's RPGs as well as Black Library's novels frequently contradict each other as well as Codex fluff. This includes the IIUP, which, in spite of being entertaining to read, is a bit laughable when you consider that the Guard Codex tells us that there are even regiments that go into battle with nothing but bows and spears. And the IIUP tells me that X pieces of socks etc are considered standard? Lulz.

It's no use pulling such examples for a discussion.

It is, however, valid to look at Cadians, and then look at Catachans, and debate how many Cadian men a Catachan woman can lift.

I think the answer is "All the Cadian men"... she can lift all the Cadian men.

So why are we moving modern time situations and such like to a game that happens 38 000 years from now where humanity is living under a monolithic, theocratic, feudal system?

Really, human life in the Imperium is cheaper than a Leman russ or hell, thanks to the Mechanicus, a simple lasgun.

As long as you got all the right bits at the right places and you're not a psyker, off into the meat grinder you go FOR THE EMPEROR!

..but if we are, the people in medieval times were surely more hardy than us, what with having none of the modern comfort and utilities and innovation we got. With the 40k mentality, it would still hold the same truth.
Cold? Go chop some wood.
Hungry? Kill that chicken, pluck it, remove the innards and cook it.
Want to work? Here's a hoe, go work that field, then here's a pouch of grain, go spread it around it, then here,s a scythe, go cut the wheat.
The lazy ones had a horse or ox to help'em.

Ok maybe not, but when your parents were soldiers, that for the few thousands generations before them, woman or men, you're soldier stock.
not perfect genetic à la Space Marine, but nature got it's way to make the next generation better as it goes along.

I'm surprised this thread still generates such controversy when it comes up. Especially since it always boils down to the same two things in the end every time.

1.) In modern militaries, for every front-line solder, there are nine other people in a direct support role. Cooks, orderlies, mechanics, staff officers, truck drivers, etc, etc. The list goes on and on of things that are necessary to the prosecution of warfare that don't involve getting bullets shot at you.

Women can do no end of necessary things that don't risk the Imperium's most precious advantage - the creation and utilization of an endless stream of manpower. Even if you do put a women's primary role as reproduction (which the Imperium clearly does, at least, on Cadia), and you need them to be in direct combat roles, then you're still not going to press them into conscript platoons and send them wave by wave to the front. You're going to make them members of artillery crews, spotter corps, and tank gunners and the like.

2.) You can't, in any way, tell gender when a person is covered by armor. No way, no how. Having models with breastplates molded to show boobs, and curvy hips under baggy fatigues is as hilarious as it is stupid.

Remember, everybody, this is what a female stormtrooper looks like:



And this is how GW models female tank drivers and hull gunners:



Thankfully, Game of Thrones has been out long enough that we can all just look at the television adaptation of Brienne of Tarth to see what a real warrior woman looks like.

Like a warrior. Not like a horny male fantasy with the pretense of armor.

Ailaros wrote:In modern militaries, for every front-line solder, there are nine other people in a direct support role. Cooks, orderlies, mechanics, staff officers, truck drivers, etc, etc. The list goes on and on of things that are necessary to the prosecution of warfare that don't involve getting bullets shot at you.

As mentioned earlier, I don't think the Imperial Guard works that way. The regiments need to be able to operate semi-independently (that is, not fighting independently, but they are completely cut-off from their homeworld and constantly merge with other elements for the duration of a campaign), and the support they really do need comes largely from the Mechanicus and the Imperial Navy.

The Cadians, being a more "modern" force than, say, the Attilans, surely have some dedicated support in their regiments - but entire units? Doubtful. And ten times as large as the actual fighting body? Here I'm calling shenanigans.

Ailaros wrote:Even if you do put a women's primary role as reproduction (which the Imperium clearly does, at least, on Cadia)

Citation required.

I think that one of the most important themes in 40k is that humans are the one resource the Imperium has more than enough to spare of. The average human life is worth absolutely nothing, which becomes evident when you read about stories such as Chenkov spending them more casually than he does artillery rounds. I don't see why it should be different for Cadia. Not with the Youth Armies, which - at least in GW's Codex fluff - we know young girls get conscripted into, and sent to the front lines.

It's one thing to dislike it, and even disregarding it and replacing it with one's own ideas is completely okay if one simply cannot deal with it, but I believe that when discussing such cases in the community it should be clearly pointed out that one's opinion diverges from the studio fluff rather than suggesting that this is what the books actually say. Out of common courtesy, as well as to avoid misrepresentation / unnecessary confusion.

Ailaros wrote:I'm surprised this thread still generates such controversy when it comes up. Especially since it always boils down to the same two things in the end every time.

Conviction, I suppose. Everyone is convinced of the correctness of their opinion, regardless of how much "evidence" is tossed around.
It would probably be better to not touch real world politics at all, but I guess it's a hard topic to avoid as people always tend to draw parallels between 40k and RL.

Distilled to its most basic element, it comes down to "do all Cadian soldiers need to be white males?" - to which I don't see why there should even be a discussion if we look solely at 40k as a setting.

Distilled to its most basic element, it comes down to "do all Cadian soldiers need to be white males?"

And a not-surprising number of people would answer "yes" to this.

 Melissia wrote:
Which is something that is actually mentioned in the various Guard books even-- soldiers often do exactly that, and their children often join the unit when they're of age.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that some units have families where they have served several generations in a row all serving in the same unit without ever having set foot on their "homeworld". Now THAT is grimdark.

I can now imagine a family picture of two married troopers with their daughter standing on top of a dead carnifex while the three of them are grinning goofily.

Lynata:I don’t have my book close-by but I have read in many places that on Cadia, recruitment rating and birth rates are almost one in the same.

I'll browse'em tongiht before going to my game.

In retrospect, this means nothing really; I mean no mother will nurse it's kids until whiteshielding, the kid will have school and such not every single child gets raised by thier own parent directly.

Again, that argument that we're having seems a bit silly.

That is like saying that since there's a black guy here and there on Catachan art, one can only come to the conclusion that Catachan is the only world where black people live.



Look! A Catachan Black Guy!
I ain't seems no Black Cadian, or Elysian, or Vahallian, or Talharnian, so black people must all come for that single death world! Of course, everything make sense now!

 Ailaros wrote:
I'm surprised this thread still generates such controversy when it comes up. Especially since it always boils down to the same two things in the end every time.

1.) In modern militaries, for every front-line solder, there are nine other people in a direct support role. Cooks, orderlies, mechanics, staff officers, truck drivers, etc, etc. The list goes on and on of things that are necessary to the prosecution of warfare that don't involve getting bullets shot at you.

Women can do no end of necessary things that don't risk the Imperium's most precious advantage - the creation and utilization of an endless stream of manpower. Even if you do put a women's primary role as reproduction (which the Imperium clearly does, at least, on Cadia), and you need them to be in direct combat roles, then you're still not going to press them into conscript platoons and send them wave by wave to the front. You're going to make them members of artillery crews, spotter corps, and tank gunners and the like.

Yep, and if child rearing has become state sponsored and monitored, introducing the ranks of Babymaker Third Class, and Chief Wetnurse Officer.

Either way, having a birth rate that is equal to the recruitment rate is logistically impossible. And like it was mentioned, you need far fewer trigger pullers than you need everything else, just to keep an army moving.

So, contrary to the idea of Cadia as some kind of female empowerment fantasy, it's probably the exact opposite. A ridiculously regimented social system where people are utilized according to their most ideal role. The problem with the fantasy of Cadian females being all gung-ho soldiery and bad ass, filling infantry roles, is that the ages for which a human being is best suited for military service, and when women are fit for child bearing, are almost identical. Thus if Cadia is maintaining a high birth rate to keep supplying the ground forces with troops, then somebody is actually having these babies at the same high rate. We've never heard any suggestion of there being abnormally high rates of multiple births, so instead the replacement rate for Cadian women must be very high. If they're having all these babies, they are spending less time actually soldiering (in the traditional sense). This is part of the reason women make less than ideal soldiers in real life too.

Cadia probably isn't the model for equal rights and equal opportunity for women. It's probably one of the most awful and oppressive environments for women possible, where they are reduced merely to vectors for reproduction and child development.

The IG does not have "support units". That's handled entirely by the bureaucrats of the Departmento Munitorum. There is no "laundry and bath specialist" MOS in the IG. There are no "DFAC" units. In the IG, every unit is a combat-arms unit.

As to Cadia... what do you think happens if, as happens with humans from time to time, the birth rate is such that the population starts trending female? What do they do with the excess girls? Keep them there as baby-makers? If this trend continues for even a decade... you've got a real problem. You're going to run out of men.

Cadia's military forces are mostly PDF, not an Imperial Guard. A well trained PDF on par with most IGuard units, but still a PDF. As such, their support units would be organic, not Munitorum, and... you guessed it, Cadian.

Ultimately, this requires a measure of common sense. For Cadia to function, it must make babies. If all of those babies eventually end up conscripted, and the age of conscription/service coincides directly with the age of reproductive viability, it means that reproduction has also become state controlled and administrated. The older women get, the higher the rates of miscarriage and genetic deviation/birth defect. So, it stands to reason that the women are being used as breeding stock when they are younger, rather than older. The best suited females would be making babies, and if there was a surplus, there will always be plenty of jobs that don't require the physical ability needed for front line service.

The idea that the IGuard is made only out of trigger pullers is ludicrous. Born out of the imaginations of people who don't know anything about the military, not can conceive why you want your second echelon communications and logistics types to still be fairly combat capable and militarily disciplined. Either way, if we hand-wave that idea about the Guard being all trigger pullers, it still remains irrelevant, since only a small percentage of Cadian units are IGuard, and the rest are PDF. Remember, it says the majority of the Cadian population is "under arms", not that they are infantry, and definitely not that they are Imperial Guard. Any member of the military is "under arms".

So, if one in ten go to the Interior Guard, then that leaves a huge hole for what happens to the rest of the population. It is never specified what the "recruitment rate" stands for. Departmento Munitorum is the parent command for the Imperial Guard.

The problem is, you guys are confusing recruitment for just the Imperial Guard. By its very definition, the Departmento Munitorum is a military unit as well, which means anyone conscripted into the Departmento Munitorum would also be being "recruited" as well.

The same holds true of men, however, too. The longer a man waits to have children, the more likely it is his children will be born with birth defects, autism, and other disorders.

As to the IG/DM split... it's what GW has provided us with. While it makes no sense from a perspective of an actual military organization... it is what it is.

And, no, the DM is not a military unit. It's a department of the bureaucracy that is the Imperium's body-politic. It holds 3 seats on the High Lords. It is, for example, the Department of Defense compared to the U.S. Marine Corps. The former is a government agency employing, in the majority, civilians, the other is a branch of military service.

And if the bulk of Cadia's military is PDF... it's a garrison unit, really. Cadia's military focus is on defending the Cadian Gate. They're not looking to launch attacks into the Eye of Terror, they're looking to defend Cadia from attacks launched out of the Eye.

What physical functions is a woman incapable of fulfilling in a garrison unit that a man can?

None.

Psienesis wrote:And if the bulk of Cadia's military is PDF...

As per the Codex:EoT, Cadia's Interior Guard only makes up 10% of its military. "One in every ten soldiers" is recruited into the PDF, regardless of achievements or personal capability.
Of course, the Shock Troops constantly rotate in and out of the Interior Guard, so the number of regiments stationed on Cadia is actually quite a bit larger than that; the 10% would just be the ones on permanent garrison duty.
Oh, and then you add the Youth Army Regional Commands on top of that.

The average Cadian's life probably goes like this:

Birth -> Basic Education -> Youth Army Conscription -> Assignment Lottery (PDF/IG)
if PDF, they'd probably get released into civilian life after 10-20 years of garrison duty to man the factories and raise families
if IG, they'd spend 10-20 years touring the stars until either settling down like their PDF-brethren, or father children along the way
... hence my previous comment about an influx of young non-native Cadian immigrants whenever a "mobile" regiment is once again inbound for Interior Guard reinforcement.


Jex: Aye, I remember that line. I think they even used the term "synonymous", although that is probably a bit of an abstraction. Even on Cadia, they likely have an oh-point-oh-oh-something percent rate of stillborn or kids dying in their first couple years. Probably too small to actually show in the statistics, though.

After checking my books, it appears there is no claim that Cadian women are being turned into baby factories.

From 3rd Ed Guard codex:

"Its population are all destined for military life; the birth rate and recruitment rate are synonymous."

Codex: Eye of Terror page 6, a nice little example of the training regiment Cadians goes through (form the eye of a Commissar, which form his words, was harder than any battles he fought in)

Only War corebook: no mention that women are breeding cows, but they do say that everyone, and that is ,*everyone*, is combat ready, even the rear echelon (in case the interior Guard falls)

And look what I found in the OW corebook and the supplement:

Cadian female Shock Trooper



Cadian female Officer.

No need for special flak armour to show they're female, this ain't the Sororitas y'know....

I like that art, it acknowledges that they're female while still being very practical and grimey.

I always did love the Only War art style.

Same here. Only War's art style is pretty great and I'll second Kain.

To weigh in my own opinion (which in this late night won't be eloquent), yes there will most certainly be Cadian female guardsman. Just happens to be the guardsman are all constipated guys. On a side note, I admit to being curious which of all the women models you consider are good Melissa. (Apologies for the rudeness it is quite late!)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/531581.page

Here's some examples of decent female soldier miniatures.

Psienesis wrote:What physical functions is a woman incapable of fulfilling in a garrison unit that a man can?

We aren't talking about Garrison duty like being assigned to Landstuhl, Germany, lol.

We'll let you know as soon as the first female makes it even a few months into the Infantry Officer's Course in the Marines. So far they've all be volunteers (which means they assumed they could make it and were in top physical form for women), and they all have failed.

 Psienesis wrote:
The same holds true of men, however, too. The longer a man waits to have children, the more likely it is his children will be born with birth defects, autism, and other disorders.

I'm going to let you in on something, since it appears you may be a virgin, and/or missed sex ed in school.

The man's involvement in the reproductive process is comparatively brief. For some guys, I imagine it is really, really brief. I don't want to attach any inappropriate links, but I'm pretty sure you can find some examples using Google.

And, no, the DM is not a military unit. It's a department of the bureaucracy that is the Imperium's body-politic. It holds 3 seats on the High Lords. It is, for example, the Department of Defense compared to the U.S. Marine Corps.

Except you, know, that the DoD is a government agency that employs little to no forces in the field. Which the DM does.


Like I said, you are free to make any kind of silly extrapolations you want. I've had enough of these discussions to know that believability is of little consequence to you guys, and that you'll be happy to go along with any extrapolation, no matter how unlikely, as long as it supports your preconceived notions of how you'd like it to be. /shrug.


However, the books, at no point, make any mention of what actually happens with conscripted civilians. Only that ~70% of the population is "under arms". Not "In the Imperial Guard". Not "In the PDF". Just "under arms", which is a generic term for personnel employed in a military capacity. One in ten goes to the Interior Guard. So we know that 10% of Cadians are PDF. We have no indication of what percentage goes to the Imperial Guard, but if it is 60% of the total population, Cadia would be unsustainable, lol.

So we know the following:
Cadian recruitment rate = birth rate.
Female reproductive viability age range = military age range

Because we know recruitment = birth, child rearing must be a state organized activity. Because we know that the age at which women need to be having children is identical to military ages, and we know that the ideal time for women to have kids is before 30, they would not be pushing the ideal reproducers into combat roles. Being pregnant and having a child makes a female soldier more or less worthless for an entire year, and at the end of the year, she is less capable than her male colleagues because she is less experienced (she's missed a year of effective and practical training). Hence there's no reason to push women into combat units because it is inefficient. If they are going to have 2-3 kids or more, by the time they are 30, they are going to have missed almost a quarter of the time served as their male colleagues.

So Cadia:
~70% "under arms"
10% PDF

That's it. Those are the numbers provided. A military organization cannot be all trigger pullers. It needs some kind of logistical support. Cadia also has a Navy. We have to assume the "under arms" applies to Naval personnel too. The Navy has manpower requirements to man the ships and provide maintenance crews for air/space craft etc. And we know that the PDF and any Guard units need rear echelon support. Now, we know that 70% of Cadia's population is "under arms". That remaining 30% we're going to have to assume includes the elderly, and other engaged in civic roles because they were retired from/ineligible for service, and other kinds of capacities. Certainly that remaining 30% isn't going to be the logistical backfill for the military forces. Now, we can roll with some kind of fantasy where the field units of Departmento Munitorum aren't a military force that would be "under arms", and we can roll with a fantasy where the DM would import people from other planets to support the Cadian PDF instead of just, you know, using the Cadians already there. But we're going to use our brains, and realize that since the books make no specific mention of what "under arms" means, and no specific designation for what/where these "under arms" Cadians go aside from that roughly 14% of them are PDF (10% of total, against 70% of total that are "under arms" just to help some of you with the math).

So recruitment rate = birth rate, mothers are recruited = child bearing/rearing is state sponsored and military in nature. 70%-14% = 56%.
56% is split between Navy, tithes to Imperial Guard, and... you (may not have) guessed it, combat support roles.

Supply. Planning. Maintenance. Babies.

This isn't to say that all females would become breeders. Certainly some would be identified as being more physically capable, and certainly there is no need for sterile women to be having babies. So can females be in the Imperial Guard/PDF performing combat roles? Sure. Can they on Cadia? Definitely. Is the Cadian PDF/IGuard likely to have a significant female presence in combat units? The exact opposite. Everything we know to be true about Cadia(and the Imperium as a whole) suggests not.

Now, if you leave out certain bits of logic, then sure, it's easy to come to the conclusion that Cadian females are this tough as nails, no-nonsense asskickers who lithely bounce from delivery room to the trenches. Assuming you know nothing about the life cycle of human beings, gestation periods, and ignore all of the fluff about the Imperium being and oppressive bureaucratic nightmare and Cadia being a heavily regimented planet where life is cheap and the supply of manpower being of absolutely crucial importance. I mean, after all, it makes perfect sense that if on Cadia, the most important resource is manpower, that the society would be open and Cadians would be super progressive and all about gender equality (aside from the Imperial standard of equally meaningless as individuals), and breaking gender roles and norms. It totally makes sense.

I do find it amusing that people are willing to throw all that out the window just to believe for a second that Cadia has this super sweet co-ed force just because somebody drew a picture of a Cadian female in an RPG book once and there was totally this chick in the Space Marine video game. (You know, that one chick out of hundreds of Guardsmen portrayed in the game).

But hey, some of you are girls, and I can see why you'd want to believe that. Others of you want your army of sexy girls, so I can see that too.

Now the practical side. "Only War", aside from being ridiculously bad as RPGs go, is a roleplaying game. They want to sell to a gender neutral market. Google "-4 Strength", lol. RPGs exist in a world where the players are exceptional. Exception. al. So sure, in Only War, characters can be lady soldiers and be just as capable as the men. You know, hauling around heavy flamers that are almost as big as they are. It makes sense. Given that RPGs exist to allow you to play idealized human beings by proxy.

"Only War", aside from being ridiculously bad as RPGs go

Ignoring your hilariously inaccurate rants in the rest of the post, I object to this. Only War is one of the best RPGs ever devised.

You can take your ad hominem attack and stick it in your ear.

Educate yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/health/fathers-age-is-linked-to-risk-of-autism-and-schizophrenia.html?_r=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/c/35320/63153/491833.html?d=dmtHMSContent

Well then someone think women should be in the kitchen making sandwiches for the boys or lying in their back with their eyes closed, thinking of England....