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 Gitzbitah wrote:
Standard marine pack averages 90-135 pounds.http://archive.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20080122/NEWS/801220310/Downside-full-combat-load-examined

I couldn't find any reliable information on a Marine Scout Sniper standard weight loadout- anybody know how it compares?

I did find the recommended Army Ranger PFT-
12 pull ups, 80 sit ups and push ups in 2 minutes, 5 miles in under 35 minute, etc.
http://www.military.com/military-fitness/army-special-operations/army-ranger-pft

And the Scout Sniper perfect score PFT- 3 miles in under 18, 20 deadhang pull ups, 100 sit ups in under 2 minutes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Scout_Sniper

At a glance, it would appear that it is more physically demanding to become a sniper than it is to become a Ranger.
Thus, I suspect that very, very few individuals would be able to qualify, and I seriously doubt the Marines will drop those requirements in order to get less physically capable snipers that are out of action 6 times as much from injury- regardless of their courage or skill.

It just doesn't stand up to logic. There are many ways to serve the country, and the whole goal of the military is for it to use you in the way that you will most benefit it- not the way that will make you feel the best about it.

Gitz....you didn't post the perfect score for scout snipers in the USMC you posted the perfect score for Basic Marines SS or Scout Snipers do the same tests but they have "in house" tests that are much more grueling.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-intense-training-course-makes-us-marine-scout-snipers-the-deadliest-shots-on-earth-2015-2
(not much in that article except a 2nd source telling you USMC Scout Snipers are the best at what they do)

I mean, at this point why are we concentrating so hard on the females angle? Shouldn't anyone who wants a crack at Infantry get a shot?

Pre-existing medical conditions like say hemophilia or whatever shouldn't be a concern, just because there is a significantly higher chance for training injuries. I mean, if someone happens to be morbidly obese with bad knees, we should at least be willing to swear 'em in, fly 'em to basic, kit them out and give them the opportunity, right? Otherwise we are discriminating.

It actually costs a lot of money to send people to training. Like, a lot of money. Depending on your MOS, it can cost the government hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions of dollars, just to train someone. You have to be able to screen out people efficiently so you're not wasting millions of taxpayer dollars every training cycle. If you've got flat feet or scoliosis or the like, you pretty much get screened out because your odds of injury skyrocket. The purpose of the study is to get more information about how females perform under these circumstances in order to determine if enough women perform well enough that allowing women to attend the training is a reasonable investment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Ghaz, shouldn't you be commending them on their courage if they wish to fight on the front despite being so much more likely to suffer great injury than men are?

Combat isn't about participation metals or pats on the back for trying hard. If you're trying to justify it from that angle, you have a fundamentally wrong mindset.

Oh. I was being sarcastic, forgot to use the red font. Are we still doing that?

Hah, my bad. I work long hours so I tend to skip pages of discussion and sometimes miss context as a result.

 CptJake wrote:
Dogma picked at the main study and my comments on it, and his picking was based on feelings and anecdotal evidence about his experience training/working with trainers.

I also mentioned soldiers and athletes. I've worked with both, and there is some overlap there, but in both cases women seemed more likely to admit to an injury than men.

Hm. I hear you, guys. I shall wait with commenting further until new developments on the situation are announced.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Standard marine pack averages 90-135 pounds.http://archive.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20080122/NEWS/801220310/Downside-full-combat-load-examined

I couldn't find any reliable information on a Marine Scout Sniper standard weight loadout- anybody know how it compares?

I did find the recommended Army Ranger PFT-
12 pull ups, 80 sit ups and push ups in 2 minutes, 5 miles in under 35 minute, etc.
http://www.military.com/military-fitness/army-special-operations/army-ranger-pft

And the Scout Sniper perfect score PFT- 3 miles in under 18, 20 deadhang pull ups, 100 sit ups in under 2 minutes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Scout_Sniper

At a glance, it would appear that it is more physically demanding to become a sniper than it is to become a Ranger.
Thus, I suspect that very, very few individuals would be able to qualify, and I seriously doubt the Marines will drop those requirements in order to get less physically capable snipers that are out of action 6 times as much from injury- regardless of their courage or skill.

It just doesn't stand up to logic. There are many ways to serve the country, and the whole goal of the military is for it to use you in the way that you will most benefit it- not the way that will make you feel the best about it.

The following link is to an Army study, but it details load out by position for Infantry. It gives you an idea of what is carried in Afghanistan:

http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/modernwarriorload/ModernWarriorsCombatLoadReport.pdf

I don't think I ever went on a dismounted patrol with anything less then 90lbs and that was on a shorter ranged patrol (1 day). We once humped all our gear to a new OP 1 full days march away and had to set up a new COP, that was probably pushing 120-130lbs of gear a person and god help those poor buggers who got stuck carrying the 240s.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I don't think I ever went on a dismounted patrol with anything less then 90lbs and that was on a shorter ranged patrol (1 day). We once humped all our gear to a new OP 1 full days march away and had to set up a new COP, that was probably pushing 120-130lbs of gear a person and god help those poor buggers who got stuck carrying the 240s.

This may be a really dumb question but why couldn't you transport that gear in a vehicle?

Mountainous terrain? No roads? Roads chock full of IEDs? Doesn't take much imagination, and I'm no soldier.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Mountainous terrain? No roads? Roads chock full of IEDs? Doesn't make much imagination, and I'm no soldier.

All of these, and COIN operations operate on the premise of Dismounted patrols and engaging the locals directly. It is kind of hard to start a dialogue with someone from the passenger seat of an MRAP.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Mountainous terrain? No roads? Roads chock full of IEDs? Doesn't take much imagination, and I'm no soldier.

Aircraft?

Fly in the gear so your soldiers aren't bogged down by a load of weight if they come under enemy fire whilst moving to their position.

Soldiers walk, gear gets driven/flown. You can still interact with locals and you're not getting dragged down by a load of kit that will just be a hindrance if you actually end up in a combat situation.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Mountainous terrain? No roads? Roads chock full of IEDs? Doesn't take much imagination, and I'm no soldier.

Aircraft?

Fly in the gear so your soldiers aren't bogged down by a load of weight if they come under enemy fire whilst moving to their position.

Flying has its own hazards and again defeats the purpose of COIN operations. You can't engage in Key leader engagements if your troops are airborne.

Also you can't patrol from the air because if we could we wouldn't have an army anymore just an airforce.

Lastly, operations in deserts are extremely hard on aircraft and you don't waste them on useless maneuvers like dropping off gear because people were lazy

just saw your updated post, most of the gear you hump on a patrol is the stuff your going to need on a patrol, Extra ammunition, entrenching tool, body armor, sappi plates, food. For longer patrols that is viable but if you could have dropped them off at the area they needed to be in in the first place then why bother walking?

'Roads chocked full of IEDs' hints at a big part of the reason. Roads/known trails/natural lines of drift are things you want to avoid unless the mission dictates you travel them (which it may for a variety of reasons).

Additionally, in an Army (not mechanized) infantry company you have two organic vehicles, a hummer and a truck. The truck is used by the supply guys to move the heavy stuff (bring up water, ammo and so on) and the hummer is really the basis for the company CP, having the radios and C2 devices that bring situational awareness/intel/other data to the company and allow the company to send up reports/data (TIGR updates for example).

Guys can't ride vehicles they do not have. Many units draw M-ATVs or other MRAP type vehicles in theater, but as mentioned, those put a massive constraint on where you can operate as well as forcing you to incur a much larger logistics tail (and a larger perimeter to defend and so on) as you now need to worry about getting fuel and parts and the maintenance folks for your new trucks.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Mountainous terrain? No roads? Roads chock full of IEDs? Doesn't take much imagination, and I'm no soldier.

Aircraft?

Fly in the gear so your soldiers aren't bogged down by a load of weight if they come under enemy fire whilst moving to their position.

That's very expensive, relatively error prone and vulnerable to interference. That fact is with current technology there are just some situations where a bag strapped to a human body is the most efficient means of doing something.

Yeah, there are only so many blade hours you can count on, and ammo/water resupply to isolated COPs and Medevac are probably a BIT more important than lugging PFC Snuffy's ruck for him. Not to mention, Snuffy may well need the contents of that ruck at a point that the birds can't fly due to weather or maintenance downs.

Fair enough. I figured there would be reasons but was curious as to what they would be.

The desert wear and tear on aircraft plus the risk that somebody with a Stinger brings it down, losing you all your gear and the aircraft and crew seems like a big one.

Additional logistics also.

Thanks for the clarification, guys

You do bring up a good point though, do we NEED to have our guys patrolling as heavy as they do?

No great answer to that, it is (as they say) METT-TC* dependent.

We used to try to have an Objective Rally Point (ORP) where you could drop the rucks and move to the objective a lot lighter, but it increases need for security (you have to leave a couple guys to guard the ORP) and forces you to have to go back to the ORP (if not actually retracing your path at least going back to a known/maybe compromised position). And it only works for certain types of mission, and of course you still have to get your gak to the ORP by lugging it in on your back.

Some units for some missions may be able to have a cache site with water/ammo/medical supplies preset along a route (either infil or exfil) which may lighten your march loads, but again, it takes resources and planning to work, and it tends to be used VERY rarely by conventional forces for a variety of reasons.

We (and specifically I) used to be ruthless when it came to PCIs/PCCs to enforce load plan and make sure guys were not humping excess gak but did have all mission gear. Cutting ounces makes a difference.


*METT-TC mission, enemy, terrain and weather, troops and support available, time available, civil considerations

I was with scout snipers in 29 palms for awhile. I don't know how much weight we were carrying but it was more than I carried before. And I was an 0331.

 Chongara wrote:


Then you get people with the identical 4 months, and 2 years of A schooling program. You replicate everything exactly a person going into the experiment set. That's what a proper model is, you reproduce all important factors. Besides that's just one solution. If externalizing the tests is a non-starter, a longer timeline could be adopted internally. If they USMC can do 500 people per year, in 30 they'll have done 15,000.

No matter if it's females in general, or the USMC specifically the principles remain the same: Rational decisions are made on concrete data. Decisions made without concerete data are arbitrary. Where my government makes arbitrary decisions, I want them erring away from using class distinctions as a sole standard.

Soooooo, train civilians to be Marines so you can test them according to Marine standards in a test that is designed to measure combat effectiveness in mixed gender Marine units vs all male Marine units?

That doesn't make any sense at all.

The point of this test isn't to have a "proper model", its to measure the combat effectiveness of mixed gender Marine units. Taking non Marines (of any gender) and putting them in as test subjects isn't just illogical, its bad science.

Reading through this report, seeing some things that don't add up, most particularly:

A significant number of untrained men are more accurate than trained women.

How the *hell* did that happen?

Until we can see their methodology (which I have not been able to find) I have to question this report, since it seems to fly in the face of other countries studies.

Fatigue is likely the main factor in that. Its one thing to shoot while rested and relaxed. It's a completely different story to ruck 10 miles with a 90lb pack, then shoot.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Reading through this report, seeing some things that don't add up, most particularly:

A significant number of untrained men are more accurate than trained women.

How the *hell* did that happen?

Until we can see their methodology (which I have not been able to find) I have to question this report, since it seems to fly in the face of other countries studies.

The results of this study, and differences among similar studies conducted by other countries, are actually quite easy to explain.

American gun ownership is higher among males than females (3x as many men own guns as women). Younger US males are more likely to have firearms experience than women prior to military service (hunting, target shooting, etc.). Therefore they would be listed as "untrained" in that study - the summary operationalized this as "no formal training." So we're comparing an untrained but probably more experienced male sample against a trained but largely inexperienced female sample. No surprise that the guys could shoot better.

The Israelis found that women largely shoot better than men given equal training. Israeli teenagers don't typically touch firearms before the age of military service, making all subjects in that sample novices. In my own experience teaching men and women to shoot, women tend to actually listen to instruction whereas a lot of guys think that they already know what they're doing.

Furthermore, as someone with subject matter expertise in the Israel Defense Forces, I can say that in my unit, nearly all of our American immigrants and volunteers shot better than Israeli men and therefore were selected as calaim (sharpshooters), myself included. Europeans were not selected for this role. I'd been shooting since I was ~6 and during selection took the company record with a grouping of .3 cm at 25m using ironsights. The next top scores were all shot by Americans and the lone Russian. The rest of the calah positions were filled by the Israelis who could shoot straight (some could not, and some guys actually managed to miss the fething paper at 25 yards...these targets were printed on ~8x11 computer paper). Funny enough, nearly all of the Americans aced the fieldcraft, fitness, and marksmanship portions of the course, but failed the communications portions entirely because our Hebrew was generally atrocious (I couldn't even translate my score card) resulting in below average course scores.

So it's possible that, given equal levels of experience, women respond better to training. In fact, most instructors will support this with their own anecdotes. However, in the US we cannot assume that males and females will have equal prior firearms experience, and a lifetime of firearms experience may be superior to the standard of training provided by the military.

 DarkLink wrote:
Fatigue is likely the main factor in that. Its one thing to shoot while rested and relaxed. It's a completely different story to ruck 10 miles with a 90lb pack, then shoot.

You and nuggs have points, but until we see their methodology, we won't know.

The M2 being the exception for 'accuracy for crew weapons' though would call that into question, assuming the same methodology was used. Ma Duce weighs over 100 pounds with tripod.

The M2 also isn't shoulder fired. That actually backs up my theory, fatigue wouldn't have nearly the effect on a tripod based weapon as on a shoulder fired one.

 DarkLink wrote:
The M2 also isn't shoulder fired. That actually backs up my theory, fatigue wouldn't have nearly the effect on a tripod based weapon as on a shoulder fired one.

Depends what the other team weapons tested were (again, way too many unknowns here). M224 isn't shoulder fired either, for example, but I'll bet they tested it (and if they didn't, they should have).

Not really related to this story, but I wasn't sure if it is worth starting a new post over it:

But it appears that one of my Oklahoma congress critters is demanding that the Ranger school is handing over the training records of the two women that completed the program to make sure that they really deserved to graduate.

I'm sure he never bothered to check on a single guy that graduated.

 d-usa wrote:
Not really related to this story, but I wasn't sure if it is worth starting a new post over it:

But it appears that one of my Oklahoma congress critters is demanding that the Ranger school is handing over the training records of the two women that completed the program to make sure that they really deserved to graduate.

I'm sure he never bothered to check on a single guy that graduated.

I do want to point out that since standards for women are lower in military over there and many women (apparently) fail to do the male standards often he has a reason to be suspicious. If they turn out they passed normally like the males do then im sure he will say "nice work" and move on.

It's like hearing someone read out there rules for an army in a wargame and one sticks out as unusual compared to others so you say "hey can read that one, sounds different to the usual" and most people don't get upset because the person didn't ask to read every rule of your army too. It's just normal to want to verify anomalies.

In that context it'd be normal for her boss in whichever company she is going to after Ranger school to say "Wait what really? Can I see her results?".

d-usa is (if I understand correctly) talking about a member of his state's congress asking for results from someone in training for the federal army to "verify" it...for whatever ridiculous purpose that dropkick of a congressman has. Which doesn't affect him or the laws he passes, because Oklahoma doesn't control the US army (thank god), their training standards or anything related to this lass passing Ranger school.

Do you see the difference between that and your example with the army book?