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Also, on single sex regiments? In the Cain novels it’s presented as a way to prevent Regimental Babies, and indeed inappropriate connections between individual Guardsmen which may cloud judgement in combat. At least in the Valhallan tradition.

So not “wimmins am do restricted duties”.

One bythought that at least to me seems interesting: way back when I was conscripted in the Bundesweh small (< 1,65m) recruits were preferably selected for the tank battalions as it was always mentioned that they fit better into the tight spaces and a lot of jobs in the tanks don't really need a lot of strength. Now I don't know if the Leman Russ tank needs a sledgehammer to shift gears as it is sometimes half jokingly said about the T34 or if it is a smothely oiled machine that shifts gears by the touch of a fingertip, but theoritically if the sex dimorphism is still present in the 41st millenium, women could be very preferably as tankers.

Oh that’ll vary as well!

Specific model of the Leman Russ (chassis, not armanent), competence and diligence of your assigned Enginseers, availability of spares and repairs and holy unguents and that.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
One bythought that at least to me seems interesting: way back when I was conscripted in the Bundesweh small (< 1,65m) recruits were preferably selected for the tank battalions as it was always mentioned that they fit better into the tight spaces and a lot of jobs in the tanks don't really need a lot of strength. Now I don't know if the Leman Russ tank needs a sledgehammer to shift gears as it is sometimes half jokingly said about the T34 or if it is a smothely oiled machine that shifts gears by the touch of a fingertip, but theoritically if the sex dimorphism is still present in the 41st millenium, women could be very preferably as tankers.

So Girls und Panzer could literally be canon in 40k. This amuses me.
40k wouldn't be the first to touch on that concept. That was a plot point in the novel Starship Troopers, iirc, as most pilots were women as they were smaller and apparently could resist G-Forces better.

Israel already has some all female tank crews in their military.

On the issue of governor’s being forfeit, this will be subject to the usual level of corruption and politics. If it’s convenient to the powers that be, then poor tithe performance can be cited on the execution warrant. Otherwise, it will be conveniently glossed over.

It’s still something easily, well solved, I guess post initial recruitment.

Intense training regimens, Space Vitamins for muscle mass and increased bone density.

I mean, this is an Imperium where House Goliath can use chems and stims to turn a non-Goliath into a Goliath, or something close enough for their tastes, and done with a Clan House’s resources, which are tiny compared to a Governor’s resources.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s still something easily, well solved, I guess post initial recruitment.

Intense training regimens, Space Vitamins for muscle mass and increased bone density.

I mean, this is an Imperium where House Goliath can use chems and stims to turn a non-Goliath into a Goliath, or something close enough for their tastes, and done with a Clan House’s resources, which are tiny compared to a Governor’s resources.

Heck, you can leave the chems out of it (in case they're too hard to source promptly or whatever.) If you're going to pack a bunch of recruits onto a ship and making them spend months in transit, you may as well make them exercise and drill during the voyage.

 Flinty wrote:
On the issue of governor’s being forfeit, this will be subject to the usual level of corruption and politics. If it’s convenient to the powers that be, then poor tithe performance can be cited on the execution warrant. Otherwise, it will be conveniently glossed over.

Whilst there is undoubtedly lots of corruption and I am sure some governors successfully stay their execution through this, I suspect it is uncommon. Planetary governors are big fish in the small pond of a world, but on the scale of the Imperium they may as well be peons. Life is cheap for the Imperium. There are always more ambitious people willing to take the risks of power.

There are a number of examples of the Administratum appropriating entire worlds on a whim, such as the world of Rophanon. Planetary governors typically have little power beyond their own system, by design.

Worth noting that being assigned to a penal legion is considered an execution as the chances of living redemption are exceptionally slim. I suspect being assigned to command a penal legion would be a common punishment for a governor failing to supply a military tithe of sufficient quality.

I suspect for every one that is killed for providing a poor Tithe, there are others who get off the hook, go into hiding or turn to other forces for support (eg chaos - even without realising it until its too late).


It will vary a lot on the region of space and even with Warp travel its still slow. Some regions might well be quite isolated and thus the ruling powers more free to manipulate. Others might not be remote, but they provide critical resources/materials for a given region. Sure the tithe was poor quality and deserving of an execution, but that world is also producing all the arms and munitions for a vast region. Can you really risk the power vacuum, the power struggle and the chaos of changing the ruling powers? Remember whilst you might execute the figurehead; there's a whole administration, minor lords and other interested parties all below that. The jostling for power or the appointment of someone specific could spark internal stress and conflicts that could see the regions value plummet through internal turmoil.

 Overread wrote:
I suspect for every one that is killed for providing a poor Tithe, there are others who get off the hook, go into hiding or turn to other forces for support (eg chaos - even without realising it until its too late).


It will vary a lot on the region of space and even with Warp travel its still slow. Some regions might well be quite isolated and thus the ruling powers more free to manipulate. Others might not be remote, but they provide critical resources/materials for a given region. Sure the tithe was poor quality and deserving of an execution, but that world is also producing all the arms and munitions for a vast region. Can you really risk the power vacuum, the power struggle and the chaos of changing the ruling powers? Remember whilst you might execute the figurehead; there's a whole administration, minor lords and other interested parties all below that. The jostling for power or the appointment of someone specific could spark internal stress and conflicts that could see the regions value plummet through internal turmoil.

Yeah. I imagine that the quality of the tithed troops has to be really, really subpar for anyone to actually do anything about it. Especially anything requiring millitary action. Shooting a bit less accurately than the governor's personal private army probably isn't a big deal. And even if it was, you're probably better off sending a sternly-worded letter and maybe applying some soft pressure rather than diverting fleets and armies to weaken a planet's infrastructure and waste quality guard lives in hopes of the planet eventually tithing slightly higher quality soldiers down the road.

Does quality even matter that much? I mean, if you have an absurd population to work with like what the Imperium has, you can afford to play it a bit loose with quality control. Especially if you're a state that doesn't even care all that much for the masses' wellbeing. Like the IoM.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Does quality even matter that much? I mean, if you have an absurd population to work with like what the Imperium has, you can afford to play it a bit loose with quality control. Especially if you're a state that doesn't even care all that much for the masses' wellbeing. Like the IoM.

Well, there is a tension in the lore between the Imperium's supposedly vast and endless reserves of manpower, and the actual numbers of soldiers that seem to get deployed in major warzones (see the brief mention of the 3rd War for Armageddon earlier). Often the numbers of Imperial Guard troops are in the ballpark of millions at most, when individual worlds have the population to support billions under arms.

That would suggest* that there is some kind of bottleneck in recruitment. However, at that point, why not maximise quality of individual troopers where possible? But this isn't really supported by the lore on the Imperial Guard, where many are dregs not high quality troops.

Another possible reconciliation is that casualty rates are so insanely high that the Imperium cannot mass into the billions on a given day, but billions get fed through the grinder over the weeks and months. That doesn't really tally with the number of veteran units we see though.

Overall, the Imperium feels a bit like medieval feudal nations, in that surprisingly small armies fight for and control (proportionally) surprisingly large numbers of people. The peasants are, to a large extent, treated like property being fought over and not a military resource in their own right. Some of this historically was over concern of rebellion, so the Imperium may do the same and deliberately keep the majority of populations demilitarised to maintain their authoritarian control.


*Really it suggests a mistake on scale by the writers and/or a choice to keep numbers a bit more relatable to readers. But I think it is more fruitful and interesting to try and reconcile the lore we have than simply abandon it as "wrong".

I think the bottleneck is getting materiel mated up with the meat. I fall on the side of the lore writers struggling with scale and numbers rather than it being an in-universe problem in keeping large numbers of troops alive. There will be some war zones where life expectancy will be in minutes or hours, but on the other hand there will be war zones where it is the Imperial forces that are doing the kerb stomping for very little loss, or relatively benign garrison or pax-keeping duties.

The distances and numbers do certainly mess with the writers because the Imperium operates with numbers that are just so far removed from the real world that its very hard to calculate things sensibly.

As for bottlenecks I'd wager there are a few depending on the area. From not enough people in some (yes there's bodies but they are all employed in the manufacturing and farming industry that's supporting the war effort and the whole sector); to not enough transports to move material and people around; to not enough munitions to even political elements whereby one commander steals another's Tithe or such.



I would argue that quality is important, its just often secondary to quantity. It may also vary general to general. Some will have their elites already and just want cannon fodder; others will want for both and some might want for only quality and see the value in an elite army and just never get it.

Clearly the Imperium at large recognises that quality is important, which is why it has worlds like Catachan and Cadia and turns a blind eye to clones on the battlefield from Krieg. However it seems that its not an element the Imperium can muster at large over its whole expanse.

Being in a state of constant war also likely makes speed a limiting factor. Quality takes time and requires more input and sometimes the Imperium just needs an army at X location and can't wait years to train up the troops so they choke their enemy with a mass of bodies and munitions.

Ok, this is becoming enough of a discussion to warrant its own thread Will make a dedicated thread later today.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Does quality even matter that much? I mean, if you have an absurd population to work with like what the Imperium has, you can afford to play it a bit loose with quality control. Especially if you're a state that doesn't even care all that much for the masses' wellbeing. Like the IoM.

It’s also going to vary Regiment to Regiment.

Someone like Captain Chenkov, renowned for just sending in wave after wave is probably more concerned that you can catch enough bullets whilst the big boys do their stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And hey, remember, you only technically wasted lives if you lose.

As the old quote says?

Failure has no excuse, victory requires none.

 Haighus wrote:

Well, there is a tension in the lore between the Imperium's supposedly vast and endless reserves of manpower, and the actual numbers of soldiers that seem to get deployed in major warzones (see the brief mention of the 3rd War for Armageddon earlier). Often the numbers of Imperial Guard troops are in the ballpark of millions at most, when individual worlds have the population to support billions under arms.

Not really, the IoM's vast and endless reserves ensure that it is easy to replace guardsmen, but doesn't necesarilly means it can deploy vast endless armies because, well that is expensive.

There is only so much weapons, armor, food and space (in a space ship) to support and deploy the guardsmen. The IoM may have endless quatrillions/quintillions on paper, but it definetiely doesn't have endless logistics. Those are your bottlenecks.

Andykp wrote:

Spoiler:

 AldarionTelcontar wrote:

Andykp wrote:

 AldarionTelcontar wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I think there a lot of people over egging how high the standards are in the guard and the pdf.

To liken the pdf to a modern professional western army is a huge mistake. The pdf is much more like the territorial or reservist army. They famously in the setting aren’t that good. The bar for entry is pretty much being keen enough to do it.

The guard at least have semblance of professionalism about them but again it’s about numbers not quality. If a governor has to give a million able bodied people to the tithe the bar for entry again won’t be that high. All the fluff written of IG recruits has them being pretty poor and only toughened up and made good by experience.

As such recruiting women has no barriers at all in setting. And all the current guard books have a good number of women in most the regiments depicted.

It seems that a lot of people here are using real world “facts” that are really just thinly veiled misogynistic rhetoric to try and impose their world view on a fictional setting that is clearly now moving in a different direction, a direction that is much more inclusive.

Do you really think that "territorial" or "reservist" army is automatically crap?

No, they are not good IN THE SETTING. That doesn't mean that they are bad by real-life standards. I have read a lot of descriptions of PDF, and I can tell you that both historically and currently there were and are first world armies that are worse than typical depiction of PDF. Not every army is the US Army.

And at any rate, number of women in PDF was not something that was ever being discussed here. We are talking here about why women wouldn't be numerous in the Guard. If that is mysoginy to you, then reality is mysognistic. And Imperium isn't at peace, it doesn't have leave to just ignore reality or worry about the stuff like "inclusivity" the way modern-day First World nations do. Not that stuff like logic ever really mattered that much in the setting...

You want all-female or majority-female IG regiments? Sure, why not. Just have planets that send primarily or only their women to the army for cultural or practical reasons (an example I already provided - a mining world where men have to be employed as miners). But there is no way women would be a large proportion of Guard as a whole.

My point was real examples are irrelevant, and trying to use them as a reason to justify not having female soldiers in the imperial guard not only goes against the established lore, the model range and the clear direction gamesworkshop are taking the guard.

And yes I see your arguments as misogynistic because using real world misogyny as a reason for excluding women from a fictional setting kind of is. And as for reality being misogynistic, yeah it is, so let’s not double down on that by forcing it into fantasy fictional settings as well.

Thankfully gamesworkshop have seen the light and the obvious financial benefits from being more inclusive, but sadly the community is slower to catch up. As for the imperium, I’m not sure the imperium gives a damn about gender. The fact is every bit of guard fiction and lore for the last few years has including numerous women in the regiments in combat and command roles and it isn’t an issue to anyone in setting that they are there because it is normal.

So my reply to the original post is that there’s no need for segregated regiments anymore in universe because the guard doesn’t discriminate.

So whenever reality disagrees with your opinion, reality is misogynistic.

There are real, practical reasons for women not serving in combat roles. That is not misogyny. And just ignoring these issues does nobody any favor.

Again, there are ways around it. Introduce cultural reasons for why women would serve in the Guard despite all the practical issues. Give everybody power armor and thus make physical issues irrelevant.

But just pretending that these issues don't exist and that it is "all misogyny" is dumb AF.

*Im only going to reply to this post because I have clearly missed some stuff with gen deleted post and it fall out.*

It’s not reality disagreeing with my opinions. It’s your sexist arguments disagreeing with them, you are highlighting misogyny as reasons why women, in a fictional setting have to comply to certain tropes. And the key here is the word fictional. Using real world inequality and bias to apply arbitrary rules to a made up fantasy setting is reinforcing the bias and excluding people from the hobby.

Why you feel the need to do this is anyone’s guess and not a road I’m willing to go down, but I do believe we have a responsibility to call out this kind of passive prejudice if we are going to try and make the community less toxic.

My arguments are not sexist, unless you think reality is sexist. And if you do, then "sexism" is just a meaningless buzzword and I would ask you to stop using it.

Men and women are biologically and physically different, and these differences have effect on how capable they are of carrying out certain tasks - including in the military. And this means that, if standards are the same for everyone - as they should be - majority of soldiers in the Imperial Guard will be men.

That is a fact.

You want to have mixed regiments? Go for it. You want to have all female regiments? Go for it. You want to have all tankers be women? Why not - that one at least would make sense. But saying that there HAS to be 50% women in the Imperial Guard is just nonsensical.

And world being "fictional" does not give you a leave to just ignore such factors. When writing fiction, world is assumed to be the same as our own except where it is explicitly noted to be different. And if you want to do it, you need to provide some reason or explanation for it.

I mean, you don't assume that every single human in Narnia has psychic powers merely because the world is different from our own?

"Excluding people from the hobby" is just a BS brainless argument. Do you really think people cannot enjoy something unless they can literally insert themselves into the story? Are you going to say that Aesop's Fables are speciest, toxic and unrelatable because so many characters are animals? Because that is what your argument is.

I mean, I'm fine with mixed or all female regiments for the simple reason that I think it adds to the grimdark.
The idea of a state that throws everyone into the meat grinder equally out of sheer indifference is deliciously grimdark and ironic.
To paraphrase a certain gunnery sergeant :
"I do not look down on men, women, ratlings or ogryn. Here you're all equally worthless"

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I mean, I'm fine with mixed or all female regiments for the simple reason that I think it adds to the grimdark.
The idea of a state that throws everyone into the meat grinder equally out of sheer indifference is deliciously grimdark and ironic.
To paraphrase a certain gunnery sergeant :
"I do not look down on men, women, ratlings or ogryn. Here you're all equally worthless"

Yeah, that argument does make sense.

Even if you have standards where men are going to out perform women, how high is the bar? If the average man is at 6, and the average woman is at 5, does it mater if the guard only needs you at 3?

Sure, they would prefer an army full of 10s, but they get what they get and use them.

Welcome to the guard, here is your lasgun and flack vest. Go die for the Imperium.

There’s also gravity to consider.

Even a world with slightly higher gravity than Earth is going to produce stronger people.

We can also look to the Leagues of Votann once again to get an idea of just how rare a human like you or I might be.

See, the Kin aren’t the result of natural evolution. Oh no. Each and everyone is a custom job, gene edited by the Votann according to predicted or established need.

An entire race, billions strong, all genecrafted to some degree.

Now, I’ll be the first to say “that doesn’t mean all Abhumans are the result of the same at some point in their past”. But, it does raise the distinct possibility. And this is somewhat supported by House Goliath (a genetically crafted slave race, who may in fact be Abhumans, depending on who you ask).

And those are just the species and sub-species where such genetic tinkering is manifest and obvious. But it also shows such practice was likely widespread, and inherent to any colony that had a STC.

It also makes some level of sense. If you find a planet largely hospitable, but with higher gravity? No need to wait for the people to adapt the ol’ fashioned way. Oh no. Hook them up and edit dem genes.

High Gravity? Increase muscle mass and bone density to compensate. Less than optimal oxygen content? Maybe increase lung capacity or efficiency.

In time, you end up with a highly modified but now baseline human species. And as they travel off world, those edits intermingle, and the carefully selected traits begin to be passed on the ol’ fashioned way. And, provided the results are beneficial? Edits made 5, 6, 7, 8,000 years ago could very well be considered the norm within the Imperium.*

And so, we simply can’t point to modern humans and say “Imperial citizens would be the same”. Because that’s not what 39,000 or so years of stellar exploration and genetic tinkering would result in.

Add in a total lack of health and safety, and we can’t rule out food is regularly supplemented with steroids or similar to increase the strength of your population to ensure they are as efficient as possible at whatever manual labour they’re involved in.

Finally? It’s a completely different culture when it comes to taboos and that. It’s still relatively recently in western history that women have been allowed to serve. The Imperium, not taking into account the pre-Crusade era(s) has had a 10,000 year tradition of “if you can hold a gun, we’ll find a place for you”, entirely regardless of gender or colour or any of the other odd little taboos the modern world has.


*Another poster on another thread suggested this could explain why mankind is so prone to spontaneous mutation. Essentially there’s been so much genhancement over the years, not all mix well with each other, and our genome is fundamentally breached because of that. So it’s not necessarily going to be the Warp.

It is probably more like the average man is a 6, a woman a 4 and they need a 7 or 8. Just like in real life. A very fit woman or an above average fit man could reach the standard.

Just like in real life. If the quality of the soldiers is too low it isn't even worth it to equip or train them. Even if life is cheap, training, equipment and transport isn't as cheap.

Like there are minimum requirements for IQ for american soldiers since if it is too low they become a detriment rather than an asset. Even if it might seem like a guardsman just need to die with a lasgun in hand to be useful the Imperium probably expect those guardsmen to be useful in more important operations in those cases they aren't instantly vaporized. If they can only arm and transport a limited amount of soldiers then they would want those soldiers to have some standard or it would be a waste of valuable resources.

Anything that make women stronger and better soldiers in the 40k universe than modern earth is probably also making men stronger and better soldiers too. With a better starting point it could even be argued that they the difference in performance is even higher, rather than lower, in the Imperium. Without more detailed information we can't really assume much.

See above about baseline humans in the 41st Millennium, and why current humans are a poor benchmark.

Not really. The important part is rather the difference than the absolute values.

Women and men grow muscle at close to the same speed if you measure it in % from the amount of muscle they started with. The difference is that men have much higher body mass and a higher % of muscle compared to women so even though both men and women might add 1% of muscle each month the men are adding twice or more in absolute body mass in the same time period.

40k women might be better suited as soldiers than most men in our world. But that doesn't mean that they are equal to 40k men. Unless only women "improves" men should as well.

Men might have a lot of advantages when it comes to physical performance but that doesn't mean that men are superior to women overall. It isn't just muscle mass or endurance but the structure of bones, reaction speed and temperament. Men have worse colour perception but can estimate depth and speed better instead. One is more useful in one circumstance while the other more useful in another. Do 40k women have the same bone structure, eyes, body size, temperament and hormones running through them as the men so they can now compete physically as equals? Is that even making for better representation if the women now are 100% the same as men if we disregard which sex gives birth. Not sure if that is the way we want to go.

The problem rather stems from 40k being so war focused that the areas that women more naturally excel in are in the background. Perhaps GW should rather flesh out the world building a bit more and have less focus on the war aspect and give us more insight into the everyday life and machinations of the imperium. Give women more of a chance to be seen without making them more like men.

40k is a setting in which chainswords are viable weapons. It doesn't care about realism and all these biology related arguments are at best missing the point.

That being said all female regiments are already a thing in the lore so... I don't quite get the point of the OP.

Klickor wrote:It is probably more like the average man is a 6, a woman a 4 and they need a 7 or 8. Just like in real life.

Those are completely arbitrary numbers, and that's not even getting into:
1. Different standards of living across the Imperium
2. Societies which have vastly different cultures which affect recruitment (a population where women are trained in combat from an early age, for example)
3. The recruiting standards for an Imperial Guard regiment (which are notoriously unstandardised and frankly impossible to compare to "real life". After all, in real life, we don't have anything like the Salvar Chem-Dogs, do we?)

A very fit woman or an above average fit man could reach the standard.

Again, what standard? You don't know it. I don't know it. But there's absolutely no reason or evidence to believe that it's in any way comparable to what we know in the modern day, or even in a historical sense. 40k just ain't built for that.

Just like in real life.

We're not talking real life though. Because 40k is so drastically different from real life that it's not worth comparing. This is a setting where apparently humanity's greatest asset is it's vast uncounted armies, but apparently sends less troops than WWI to Armageddon.

If the quality of the soldiers is too low it isn't even worth it to equip or train them. Even if life is cheap, training, equipment and transport isn't as cheap.

If the transport's already going to that planet, and it's already loaded with armour and guns, and you already have training staff on the ship, you'll pick up whoever marches onto that ship if they're good enough. Having an army of soldiers you might not have expected is better than having an empty ship and not even any cannon fodder to feed to the enemy guns.

Like there are minimum requirements for IQ for american soldiers since if it is too low they become a detriment rather than an asset. Even if it might seem like a guardsman just need to die with a lasgun in hand to be useful the Imperium probably expect those guardsmen to be useful in more important operations in those cases they aren't instantly vaporized. If they can only arm and transport a limited amount of soldiers then they would want those soldiers to have some standard or it would be a waste of valuable resources.

Again, 40k isn't reality. You're looking at this from the lens of real world logics and standards. Forget that. The Imperium *doesn't care*. It doesn't need to. You seem to be under the impression that there's a limit on how many guardsmen they can transport, when it's more likely the other way around - too few transports for all the guardsmen they can recruit.

Anything that make women stronger and better soldiers in the 40k universe than modern earth is probably also making men stronger and better soldiers too. With a better starting point it could even be argued that they the difference in performance is even higher, rather than lower, in the Imperium. Without more detailed information we can't really assume much.

And yet you're assuming that the Imperium is operating under many of the logics that underpin modern militaries. What happened to "we can't really assume much"?

Here's the actual facts of the situation. The Imperium recruits women. In nearly all branches of the Imperium, women are recruited into the same positions as men: for labour, for admin, and for everything in between. We have no indication of a set standard that is either enforced, galactically applicable, or even what that standard of recruiting looks like. We have no idea how capable the Imperium (as a whole) expects its cannon fodder to be. We also know that the Imperium famously does not care massively about loss of life, and that it considers its considerable manpower to be one of it's greatest assets. We know for a fact that all-women regiments exist, just the same as all-men. We also know mixed-sex regiments exist.

Evidence suggests that if there is a standard of recruiting, women frequently surpass it. It also suggests that the Imperium doesn't care all that much about the preservation of the lives of its soldiers, irrespective of sex. These factors combined imply that the Imperium likely has very little distinguishing between who gets shipped off to die, so long as they meet some arbitrarily and sketchily defined standard, a standard which is clearly passable for entire regiments of women to be recruited.

Klickor wrote:Give women more of a chance to be seen without making them more like men.

Why would it be a problem if they were?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
40k is a setting in which chainswords are viable weapons. It doesn't care about realism and all these biology related arguments are at best missing the point.

That being said all female regiments are already a thing in the lore so... I don't quite get the point of the OP.

Nor do I. This feels a lot like people ignoring some very clearly stated aspects, or trying to sweep them under some sort of rug.

Not directly related, but I just recalled that in one of the arbites novels, a psyker tries to psychically attack a high-ranking arbite by making her think she's in an alternate version of her life where she's clumsy and out of shape, and her response is to start doing some exercises.

It's neither the guard nor even "reality." However, the implication is that a scenario where an arbite could be notably clumsy and out of shape (iirc I think the text may have suggested that she was a little pudgy in this scenario) was considered realistic to not be immediately illusion-shattering. I know that some specialized arbites have desk jobs, but I still feel like your average low-ranking arbite (which is what she was in this scenario) would still need to meet certain physical requirements. I'd be kind of surprised if those requirements weren't at least in the same ballpark as the requirements for the guard.

So if we're comfortable assuming arbites have requirements similar to the guard, and if being clumsy and out of shape isn't a disqualifier for being an arbites, then a reasonably in-shape woman probably meets the requirements for being in the guard.

Klickor wrote:

Like there are minimum requirements for IQ for american soldiers since if it is too low they become a detriment rather than an asset.

Incorrect. The ASVAB test is not an IQ test, it is designed to test your skills to determine what service you are best suited for. It is an aptitude test, not a test to try and evaluate general intelligence.

Also, the Coast Guard has the highest required score out of all the branches of the US military for arithmetic reasoning, math knowledge, and verbal expression.

Without more detailed information we can't really assume much.

This is hilarious considering your very first sentence was this assumption:

It is probably more like the average man is a 6, a woman a 4 and they need a 7 or 8. Just like in real life. A very fit woman or an above average fit man could reach the standard.

Also, citation needed for pretty much your whole post.