Women in Combat: Science, Research, and a Common Sense Analysis

Should women serve in combat roles? This question seems to rear its head every few years, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Unfortunately, there is very little logic or evidence in this discussion. In this article, we will break down some great research, as well as offer a common sense method to determine just who is qualified to go into combat.

Before we get into the details of women in combat, I’m going to put a disclaimer out there in an attempt to avoid ridiculous comments and emails. A Warzone is not an equal opportunity environment. It will surely discriminate against the weak, slow, and unlucky. Only those with a reasonable chance of survival should be allowed into that toxic environment, period.

Should You Even Listen to Me?

If you read my bio, you’ll note that I served in the Marine Corps, and I did hold two military occupational specialities (MOS). I was a qualified Infantry Officer, and Ground Intelligence Officer. And I did deploy to Afghanistan. I think this gives me a unique perspective on this issue, as I’m dual qualified in a direct combat role, and a support role. I can appreciate what it takes to succeed in both.

I can tell you that the life style for each MOS was quite different. As a Ground Intel officer, I spent most of my day doing staff functions, reading reports, and planning intelligence operations. As an infantry officer, I spent a large portion of my day hiking with loads in excess of 100lbs, and I had to maintain proficiency with a wide variety of weapons, and combat tools like radios. Infantry life is 100 times more physically difficult.

However, this article isn’t going to be me spouting off about anecdotes from my time in the Marine Corps. If you’ve read anything from this website, you’ll know that I prefer to form my opinions based on logic, and data. Without further ado let’s get into the research.

Mixed Gender Combat Units vs. All Male Combat Units

When the DOD mandated that all ground combat roles open up to female service members, the Marine Corps did an incredibly comprehensive study where they compared performance of male infantry units, male non infantry units, and mixed gender units, in a wide variety of combats tasks. This study took months and years of work to plan and finish. It is extremely thorough. Here are the highlights from the study.

Key Points Integrating Women in Ground Combat Units

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• Overall: All-male squads, teams and crews demonstrated higher performance levels on 69%of tasks evaluated (93 of 134) as compared to gender-integrated squads, teams and crews. Gender-integrated teams performed better than their all-male counterparts on (2) events.
• Speed: All-male squads, regardless of infantry MOS, were faster than the gender-integrated squads in each tactical movement. The differences were more pronounced in infantry crew-served weapons specialties that carried the assault load plus the additional weight of crew-served weapons and ammunition.
• All-male 0311 (rifleman) infantry squads had better accuracy compared to gender integrated squads. There was a notable difference between genders for every individual weapons system (i.e. M4, M27, and M203) within the 0311 squads, except for the probability of hit & near miss with the M4.

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Given this initial information most folks would close the book and say that women should be kept out of ground combat roles, and specifically infantry roles right? Well one might draw that conclusion; however, that is missing some key detail that will be relevant. To better answer this question, we need to look at just how this study was carried out, and what real conclusions we can logically draw from it.

Marine Corps Ground Combat Integration Study

This study compared several groups in ground combat tasks. One group were traditional all male crews that performed tasks in their specific military occupational specialty. Another group was a mixed gender combat crew that contained men and women, generally one or two women per team or squad. The last group was composed of non infantry male Marines performing infantry tasks. This group was a control group as any difference between them and integrated women units would be up to physiology, not training, as neither they nor the women were school trained infantry men.

This timeline shows how this study came about. Crucially, they had several months of training for the female volunteers, for this experiment, in infantry tasks. This is important as an untrained person will always under perform a trained specialist in their field. Towards the end of the experiment, they moved to the evaluation phase where all personnel were moved to the 29 Palms desert warfare training area for the evaluated trials.

Marine Corps Evaluation Phase

The Marine Corps conducted numerous experiments, in the infantry field, and other ground combat fields like tanks, and artillery. I am not an expert in these fields. I will confine my analysis to the infantry field, which I know best, having been a Weapons Platoon Commander. Here is an example experiment that they ran. Don’t worry if you don’t understand all the acronyms. I will give you a quick overview, in plain language.

Infantry Live Fire Evaluation

All groups that participated in this event were allowed several rehearsals before they were officially evaluated. This allowed them to practice working as a team. It also allowed them to work out a viable plan so that any performance difference would be due to gender differences, not planning.

All groups began in the start area, wearing a combat load of 30 pounds. Machine gunners, Mortar men and Rocket men, were required to carry additional equipment associated with those weapon systems. This equipment includes base plates, tripods, and ammunition.

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All groups were required to move as quickly as possible from the start area to their assault position. Infantrymen were required to traverse an 8 foot wall, where as the mortars and rockets moved directly to their positions and set up their weapon systems. Researchers found that every single group that included women were slower to reach these positions. Machine gunners, with only 2 women per team, were 20% slower than males. However, for regular infantry, squads with 1 or 2 females were only 5% slower than an all male group.

Researchers noted that male Marines were better able to traverse the 8 foot wall. They universally took off their assault packs, and threw them over the wall. The female Marines could not do this unaided, and this slowed down the next phases of the assault.

Phase Two of the Assault

In this phase the supporting mortars and rockets began to engage their targets while the standard infantry units began to buddy rush for 300m. A buddy rush is a short 5-10m sprint forward, followed by a dive onto the ground to seek cover from incoming fire. While on the ground, Marines will engage targets, allowing other Marines to rush forward.

For those that haven’t done this, it is incredibly exhausting. Think of a weighted sprint, followed by a burpee for 300m, as fast as possible. In this portion of the operation, all groups were being judged by accurate hits, and near misses on the target. Check out the results below.

You can see that male, non infantry Marines, were actually slightly more accurate with M4 rifles. This was not statistically significant, but the bottom line is all male units, regardless of MOS, had an accuracy in the low 40% range. Females hit their targets only 28% of the time.

You can also see the other types of light machine guns and rifles decreased female accuracy as well. This is likely because the stock is actually too long for them, and the weight is too heavy. The M4 rifle is light, and has an adjustable stock, making it easier to shoot.

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Final Phase: Casualty Evacuation

In this final phase all groups were required to evacuate a simulated casualty dummy. These dummies were heavy, and the researchers found that integrated groups took longer, with women machine gunners taking 77% more time to evacuate the dummy.

Of note, it also took more Marines to evacuate the dummy. All male units often used one Marine to carry the casualty in a fireman’s carry. Mixed gender groups often needed several Marines to carry the dummy, slowing them down.

Other Key Findings

The complete study linked above is almost 1000 pages in length, and it covers many more evaluations than we have time to discuss here. I will save everyone some time and discuss a few other key findings.

Injuries

Injuries are a key component for any infantry unit. It is a rough, physically demanding life, and injures are more of a when, rather than an if. Researchers found that, during the evaluation phase, male Marines reported a 18.8% musculoskeletal injury rate, where as females reported a 40.5% musculoskeletal injury rate.

Often times this is something like a rolled ankle or a pulled back muscle. They will often heal with time, and they aren’t always permanent. However, the key take away here is that females reported more than double the injury rate. I can tell you from personal experience that the longer an operation goes on, the more likely that small injuries turn into injuries that stop combat operations, requiring evacuation. This figure indicates that given enough time an integrated unit would loose a significant amount of personnel through no action of the enemy!

Discussion: Should Women Become Infantrymen?

This is the question everyone is asking. Unfortunately it is the wrong question. Instead we need to ask, which women should become infantrymen? Anyone with a basic understanding of physiology knows that men, on average, are larger, stronger, and have better endurance than women, on average. In many ways this is actually irrelevant.

As a former platoon commander, I couldn’t haven given a rat’s ass how average or exceptional my Marines were. I cared if you were an asset to the team. I worked and trained with female Marines that could and regularly did kick most male Marine’s ass’s in terms of proficiency and physicality.

These women were a very small minority of female Marines, but I see no reason why they could not be sent to the same training schools that males went to. Provided that they completed the same tasks, they would have been an asset to the team.

A Common Sense Solution

Implement a reasonable physical fitness standard, based on the requirements of the job, and let anyone who can meet the standard succeed or fail on their own. The Marine Corps, and the military, needs a solid performance based standard, that is ruthlessly enforced. It is also up to our senior leaders not to water down that standard to allow any group of people a better chance of succeeding.

Combat is not an equal opportunity environment. How hard you try, or how bad you want something is irrelevant if you get yourself or someone else killed because you couldn’t meet a reasonable standard.

Final Thoughts

When I was in Afghanistan they started the Lioness program, where female Marines were integrated into front line combat units so they could speak with female Afghans, and children, as their culture did not allow outside males to talk to these groups of people.

Afghan women provided vast amounts of usable intelligence information and was only able to be gleaned from the battlefield with the help of female Marines. How much easier would this have been if infantry units already had women, who had done every bit of training the men had, already on their team? I can tell you from personal experience no combat unit wants to take on someone who is a liability. You have to baby sit them and they are less effective at their specific job.

In conflicts of the future women will need to play a role. They should not be kept away from dangerous jobs, out of some miss-placed sense of virtue. Women who pass the tests should be able to take part in any job they can qualify for.