The first female Marines ever to complete infantry training

[Lagmonster]

Okay, so, from people who actually know things about military training, then - is this a significant milestone or accomplishment because what they achieved would be difficult for anyone who tried, or is this something that any healthy person could realistically pass, and it's noteworthy because they were allowed to attempt it at all?

[Knife]

The later, really if you can pass Marine Corps boot camp you can pass Infantry school. It's a mental thing, granted with a high physical level, more than anything.

[Patroklos]

On the other hand, if you point to a Stalingrad veteran or the hypothetical clone of one, and say "he or she is unfit to serve in the infantry..." well, arguably you've messed up your concept of what "fit to serve" means.

Although granted, that may simply signal that this person is not your first choice as a soldier, because others ARE that much more fit/trained/etc.

There are so many specific and unusual things about Stalingrad its ridiculous to use as a litmus test about what is or is not ideal for your normal soldier. Its as ridiculous as claiming Russian casualties at Berlin at the hands of the Volkstrum clearly showed that elderly men and prepubescent boys make great soldiers.

If you want Soviet era examples of female soldiers they had many regular units who participated in general engagements more typical of what you would expect of/train your ideal soldiers to perform to and relied far more on skills.

I have no doubt of the bravery of the various units of the Red Army at Stalingrad but bravery, skill, morale and most other martial skills are entirely irrelevant when you are being fed into a meat grinder with or without a rifle to simply act as speed bumps (the Uranus portions of Stalingrad are a different story). Similarly I don't doubt the bravery of an11l year old boy defending the Oder either, but simply unskillfully shooting into the general direction of the Russian onslaught when you have no possibility of escape or surrender is not what we should want our soldiers to aspire to. In both those situations luck was as likely to dictate your survival or effectiveness than anything else.

[Pelranius]

I think there were two ladies who tried last year (one of them got sick, I think ,and the other broke her ankle rather badly).

I think you're thinking of the infantry officers course.


They did not do very well.

Right, my bad.

Captain Petronio's argument was that women's health drop more precipitously in the field (she mentioned muscle mass loss and infertility), to boil her arguments down to a five second soundbite.

[spaceviking]

It pretty much is hilarious how people are claiming that surviving Stalingrad (what with its food shortages, no heating, freezing winter so cold that you could not touch any metal or it would rip your skin off) is not tough enough to get through US marches.

That was not what I meant to say. I am just saying that the improvements in human health and training likely make modern soldiers more capable than their predecessors. That being said, I assume if you took a Stalingrad solider fed them to modern standards and gave them modern training they would perform well.

[Zeropoint]

Hey, Lyudmila frickin' Pavlichenko was a woman, and it didn't stop her from being the third greatest sniper who ever lived, with 309 confirmed kills. The famed Carlos Hathcock? Only 93. ("only") Being a woman didn't seem to slow her down any.

[Zwinmar]

What I am trying to say is that:
1.) Heat + humidity effect people differently than cold does. Being constantly wet because your in a goddamn swamp also plays into it.
2.) Stalingrad has readily available shelter. The field, does not barring your poncho which you most likely will not be allowed to set up.
3.) The fleet makes SOI look like paintball/airsoft.
4.) Fuckfuck games ensue: ex. take the gear you have to carry, anywhere from 60 to 100+ lbs. then add on other bullshit that the Company C.O. thinks is a good idea with the excuse "you will have to carry ammo" namely 2 cardboard 60mm mortar tubes filled with sand (which promptly get soaked through) and whatever other ammo boxes (7.62 for instance) that they want you to carry up to the machinguns, I had 4. We were not able to drop our packs until after delivery and in our staging area.
5.) It does not matter, male or female, its going to suck.

If a female wants to go for, by all means, I don't give shit, and 'welcome to hell, hope you like the green weenie.'

[Tiriol]

What I am trying to say is that:
1.) Heat + humidity effect people differently than cold does. Being constantly wet because your in a goddamn swamp also plays into it.
2.) Stalingrad has readily available shelter. The field, does not barring your poncho which you most likely will not be allowed to set up.
3.) The fleet makes SOI look like paintball/airsoft.
4.) Fuckfuck games ensue: ex. take the gear you have to carry, anywhere from 60 to 100+ lbs. then add on other bullshit that the Company C.O. thinks is a good idea with the excuse "you will have to carry ammo" namely 2 cardboard 60mm mortar tubes filled with sand (which promptly get soaked through) and whatever other ammo boxes (7.62 for instance) that they want you to carry up to the machinguns, I had 4. We were not able to drop our packs until after delivery and in our staging area.
5.) It does not matter, male or female, its going to suck.

If a female wants to go for, by all means, I don't give shit, and 'welcome to hell, hope you like the green weenie.'

1.) And cold still affects people in adverse ways. It also fucks up a person's body and the level of fluids in it. People have been sweating their asses off in a temperatures that instantly froze their perspiration.
2.) Stalingrad had readily available shelters as in targets for enemy combatants and bombardment. How much will that shelter give comfort to you when it can be torn apart by an artillery shell in a moment's notice? Or be invaded by enemy soldiers who will, as Shroomy might say, murder-stab you to death?
3. ) And active combat zone with remorseless enemy who will kill you without any hesitation and probably won't take you as prisoner (nor do you have much incentive to allow yourself to be captured, unless you wish to be treated as a sub-human filth and shipped to some hellhole of a concentration camp/gulag) will make both things look and feel downright peachy, unless the trainers are actual murderous psychopaths (in which case there is something very wrong in the entire system).
4. ) And yet I presume you weren't under enemy fire, had nutrition before/after/during the whole ordeal and so on. And do you think that the Soviet or the German leaders gave a single fuck about their soldiers complaining about heavy gear if they were ordered to carry them? The most benevolent of them might have said "fine, stay behind then and see what the enemy will do to you", the more belligerent ones would simply go for the field execution.
5. ) Same goes for Stalingrad, even more so, since someone (a lot of them, actually) is actively trying to kill you in every manner imaginable.

I don't doubt for a second that training to become a Marine or any soldier is hard and sometimes hellish. I know that for a fact and I got it rather easy. However, to compare training, no matter how heavy and hard, to an actual battlefield, one of the most brutal ones the Western world has seen in fact... That just doesn't work.

[Ralin]

I don't doubt for a second that training to become a Marine or any soldier is hard and sometimes hellish. I know that for a fact and I got it rather easy. However, to compare training, no matter how heavy and hard, to an actual battlefield, one of the most brutal ones the Western world has seen in fact... That just doesn't work.

I think the point is that the training is hard, and hard in a way that doesn't necessarily sync up with what an actual battlefield demands. I'm sure we could design a physical regimen that would break most of the soldiers who served at Stalingrad too, because that's not what they had been trained and conditioned for. That doesn't detract from what they did and it doesn't mean that the Marines are better soldiers because of it.

[Simon_Jester]

There are so many specific and unusual things about Stalingrad its ridiculous to use as a litmus test about what is or is not ideal for your normal soldier.

I did not say ideal, I said that it should decisively prove the answer to the question "can they fight?" I am here talking not just about everyone who got killed at every point in the battle, but those who survived extended periods of urban warfare. Chalking that up to luck seems unreasonable, since it's not like the Soviets fought stupidly or mindlessly in Stalingrad.

[Grumman]

4.) Fuckfuck games ensue: ex. take the gear you have to carry, anywhere from 60 to 100+ lbs. then add on other bullshit that the Company C.O. thinks is a good idea with the excuse "you will have to carry ammo" namely 2 cardboard 60mm mortar tubes filled with sand (which promptly get soaked through) and whatever other ammo boxes (7.62 for instance) that they want you to carry up to the machinguns, I had 4. We were not able to drop our packs until after delivery and in our staging area.

4. ) And yet I presume you weren't under enemy fire, had nutrition before/after/during the whole ordeal and so on. And do you think that the Soviet or the German leaders gave a single fuck about their soldiers complaining about heavy gear if they were ordered to carry them? The most benevolent of them might have said "fine, stay behind then and see what the enemy will do to you", the more belligerent ones would simply go for the field execution.

But were they ordered to carry it? I was under the impression that the sorts of loads being forced on soldiers today was unprecedented - like 70 pounds above the recommended limits in some cases.

[Thanas]

Readily available shelter in stalingrad? Which would that be? The disease and rat-infested sewerage system (which became a lot less rat-infested once people and soldiers started eating them)? The houses of Stalingrad (bombed and shelled so hard by both parties that hardly anything was left standing) The active combat zones and makeshift bunkers where you were under constant stress and noise?

[Patroklos]

The issue here is which one is more physically demanding. Both are in their own ways but manuever warfare has a few demands that are not present in urban warfare while I can't think of any physical demand of urban warfare that isn't or can't be present in manuever warfare. If I am a half starved untrained Russian conscript I can sit in the same squalid bunker for months at a time shooting out of the same port down the same murder alley. I would have to endure all the horrors you just mentioned but my physical prowess is not particularly important in this scenario other than resisting disease. I am not picking on the Russians, the Germans immediatly opposite were basically in the same situation after mid battle.

I can't take that same person, teleport him to to the Uranus spearhead, and then expect him to do anything other than keel over and die after marching a few miles with heavy weapons, days worth of stores, etc. Not his fault, but weak from starvation or just not being physcially robust will prevent this person who was bravely and effectively defending a hundred square yards of Stalingrad rubble from keeping up with forces or maitaining himself in the open field. On the other hand, someone with the physical ability to last at Kursk could do everything required at Stalingrad assuming both these people had the same mental toughness.

You train the more demanding physical requirement or manuever warfare, just like you would train to metal requirements of the more demanding Stalingrad (which is not necessarily true, there is no reason urban warfare has to be more mentally demanding than open terrain warfare) so that your soldiers can do both.

[Spoonist]

What I am trying to say is that:
1.) Heat + humidity effect people differently than cold does. Being constantly wet because your in a goddamn swamp also plays into it.
2.) Stalingrad has readily available shelter. The field, does not barring your poncho which you most likely will not be allowed to set up.
3.) The fleet makes SOI look like paintball/airsoft.
4.) Fuckfuck games ensue: ex. take the gear you have to carry, anywhere from 60 to 100+ lbs. then add on other bullshit that the Company C.O. thinks is a good idea with the excuse "you will have to carry ammo" namely 2 cardboard 60mm mortar tubes filled with sand (which promptly get soaked through) and whatever other ammo boxes (7.62 for instance) that they want you to carry up to the machinguns, I had 4. We were not able to drop our packs until after delivery and in our staging area.
5.) It does not matter, male or female, its going to suck.

If a female wants to go for, by all means, I don't give shit, and 'welcome to hell, hope you like the green weenie.'

Why would you even try to explain what you were trying to say? We got it the first time.
You were comparing hardships in peace during training with active warfare.
You were comparing something with a drop-out rate to something with a higher casaulty rate.
We got that the first time around. Its par for the course when we who have done tours talk about what we have gone through. Especially jarheads. Its fine.

But please don't try to say something about something which you simply know very little about.
This is Stalingrad in 1943 - count the buildings still standing and figure out the percentage of available shelter:

This is the ground view:

Here is more if you wish:
http://www.wwii-photos-maps.com/aerialp ... index.html
Note that you cannot dig yourself cover even if you wanted the ground and rubble is frozen solid.

Mind you all of those buildings where not bombed. Instead a lot of the wooden ones were salvaged to burn, since all water and food sources like corpses also froze solid.

Also how much winter training/tours have you done? Even with good food supply I think most would prefer the Mojavo swamps any day over freezing conditions. It might not feel like that at the time but you should talk to some of those marines who went to Afghanistan and patrolled the mountains. Ask them see what they say. And that is a piece of cake compared to the winter of 42-43 even if you were away from the frontlines.
I don't think I could find anyone in uniform who'd prefer -30ºC to -40ºC living on 200g of stale bread a day. This since the body simply burns most of your intake trying badly to warm your body. And that is without factoring for the mental stuff.

[Patroklos]

Stalingrad or El Alamein aside, I would personally prefer extreme cold to extreme heat. I can make myself war with minimal technology and some basic resources, I can't make myself cool with the same ease.

[Spoonist]

Stalingrad or El Alamein aside, I would personally prefer extreme cold to extreme heat. I can make myself war with minimal technology and some basic resources, I can't make myself cool with the same ease.

So how much winter training have you had? Any survival training? With military gear and supply?

Lets start with the simple things, you lose your cognative abilities faster in cold than hot extremes. This since the body concentrates the bloodflow and heat to center mass instead of the brain. This makes units in extreme cold much more accident prone.
Sanitation is almost impossible to keep. Where and how to shit and piss becomes a logistical nightmare in (sub)arctic conditions.
Nicotine and alcohol is on the watchlist in extreme cold but not extreme heat, and for good reason. So the normal distractions of soldiers everywhere gets regulated.
Then you need about 25-50% more calories in cold, but only about 0-5% more calories in hot extremes (more salt etc due to sweating though).
Talking of sweat, if you are properly dressed to stay warm when exposed to extreme cold then you will automatically be improperly dressed to make any effort in extreme cold, since you will start sweating like a pig. Which means you will soon get very cold due to your clothing soaking. (Thank god for modern materials).
Add to that at (sub)arctic conditions like Stalingrad dehydration is just as bad as if in a desert. This since the cold removes the humidity from the air. And if you start to get dehydrated you will lose your appetite etc.
On top of that if you get a temperature related injury like heat stroke or frostbite, then your medic will be less likely to be able to treat you properly in cold than hot extremes. And the likelyhood of lasting or permanent injuries are higher with cold than hot extremes.
Also if you had a cold related injury you are more susceptible to more of the same even after treatment.
If you get a wound your mortality rate is much much higher in extreme cold than extreme hot. For example it takes about half the blood loss in extreme cold to kill you while in extreme heat the difference is singledigit %.
Then the best friend of any wounded soldier - morphine - is on the high risk list when in cold.
etc

Unless we are talking about jungle deployment. Rotting away in disease is worse then freezing any day.

http://www.med.navy.mil/directives/pub/5010-3.pdf
http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmcphc/Do ... juries.pdf
Looking at stats though, americans should not worry about cold injuries, the stats are very much higher for heat injuries. This due to natural geography. The only notable differences is if you get stationed in Alaska, Europe or Afghanistan. Yes being stationed in Germany is more likely to get you frostbite than being stationed in the great lakes area... ( like NAVSTA Great Lakes)

[aieeegrunt]

This thread went full retard pretty fast, but in an utterly unexpected direction

[Irbis]

It was pretty routine for us to be carrying between 100-130 lbs. of gear and moving, by just marching, 50 miles in three days.

Let's see, that 'static defensive' soviet soldiers did, to give one example, cover about 220 km in 5 days. Not in APCs with AC, MP3 players and such, but precisely on foot, covering every major river on the way by swimming through with all gear, which they did carry on their backs, yes. Red Army didn't have many trucks back then and they were mostly earmarked for needs of more important units than infantry.

Oh, and they did it against live 'lights & sound show' arranged courtesy by Wehrmacht, not occasional 'guvmint off mah lawn' redneck resistance.

That 50 miles does not take into account the other movement we did, just from point A to point B along a rode.

Like digging trenches and being bombed/bombarded/shot at the whole way?

On another note: my first six months with my unit in the fleet we ran 11 miles every week day (when not in the field), 11 fucking miles.

I am curious, did you try to sleep at -40 degrees in trench wearing only wool coat on your back with at best thin blanket for cover? For three months? Without access to medicine other than vodka? While being wary of snipers and raiding parties trying to plant knife in your back or kidnap you for info?

You poor thing, you had it so much harder

Don't get me wrong, a static and/or guerrilla defense is demanding but certainly not in the same way that we had to move. Not to mention, we did this is hot, humid weather including out in the Mojave desert where as, unless I'm mistaken, Stalingrad took place during cooler months.

Stalingrad battle took place from August to February. For reference, Wolga plains around city reaches +40 degrees Celsius in July/August to below -30 in December/January. Entire battle was fought without consoles, couches, bottled water, climatization, MREs, or fuck, even running water and sanitation.

Yeah, Mojave today is so much worse.

[Gaidin]

Personally, I'm still trying to parse how a story about what seems to be functional test cases re: female infantry training devolved into the discussion it has. This went sort of nuts.

Good for the OP story though.

[Beowulf]

The question isn't whether females could fight in Stalingrad. The question is whether the average female could fight in Stalingrad. We know some were successful at combat. We don't know how many female soldiers there were that simply couldn't hack it. And above that, how many female soldiers did hack it for that period, but were destroyed by the experience (health problems severe enough that they weren't able to be productive members of society afterward). And of course, how those numbers compare to male soldiers.

[Elfdart]

Problem is that is is actually far too much for anybody. . .The army and marines are getting thousands of injuries a year just because of their gear

I remember reading somewhere that quite a few of the men killed in amphibious assaults in WW2 drowned because all the gear they were carrying made them sink like rocks. So maybe the "soldier/marine = pack mule" formula is an institutional problem.

[Mr. Coffee]

Personally, I'm still trying to parse how a story about what seems to be functional test cases re: female infantry training devolved into the discussion it has. This went sort of nuts.

Yeah, I blame the wannabe history professors that latch on to one comment and harp about that one little detail to the exclusion of all else. Welcome to SDN, where we can't see the forest because walking into trees repeatedly feels good, bro.

Seriously, SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT STALINGRAD ALREADY. Take that shit to goddamn History or someshit, jesus...

[Zinegata]

I have no doubt of the bravery of the various units of the Red Army at Stalingrad but bravery, skill, morale and most other martial skills are entirely irrelevant when you are being fed into a meat grinder with or without a rifle to simply act as speed bumps

Female soldiers in Stalingrad were not sent in without a rifle (much less most of the male soldiers. The Enemy at the Gates movie was just awful in this regard) as expendable conscripts. Most were actually assigned to second-line roles such as manning anti-aircraft guns, but in practice because of the desperate nature of the situation even the AA gunners ended up having to fight on the frontlines.

Then there's also the female sniper units, who were purposely trained to be frontline soldiers with some individual snipers being credited with 50+ kills. I really do not see how anyone can discount the combat effectiveness of women who fought in Stalingrad when some of them were actively killing large numbers of the enemy; particularly in comparison to boot camp where no killing of the enemy happens at all.

[madd0ct0r]

Welcome to SDN, where we can't see the forest because walking into trees repeatedly feels good, bro.

Coffee - you're sigged.

[Lonestar]

I remember reading somewhere that quite a few of the men killed in amphibious assaults in WW2 drowned because all the gear they were carrying made them sink like rocks. So maybe the "soldier/marine = pack mule" formula is an institutional problem.

The [U.S.] military is real big on coming up with new and exicitng backpacks that shave 60oz off, but are several liters bigger, and so the servicemen end up piling in another 30lbs worth of crap that may or may not be instructed to by their leadership.