Evangelism can be emotionally and socially rewarding and the current politically correct view is that US infantry units should be promptly changed from all-male to mixed male-and-female. That would yield a lot of empirical data when those light infantry platoons and companies are inevitably committed to close quarter combat against adversary platoons and companies that are likely to be all-male. But if the empirical data is unfavourable, what costs will have been incurred and how long will it take to save face and then revert to ‘all-male’ light infantry ?
The proven path for military force development is to test before implementing. Statistical gaming is an alternative but in this case there is already so much PC and anti-PC opinion that computer models and their results would be suspect. In my opinion the viability of having females in light infantry units - operating without or with niceties such as exoskeletons - could be cheaply and appropriately tested in several series of ‘round-robin’ gridiron or ice hockey matches: each matching an all-male team against a male-female team with all teams in a ‘round-robin’ composed of all members from a pool of goodmale light infantry and all members of a somewhat smaller pool of pool of comprehensively trained females. For example, four series with six teams in each would require 60 matches which played at the rate of two per week would usefully test powers of endurance and recovery.
Is there an alternative way of testing human suitability for the basic all-purpose combat arm which has been on the winning and loosing sides throughout human history ? And seriously is it even necessary ? Recent history has shown that technological advances continue to be a sometime substitute for the aggressive, other instinctive and physiological capabilities of human light infantry. That history indicates also that females continue to coldly calculate that it is adviseable to avoid face-to-face combat against males. Females also somewhat similarly avoid integration into intensely male units.
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