Military May Lift Ban on Women in Submarines....
- Thread starter lesofprimus
- Start date
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Ferdinand Foch
Staff Sergeant
Hey, since a few of us have been discussing if a sub had an all-female crew, I figured that this could bring a very light look at this idea.
Hope no one is offended by this.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGqwh_0gUvY
Hope no one is offended by this.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGqwh_0gUvY
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
I looked at the title, and thought no way.....
Needless to say I had to click it, LMAO....Nice.
Needless to say I had to click it, LMAO....Nice.
evangilder
"Shooter"
This has got to be one of the worse ideas I have heard in a while out of the DOD. Tight quarters, no privacy and long deployments are the norm on a sub. Throw in mixed sexes and I see a lot more Navy pregnancies. I got one short hop in a Los Angeles class sub for a 2 week journey. That was enough for me.
Vassili Zaitzev
Master Sergeant
Wonder who thought of the idea to begin with?
- Thread starter
- #26
lesofprimus
Brigadier General
A woman???
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Les!
That was perfectly timed, bro!Having served aboard submarines my whole Navy enlistment, I will say this: IT. WILL. NOT. WORK. Period. There is simply NO extra room to accomodate a separate women's head facility, and while various class boats have one or two smaller off-the-beaten-path bunk areas, the tight quarters and close contact is going to be too much. Might as well load a bunch of lawyers and sexual-harassment suits in with the food....
Butters
Senior Airman
If this is what 'civilian'society wants, then the Navy will just have to adapt -just as it has adapted to other things that society wanted.
I'm sure that no one here is so naive as to believe that DOD policy is exclusively predicated on the maximization of warfighting capability. The military is not a culture that exists in isolation of civilian society,no matter that some might wish it were so. It draws its resources, both personel and material, from civilian society, and its very raison d'etre is to serve the needs and desires of that society. It's just how it is...
One thing that struck me is the large number of pregnancies on the ship that Les mentioned -what's the deal with this? Is the military going to have to incorporate lessons on how babies get made into their basic training regimens, or is there just some kind of naive, ideologically-driven institutional policy of 'Just Say No!", that precludes the access to contraceptives aboard ship?
Face it, people are gonna have sex whether it's 'allowed' or not. But that doesn't inevitably have to lead to mass pregnacies...
JL
I'm sure that no one here is so naive as to believe that DOD policy is exclusively predicated on the maximization of warfighting capability. The military is not a culture that exists in isolation of civilian society,no matter that some might wish it were so. It draws its resources, both personel and material, from civilian society, and its very raison d'etre is to serve the needs and desires of that society. It's just how it is...
One thing that struck me is the large number of pregnancies on the ship that Les mentioned -what's the deal with this? Is the military going to have to incorporate lessons on how babies get made into their basic training regimens, or is there just some kind of naive, ideologically-driven institutional policy of 'Just Say No!", that precludes the access to contraceptives aboard ship?
Face it, people are gonna have sex whether it's 'allowed' or not. But that doesn't inevitably have to lead to mass pregnacies...
JL
- Thread starter
- #29
lesofprimus
Brigadier General
The thing is with pregnancies is that once a woman gets pregnant, their life on sea duty is over....
Its sort of a way around the system... That and alot of em are too stupid to carry a condom with them...
And as far as a civilian society wanting this, the only ones I know of that "want" this are politicians and women...
Ill bet u 10,000 dollars not a single submariner wants this to happen....
Its sort of a way around the system... That and alot of em are too stupid to carry a condom with them...
And as far as a civilian society wanting this, the only ones I know of that "want" this are politicians and women...
Ill bet u 10,000 dollars not a single submariner wants this to happen....
You cant argue with the numbers.. Like Dan is pointing out there are a hell of a lot of pregnancies... and if 4 out of 10 get pregnant, that only means the other 4 were more careful... (with 2 being solely carpet munchers)
just think of all the interpersonal drama it represents.. competition, jealousy, hurt feelings... no place on a sub
just think of all the interpersonal drama it represents.. competition, jealousy, hurt feelings... no place on a sub
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RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
BTW, this threat/discussion has been going on since the early/mid '90s, when I was in, and according to a crusty old bastard of a chief that I had once, its been going on pretty much since women were allowed to be in the military (not just as WAVEs and WASPs). There are simply too many obstacles to making this happen, no matter how much certain groups may want to see it happen.
ToughOmbre
Senior Master Sergeant
Can't see it happening. No more than I could see women in a combat MOS (Infantry, Artillery, Armor).
TO
TO
Colin1
Senior Master Sergeant
I don't quite get your point in context with RA's
are you saying that it IS likely to happen?
I was acknowledging that as RA pointed out, it's a discussion that has been going on a long time but females in subs are a whole lot different than the military as a whole.
>>are you saying that it IS likely to happen?
i didnt
I sure hope not! If it does, it will be symbolic on a training sub.
.
Butters
Senior Airman
I was wondering if taking advantage of Navy policy had something to do with it. Guess so...
As far as 'who wants it' being restricted to politicians and women -well, politicians have to at least pay lip service to what their constituents want, and women DO make up at least 50% of the voting population.
And as for your little wager - Hmmm...seems to me that if I offer a bunch of submariners a thousand bucks to say that they'd like this to happen, at least one of'em will take me up on it. That leaves me with a cool nine grand easy money
All kidding aside, I don't see it as a good thing either. As Comiso points out, the drama and inevitable strife caused by cramming a bunch of horny, lonely men and women into a metal tube for months at a time, can only have a negative affect on the smooth operation of a submarine. But again, you have to convince the public that the cost of the decrease in military efficiency outweighs the benefits to those women who feel it is their constitutionally protected right to have equal access to ALL publicly financed jobs.
That the submariners may not like it is not the issue. They have to do what the public wants. That, or just quit and set up their own 'No Girls Allowed!" submarine club where they can pool their money to buy and maintain their own Boy's Only submarines. Not sure how that would work out. Those things are friggin' expensive! And if their wives won't even let them buy that big screen TV they keep beggin' for...
The submariners and others who oppose a co-ed sub policy have to do what their opposition does. Let their representatives know that when voting time comes around, they'll be voting for the people who support their viewpoint.
And please, before anyone starts flaming me for being a ACLU-card carrying socialist fem-nazi -I'm just playing the Devil's Advocate
JL
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Another thing those idiots in the "great white tower" aren't taking into consideration:
When a female soldier, sailor, airman, etc, gets pregnant, it takes an able-bodied person with all thier training and experience out of the service pool...meaning now they have to replace that person with another person with the same set of skills WHILE keeping the pregnant one "on the payroll" so to speak...
I can see women serving in close quarters like surface vessels, tanks, helos and similiar equipment where thier mission is of short duration, or accomodations that allow for free movement.
But not a sub...and I still say that the half-wit people pushing this stupid idea need to go aboard a sub and spend a few months at sea on a typical tour...
When a female soldier, sailor, airman, etc, gets pregnant, it takes an able-bodied person with all thier training and experience out of the service pool...meaning now they have to replace that person with another person with the same set of skills WHILE keeping the pregnant one "on the payroll" so to speak...
I can see women serving in close quarters like surface vessels, tanks, helos and similiar equipment where thier mission is of short duration, or accomodations that allow for free movement.
But not a sub...and I still say that the half-wit people pushing this stupid idea need to go aboard a sub and spend a few months at sea on a typical tour...
Colin1
Senior Master Sergeant
Sounds about right
plus getting her off a surface vessel shouldn't really stretch them resource-wise; getting her off a sub could (probably would) compromise the sub's position. If an agency with a 'vested interest' knew when she left port and then where/when she came up, they could also work out her speed. I'm no submariner but I'm led to believe that it's important to keep that sort of info hushed.
If the plan is to NOT lift her out when she comes to or close to term then some part of the sub will need to be given up for obstetrics. Somehow I can't see that on a combat vessel but it doesn't answer the first point either.
Looks no-win to me, sounds like a good idea someone once had over lunch.
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Comiso, I spent the majority of my enlistment as a submariner. Been out to sea pokin holes in the ocean many many times. I may not know much else, but I do know that women on subs will NEVER work out. Other than the occasional (and very rare) specialist female rider, they will not be permanently assigned to subs. Nothing against them and no slights on how capable they may be to do their jobs, but there's still a lot of simple logistics problems. Subs are NOT big enough to have seperate male/female quarters, storage, or heads (shower/bathroom). Not to mention that, after 40 straight days out at sea, tempers are running pretty frikkin high and people are just ready to see sunlight again...throw a generally emotional female in there who's PMS'd at least once during that time, and something will happen. So unless they want to borrow the Soviet's example of double-hulled boats (two subs inside one outer shell..don't think they made too many of those, they're supposed to be friggin huge), subs are going to remain "boys only clubs".
Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
- 1,154
- Dec 24, 2008
My brother is currently on board the USS Buffalo. I've heard very detailed descriptions of life on a fast attack sub. It would be an unmitigated disaster for the sub fleet. There is no room, there is no privacy, there is extreme job stress, there is no restraint in the way the crew members talk to each other. You want to tell a crew of people on a psychological breaking point to walk on eggshells around someone who needs 6 kinds of special treatment? Good luck.
