Do female snipers beat their male counterparts??

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Subject: Do female snipers beat their male counterparts??
Herc the Merc 5/16/2005 7:21:45 PM

Per "The living Daylights".

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rbarry88 no 4/7/2007 12:44:10 AM

males, genetically, have better eyesight and quicker reactions, something about our brains being more specialized and the two halves of the male brains being more independant from one another. Evolution explains this as our role as the hunter in early hunter/gather societies. That plus the highest record for a female sniper was 309 and the male record is much higher and i think it was set in ww2. When a woman has to defend her children I'd say she's probably better but as a pure soldier never as able. think about lynch in the beginning of the war in iraq, she hid under a truck while the male soldier's in her element fought and died? id say keep them behind the lines, permanently.

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Jeff_F_F 4/7/2007 9:48:31 AM

Lets be clear on definitions. Upper body strength is the strength of the muscles working the arm and shoulder joints. Last time I wore a pack, none of those joints were being worked. What you can pack is determined by lower body and trunk strength. Lower body strength is equal between men and women. I haven't seen any analysis comparing trunk strength between the two. Physically lifting any rifle--including the M82A1--is well within the strength limits of any woman in reasonably good shape. We are talking roughly the equivalent of a 35lb 2-arm barbell curl. Get real. And I'm not sure which sniper MOS uses the Mk19 but I suppose it could be restricted to men. ;-)

As to aggressiveness, I wouldn't say that one gender is more aggressive than the other, just that the motivations and ways they express their aggressiveness are different. Men tend to fight over dominance issues and express their aggression in dominance-centered ways. Even though men have testicles that are very vulnerable they typically get into boxing and wrestling matches instead of just trying to kick each other there. Women do fight over dominance issues, but not as much as men. The major motivation for women to fight is survival issues. When they do fight over dominance issues though, they take their survival attitude along. This is why catfights are so nasty.

I'd like to throw a few items that haven't been looked at yet. Women have lower basal metabolic rates, so they need less food and water and hence don't need to carry as much. Besides the commonly cited higher pain tolerance, women can also tolerate more blood loss if wounded. Also let's be clear here that we are talking snipers, not regular infantry. The Mk.19 point wasn't the only one that seems to be missing that.

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Jeff_F_F 4/7/2007 10:24:41 AM

About Jessica Lynch she is one woman and not necessarily representative of the entire female population. She is probably fairly representative of the population of women who joins the military believing they won't be fighting. She is not at all representative of the population of women who want to fight and give the military two big fingers up because they can't.

As to avarages. Small changes in the mean have a large impact on the extremes. Since human population differences are bell curves, a small movment of the mean means that in the ability range that you are picking elite personnel that meet your standards from the numbers in the better population will be a lot higher. What if one population is 1/2 a standard deviation better than another in some talent. At the mean you don't see much difference because both are in the middle of the curve. But if you are looking at only the elite portions of those populations, say that your standard is represents an ability level that is 3 standard deviations from the mean in the population that is not as good, but 2.5 standard deviations from the mean in the other. That means that 1/10th of 1% of the less talented population meets the standard, but something like 1/4 of 1% of the more talented population does.

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historynut 4/7/2007 12:11:36 PM

I remember a law enforcement study I saw. A female is less likely to kill but if she decides to kill she is a lot more likely to succeed. A guy will shoot you once decide your dead and walk away. A female will shoot you once then shoot you again just to be sure. So a female sniper so a lot more likely to kill you then a male sniper.

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Rasputin 4/7/2007 2:34:41 PM

I have met all kinds of women out there, some are clutzes and would be totally unsuitable, some would only kill if it is their last resort, and then there are those that will take the job and do it well. Just like the guys, not all men are suitable for sniping.

But if there is a war in your own country and doorstep, you will be supprised at the number of women who will suddenly volunteer to snipe in combat.

Sniping is quite suitable for women if u think of it, their physically smaller and weaker frame is not to any disadvantage when it comes to cover and concealment. They avoid direct contact with the enemy, but yet can reach out and kill them from long range. And as stated above, some ladies have stated they are more patient and can wait all day to kill their man.

Contrast to this they are other ladies that are not adverse to combat, testimonial of a vietcong 5 ft really feminine lady who volunteered for combat, and even rejected the M16 (NVA and vietcong often felt the M16 was more suitable for ladies due to its light weight and smaller size) given to her as being too weak and flimsy for combat in favor of an AK 47 to mow down Americans. Hate and revenge is a great motivation.

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Yimmy 4/7/2007 5:42:59 PM

I am pro having women in the armed services, but against their being in combat roles.

Even when not discussing their weaker frame, or the psychological issue of mixing mean and women in combat units - women have greater hygine requirements.

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rbarry88 4/8/2007 3:31:35 AM

Women simply aren't better than men at sniping. A faster metabolism actually means they would need more food. It also means that their smaller bodies will deteriorate faster without proper nutrition. Women simply lack the genetic edge to be any good at killing. They should stick to making babies and cooking pies. Women in the military are just problem causers who make the everyones lives more difficult. If they want to play with the boys then they shouldn't be given so much special treatment.

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bothanhunter? 4/8/2007 1:32:27 PM

I think women are just as deadly when capable, Sandhurst has the top honour fought out between some tough guys and ladys, shooting wise I ran our shooting team for a year and found that all the instructors agreed that first time you hand someone a rifle women will shoot better.
SF (SAS) do employ women (esp for middle east operations) as it would never be suspected by a biased male opponent. Works for them. Should work elsewhere.

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Yimmy 4/8/2007 2:22:31 PM

Woman do not undertake SAS selection.

I beleive you are thinking of the Special Forces Support Group, or whatever they call themselves, of NI fame.

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Jeff_F_F 4/8/2007 4:35:29 PM

What part of lower basal metabolic rate do you not understand? Lower=less. Less energy. Less calorie requirements. More efficient use of energy in low calorie situations. If you think that women waste away faster than men when their calorie intake is reduced you obviously don't know any woman who has ever dieted. Anorexia (basically self-starvation) is quite common among female college athletes, and yet doesn't seem to hurt performance in the short term (though there are plenty of long term consequences). As much as women hate it, it's actually a good thing survival-wise.

And your making babies and cookies pies attitude is what cost Germany WWII, because the Nazis were too much of chavinists to send their women to the factories like the allies were doing. Why do you think German factory production increased in the last year of the war in the face of massive allied strategic bombing? They finally went to a total war economy. War is about winning not pushing your political agenda. Thankfully the Nazis didn't get it until it was far to late, but there's no reason we should make the same mistake.

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