Army Combat Fitness Test Fiasco! Slides Reveal 84% of Women Failing ACFT

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Lil Mike, Oct 8, 2019.

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  1. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Some 20,000 to 26,000 estimated rapes a year, and up to 11% of women not available for duty due to 'unexpected pregnancies', and of course no stats on the numbers out of action due to having their sex changes at govt. expense, but these aren't issues? They're certainly an unnecessary expense and time consuming for such as the MCJ and its investigators, the medical infrastructure. The primary agitation for women and assorted sexual deviants getting privileged passes was the bennies; it was considered 'unfair' since women weren't allowed and the assorted deviants and trannies were 'discriminated' against as well. There are other ways to pander to those demographics without foisting them on the military, where they will only soak up the easier jobs and pastimes that could go to older troops who need such jobs to get their time in after injuries or just plain old age begins to catch up to them, but still have plenty of skill sets to offer.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2020
  2. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    I'd give consideration to that if women were actually taking up slots that older/disabled men could use but they really aren't. The military has a recruitment and retention crisis across the board and it's not like women are taking jobs away from men in the military.
     
  3. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    women are taking jobs from men in the military, ever since peace time the military has been used as a welfare program for poor people.

    these jobs rightfully should go to men in the event of a large scale war with china or russia were to happen.
     
  4. RoccoR

    RoccoR Well-Known Member Donor

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    RE: Funny, @Nightmare515 were having a discussion of the new Army ACFT and today I came across this article confirming what he said about female soldier's failure rate.
    SUBREF: Army Combat Fitness Test Fiasco! Slides Reveal 84% of Women Failing ACFT
    ⁜→ et al:

    BLUF:
    Well, this calls some issues into question. The most basic of which is: How critical was the role and the need for women in the Army during the Iraq War and the Conflict in Afghanistan? Not just in those two theaters, but in roles as the Army was deployed elsewhere in the world. I suppose the CSA, the VCSA, and the CG TRADOC, could due without the women in the medical corps; as well as all the other service support activities. The Army can always call on the Beltway Bandits to fulfill the role of women in the Army.
    (COMMENT)

    The consequences of the ACFT results do not just affect the Regular Army, but the Reserves, and the National Guard (even the future of conscripts should the need arise). If the numbers had not been so far off the mark, one might have overlooked two central themes:

    Was there something sinister at work here, if not that the women in the Army were intentionally set up to fail?
    Was there some latent agenda to reestablish the gender barriers?
    ◈ and if not ◈
    Was the command oversight by senior leaders (the CSA, the VCSA, and the CG TRADOC, etc)
    so poor as to be beyond their ability to put the correct objectives and the right people behind the task
    of establishing a test? Was producing something that was reasonably close to a first approximation that
    difficult achieve; such that it was too difficult not only for the Senior Leadership but beyond the sight of
    the Senior Enlisted Advisors?
    ◈ or ◈
    Was there something almost impossible to have foreseen given the abilities of the leadership (supra)?
    My limited experience in the Army left me with the impression that when soldiers (male or female) performs poorly — leaders whether enlisted or officer (Company Grade, Field Grade and especially Flag and General Officers) typically do not look for fault with themselves, but in everyone down the chain.

    What should worry the "fetch and carry" lot in the Army, as well as, the general public, is how they are supposed to place trust and confidence in the leadership (supra) when they cannot seem to get something like the ACFT even close - coming out of the box. I'm sure no one expects perfection, but a failure on this grand scale is ridiculous. That is, unless, the first question is foggy: How critical is the role and the need for women in the Army?

    [​IMG]
    Most Respectfully,
    R
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2020
  5. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Well they already changed the ACFT to get rid of the leg tuck thing that was causing all the women to fail. Well you can now either do a leg tuck OR a plank as either a male or a female. So the failure rate among women won't be anywhere near as high once they roll this thing out again. They've also shelved the ACFT "indefinitely" while they "continue to access the feedback and tweak and modify the test to ensure maximum efficiency and combat readiness" or whatever the hell "Army" BS statement they put out a few months ago.

    Basically translating to "We screwed up and got in trouble with JAG so we will pretend like we are taking your feedback into consideration and modify the test so that we don't get threatened by JAG and Congress again". What happened was the Army tried to be "tough" and play the staring game like it always does even in the face of pure idiocy because Army leadership will be damned if they ever admit that what they want is ever wrong. JAG got involved and smacked them in the mouth saying your ACFT is illegal because of what it does to female and disabled Soldiers and you aren't allowed to do that. Army then quietly introduced some alternate events for disabled Soldiers which were ridiculously impossible to pass and once again JAG smacked them in the mouth. So they quietly lowered the standards for the alternate events to be more realistic for disabled Soldiers. Then the women kept failing because of the leg tuck and the Army played the staring game again and once again JAG smacked them in the mouth and said you WILL blink whether you like it or not.

    And now the Army pretends like it actually cared and decided to modify the ACFT in order to not screw over females and disabled troops because they "care about the service and expertise of their Soldiers" when in reality they blinked because legal smacked them in the mouth and Congress was about to force them to change it anyway and they knew it.

    Stay classy Army.

    As far as your other question. No we really don't NEED women in the Army outside of a few key roles like we needed them for in Afghanistan but it's not like they are detrimental to the force or anything...The Army has a laundry list of problems right now and women being in it is nowhere near one of them. Out of all of the women who I've served alongside in my particular profession I've met a total of 1 who was an actual worthless piece of trash. And it had nothing to do with her being a women she was just a worthless trash Soldier just like we have thousands of other worthless trash Soldiers running around the Army of either gender.

    To put it honestly, if/when the war bells ring again out of the list of folks I'd be grabbing to fight by my side there are two of my female counterparts who are at the top of the list over any of the guys walking around here. Those two chicks, especially one in particular, are way more badass and more objectively qualified than most of the beta males running around here masquerading as alpha dogs.
     
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  6. RoccoR

    RoccoR Well-Known Member Donor

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    RE: Funny, @Nightmare515 were having a discussion of the new Army ACFT and today I came across this article confirming what he said about female soldier's failure rate.
    SUBREF: Army Combat Fitness Test Fiasco! Slides Reveal 84% of Women Failing ACFT
    ⁜→ Nightmare515, et al:

    GENERAL IMPRESSION:
    I see a lot of personal integrity and honesty in what you are saying in this response.

    (COMMENT)

    Yes, Hummm.

    This (truncated) timeline sound more like the tangled Army Management (as opposed to true leadership) that I was familiar with in my time.

    I am not surprised, but heartened, that at least the voice of JAG was functioning. I don't understand much about how the legal eagles think, that is I'm not trained to think like them. But I am glad that they did speak-up, even though I am willing to bet that their intervention was more to protect the interest of the Army (as a legal entity) as opposed to protecting and defending the soldiers that fight the opposing forces.

    Having said that, the intervention of the JAG does not explain why (after all the advanced training C&GS, War College, NDU, etc) the leadership was not able to get traction. Obviously it was too difficult a task, and the leadership was not really interested in the soldiers.

    (COMMENT)

    Yes, well, I guess that is very posible. IF, in fact, the Army (the CSA, the VCSA, and the CG TRADOC, etc) does not actually see a need for females in the Army, THEN that means that the Army male strength, recruitment, and retention can pickup the loss of 70K females (or so in both the RA/AR) without an adverse impact on readiness.

    Once the Army embarks down this road of emphasis on PT, as oppose to technical competence, then it has to be prepared to suffer in terms of those skill sets [medial, intelligence (MASINT and CI), information technologies (Cyber Ops), etc]. Is it possible to do both? Well, conventional wisdom says yes. But those spouting convention wisdom are the very same leaders that fouled-up the ACFT. Can we afford to trust their judgement? Even though the ACFT may be delayed for a while, the issue is, what about the gray matter capacity and enlightenment of the Army Leadership (both Officer and Enlisted).

    Today's Army needs vision that can not only see far down the road, but in all the dimensions. The core competence of the Army leadership is to exhibit these gray matter qualities.

    Just one man's opinion.
    [​IMG]
    Most Respectfully,
    R
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2020
  7. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Well this whole ACFT thing was the brainchild of the old SMA. It was his "baby" and after he retired his going out the door wish was to make it a reality so the new SMA took the reigns on it. The Army's official "reasoning" behind it was that "a smaller and more fit force is better than a larger not as fit one". So they came up with this ridiculously complex (for a PT test) thing in order to focus more on functional strength instead of just doing pushups and situps and stuff. This thing was impractical from the start because it just takes way too much time and outside equipment to conduct. A PT test is supposed to be something I can do either in garrison or in the field or in theater. This thing requires tons of equipment and open spaces and planning and it takes hours to complete for a single platoon or company. It's just too much. But they pushed forward with it anyway even though pretty much all leaders at the lower "peasant" levels (Battalion and below) were all screaming at high brass that this was a stupidly impractical idea. But as it goes in the Army the "high command" is smarter than "you" in the trenches so off we go.

    In layman's terms they wanted to get rid of the disabled Soldiers and females in a legal way because disabled Soldiers aren't 100% fully mission capable so the Army doesn't want them around. Even though a disabled Soldier can still perform key duties and be an integral part of the force somebody in high command with their infinite wisdom says that unless you are Soldier who is 100% capable of grabbing a rucksack and marching 10 miles to battle then you don't belong here anymore. Even though the Army requires approximately 1% of it's force to be able to do stuff like that. So they created a PT test specifically designed to where a disabled Soldier couldn't pass it and then at first refused to allow alternate test events for those unable to perform certain exercises like we have now with our current PT test. JAG said you can't do that.

    As it stands now the Army can't really just toss you out for being injured unless they can't find ANYTHING for you to do or if you just request to get out. They'll swap you MOS's to a desk job or something if you were a grunt who can't ruck anymore. But high brass thinks that EVERYBODY should be able to do this stuff even if your actual MOS doesn't require it. This new PT test was their way of using regulation to purge the injured Soldiers from the ranks along with most of the females. Can't pass a PT test then you get booted by regulation.

    Lets be frank here, the "Army" is only like 2% of the actual Army. The rest of it is pretty much just civilian jobs that you wear a camo uniform while doing. We don't need EVERYBODY to be able to deadlift and ruck march for 10 miles. Sure it looks good on paper to be able to say that your entire "Army" is at this specific physical standard but the reality is that it doesn't actually matter because 98% of the Army doesn't actually fight. You want your combat troops in that specific fitness category but everybody else? Who really cares? We aren't the Chinese who send waves of infantry at people. If our S1 desk admin clerks are out here running towards the enemy with M4's then we have literally already lost the war so it doesn't matter anyway.
     
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  8. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    It occurred to me that if they wanted to use the PT test to reduce the force, the time to do it was during the post Cold War drawdown. Instead they paid careerists to leave. This doesn't seem to be the time to reduce the force though.
     
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  9. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    No it absolutely isn't. We are still suffering the terrible effects of sequestration at the hands of Obama and Congress. Lets be clear, that wasn't just Obama, Congress had a bigger role in that than he did and it wasn't just the Democrats either. They all betrayed us at that time and we are still paying dearly for it right now. I just got the info about our inbound roster of new Soldiers heading my way, it's nowhere near the number we need and what little we are getting are brand new troops fresh out of training. Most of the experienced troops are nowhere to be found and we keep getting backfilled with rookies fresh out of the schoolhouse. The experienced troops largely got a "thank you for your service now go **** yourself" letter as a result of sequestration years ago and many who dodged the chopping block ended up walking out of the door on their own since then. Now we have massive experience gaps across the fleet consisting of multi tour combat vets nearing retirement and brand new rookies fresh off the block and very little in between because those experienced troops who would have been mid level right now largely got purged by the infinite wisdom of sequestration.

    Which brings me to the point both you and I have been arguing for months. The Army has a recruitment and retention crisis going on and they had one even when this new stupid PT test was first announced yet somehow in the brains of the high brass this made actual sense. We got gut punched by sequestration, we can't get folks to join, we can't keep folks in who already joined, and now lets decide to create a ridiculously complex PT test to gut the force even more. "A smaller and more fit force is better", no the hell it's not, it's been objectively proven in front of everybody over the past few years that it's absolutely not "better" to have less people in the damn Army while simultaneously trying to maintain Americans foreign policy practice of playing Team America World Police.

    I'd be all on board with this if we actually had the raw number of bodies required to make it work. The reality is that we simply don't. The reality is also the fact that the overwhelming vast majority of jobs in the Army don't require a person to be able to do any of that stuff anyway. So tossing them out for being unable to do something that has zero bearing on their actual job performance makes absolutely no sense to anybody other than the high brass who have this asinine fantasy of an entire force full of infantry caliber Soldiers.
     
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  10. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    As far as sequestration goes, although the idea came from the Obama White House, they didn't really believe in it and just tossed it out as a negotiating point against the Republicans, fully expecting the Republicans wouldn't bite. Instead, they accepted it and both parties got something neither side really wanted, and during a war(s) to boot. Can you imagine cutting the force during WWII because of Government budget negotiations? Ridiculous! We're a profoundly unserious country these days...

    If they really want to reduce the force without compromising combat effectiveness, they should just shake the MTOE's of their units and get rid of all of those extra officer positions. In my area of the Army, MI, the MI unit subordinate to Division was a company sized unit for decades, then in the 80's they increased it to battalion size, without really increasing the number of operators/analysts, but by creating a battalion structure with 3 or 4 companies, they vastly increased the number of officer positions.

    Of course, anyone who is in a position to do something about that that is also in a position to oppose it and argue the opposite, so there's that.
     
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  11. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Absolutely, one of the main problems with the Army is the way it treats Officers. Get rid of this "well rounded Officers need to be able to do everything" mentality. Every single year or year and a half or so it's the exact same song and dance with battalion staff, incompetence to the point of hilarity. Why? Because the Army thinks that since you are a 1LT who just got promoted to CPT you are qualified to just get tossed into the seat as the S1 OIC, or S2, or AS3, or S4, etc. What they do is they allow the LT's to be Platoon Leaders for a year or year and a half or so then once they are done they just toss them into random battalion positions that they have zero experience in. So in turn you have some random ass brand new CPT who was a Platoon Leader yesterday somehow qualified to be the S1 OIC. That's why your paperwork never gets done or your computer never gets fixed in a timely manner.

    We have hundreds of random pre and post Command Captains running around filling in MOS positions that they have no qualifications for because we have to give them "something to do". And then by the time these folks have finally figured out how to be in charge of a Shop they have zero experience in they are sent off to the career course and a new random rookie unqualified Captain or promotable 1LT fills his shoes. So every year we are stuck "re-training battalion staff on how to function in the field" with comical results. Everyone across the board complains about the incompetence of battalion staff regardless of duty station and that is the reason why. Staff Officers aren't actually experts in their particular positions, they are just random Officers that are filling in a slot waiting for their careers to continue. The S6 commo/computer Officer in Charge isn't a commo guy, he's some random artillery officer or something who has nothing else to do right now so they stuck him in there. Same with plenty of O-4's. Half of the S3 OIC's I've had (the ones who's job is to literally fight the unit during war) weren't even actual pilots in the aircraft that we fly....Yet somehow they are qualified to know how to best utilize our aircraft in a war and create our missions and battleplans...

    I'm a firm believer that if you try to be good at everything then you're actually good at nothing. Change the structure of the force to where we don't have hundreds of Officers walking around who literally have no reason to exist and we are just finding them stuff to do because they are being paid...In my last unit we literally just created "assistant to assistant" positions for a few random officers waiting around to PCS. I'd walk into battalion HQ and see 3 post platoon leader CPT's sitting in an office filling positions that didn't even exist for an MTOE position that required 1 guy...

    And we already discussed the positions at the top of the food chain...I mean honestly what the hell do we need that many 4 Star Generals for and what are they actually doing on a daily basis? I understand wanting to retain that experience and someone who has been in long enough to make 4 Star General has an unprecedented wealth of knowledge and experience, but we shouldn't just be creating made up positions for folks to fill if we don't actually need them for anything in particular. We have way too many Officers with no jobs and not enough folks in the trenches to actually do the hands on work.
     

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