SecNav, CNO: Women should serve on subs

[CommunityEditor]

Women should be allowed to serve aboard submarines, and the Navy is “moving out aggressively” to make it happen, according to the service’s top civilian.

“I believe women should have every opportunity to serve at sea, and that includes aboard submarines,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said Thursday in a statement to Navy Times.

His comment comes one week after Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told congressional lawmakers that he thought it was time to end the ban against women on submarines.

Mullen’s successor, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, also said he is “very comfortable” addressing the crewing policy.

“There are some particular issues with integrating women into the submarine force; issues we must work through in order to achieve what is best for the Navy and our submarine force,” Roughead said in a statement. “Accommodations are a factor, but not insurmountable.”

Navy Times requested responses from Mabus and Roughead after Mullen called for ending the ban, which was part of submitted answers to written questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mullen was responding to a question on women in combat and whether any policy changes are needed. He zeroed in on women serving aboard submarines.

“As an advocate for improving the diversity of our force, I believe we should continue to broaden opportunities for women,” Mullen wrote. “One policy I would like to see changed is the one barring their service aboard submarines.”

Roughead, in his statement, stopped short of announcing any major policy changes.

“Having commanded a mixed gender surface combatant, I am very comfortable addressing integrating women into the submarine force. I am familiar with the issues as well as the value of diverse crews,” he said. “The Navy has examined the feasibility of assigning women to submarines over the years, and I have been personally engaged on this.”

Roughead said the Navy must “manage the community as a whole, such as force growth and retention within a small warfare community.”

“The size of the submarine force is much smaller than the surface and aviation forces and personnel management is more exacting,” he continued. “This has had and will continue to have my personal attention as we work toward increasing the diversity of our Navy afloat and ashore.”

Mullen, who became chairman two years ago, had shown interest in a policy change during his 2½ years as CNO, and had asked the submarine community to look at the issue, said Capt. John Kirby, Mullen’s spokesman then and now.

That “look” was not complete by the time he was elevated to his present job, Kirby said, but opening the submarine community to women “is something he has maintained an interest in.”

Women, who make up about 12 percent of the 1.2 million U.S. service members on active duty, are by policy excluded from traditional front-line combat jobs. But combat roles have become blurred during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which irregular warfare marked by insurgent roadside bombs and a lack of the frontlines evident in traditional warfare have brought women assigned to jobs as corpsmen, military police and other “combat enabler” jobs into harm’s way, much as their combat brethren.

The Navy as of May had 7,900 female officers and 44,000 female sailors, comprising about 15 percent of officers and sailors in the 330,500-strong active component. But while women have been assigned to surface warships since 1993, they remain banned from submarine crews, naval special warfare teams and conventional riverine boat crews. Female officers and sailors can get qualified to work on nuclear reactors but are restricted to serving on nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, not on any of the Navy’s 71 nuclear-powered submarines.

Submariners live in exceptionally close quarters, even taking turns sleeping in the same bunks on attack submarines. Officials have said the lack of privacy and the cost of reconfiguring subs already tightly packed with gear and crew members make it difficult to introduce female crew.

Mullen thinks those issues can be resolved.

“He believes that the physical barriers … can be overcome, as they have been overcome on surface combatants,” Kirby said.

Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20..._subs_092409w/

This is a bad idea!

Given that neither of these gentlemen have served on a submarine, maybe they should get underway on an SSN for three or four weeks to get a better understanding of what they are suggesting. I have not been on one of the newest fast attacks, but I cannot imagine there is much more room on one of these boats than there was on a 637 class boat. Since there is NO spare room on a submarine, the only way you can add the private spaces required for a mixed gender crew is to remove some vital piece of equipment. What will it be? A few torpedoes, maybe an O2 generator, or some of the sonar equipment. Since we often went to sea with food stacked on the deck and in the back of the crew's mess, I just don't see we this extra space is going to be found.
I'm all for opening doors, my wife is a Navy Nurse and I have three daughters to whom I have always said that they can do anything that they put their minds to, but some things are just too hard to justify the costs.

[Yggdrasil]

I always understood that the stress that comes from being submerged required the kind of comraderie that the introduction of females would disrupt - the absence of females on subs means the men can behave how they want, say what they want, talk about what they want; but the introduction of females would now mean that they'd have to watch their manners and mind their P's and Q's.

Who knows, maybe it won't be so bad... but I do think that so few women are willing to volunteer for submarines, that the few who do won't very safe. Put three women on a sub with 120 men.... and you know damn well that AT LEAST one out of those 120 men aren't going to take "no" for answer.

[SailorDave]

Therin lies the problem. Submarine duty is strictly voluntary. In order to establish separate quarters for female personnel, they would have to sequester a certain amount of space. If they don't have a sufficient female volunteer force, there will be a lot of those racks empty. Which means males will be detailed in to fill the empty billets, but have no room to sleep. Hot racking already occurs due to limited space. This could make it significantly worse.

I have no issue with women on subs any more than surface vessels. Give them a job, a place to eat, sleep and have reasonable privacy, they'll do the same jobs as the men. It's the logistics of making that happen that could keep it. Unless they make all female crews.

[LOAL-D]

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

I always understood that the stress that comes from being submerged required the kind of comraderie that the introduction of females would disrupt - the absence of females on subs means the men can behave how they want, say what they want, talk about what they want; but the introduction of females would now mean that they'd have to watch their manners and mind their P's and Q's.

Who knows, maybe it won't be so bad... but I do think that so few women are willing to volunteer for submarines, that the few who do won't very safe. Put three women on a sub with 120 men.... and you know damn well that AT LEAST one out of those 120 men aren't going to take "no" for answer.

and fart and scratch their nuts........

[SailorDave]

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

I always understood that the stress that comes from being submerged required the kind of comraderie that the introduction of females would disrupt - the absence of females on subs means the men can behave how they want, say what they want, talk about what they want; but the introduction of females would now mean that they'd have to watch their manners and mind their P's and Q's.

Who knows, maybe it won't be so bad... but I do think that so few women are willing to volunteer for submarines, that the few who do won't very safe. Put three women on a sub with 120 men.... and you know damn well that AT LEAST one out of those 120 men aren't going to take "no" for answer.

We were an all male ship in 1992, over 1000 males. We had a detachment come aboard with two females and they never experienced anything untoward. If a man is not going to take "no" for an answer, he's going to do that no matter what the location.

[boostedmach]

Not going to work. Are they going to magically create another head...just for the females?

Lets say they put them in 21man...that means lower level head...what happens when the blow sans...and the males cant use middle level head... now what if they don't have enough billets to fill the 21 racks in 21man. And, now we are gonna have to watch what we say...where before we could talk about almost anything. What about rolling out of your rack, and walking to the head in your boxers...its already a pain in the butt when midshipman come on board and there are females, we have to change our whole way we do things. Subs are NOT like surface navy where they have whole decks for birthing and whole compartments and dedicated heads to those compartments for females. If you knew how we lived under the water for months at a time you would know that females on board an at least an SSN is not possible for an extended period of time. Maybe and just Maybe on Tridents and SSGNs, where they have MUCH more birthing and more heads, but its still going to be a long shot, and I don't see any females being on board in the near future.

I'm all for it..with conditions. For one, I think they should wait on putting woman on submarines, until the next class of submarines are designed. This way, in the design phase, they can plan for woman and give them their own berthing area and head. I don't think it would be possible to put woman on LOS ANGELES or VIRGINIA CLASS Submarines. Also, I think there should be some strict rules for woman and those should be stated in their contracts, and page 13's. Woman should not be pregnant while serving on a submarine. If they do get pregnant, they should be kicked out of the submarine force for good. Manning would be a huge issue if we allow woman to get pregrant while serving on a submarine. If they want to get pregrant, that's what shore duty is for. I think there should be more studies and hopefully one day, we can have a submarine force with both sexes being able to serve together. But don't rush putting woman on submarines. Having woman wait another 15-20 years for the next class of submarines to be launched won't hurt anyone.

[boostedmach]

Also, the Caption of "Brass in agreement"...I can tell you that its limited brass.