[MaddogK]

Originally Posted by Osmium Steele

I tried to ignore the ignorance and misogyny, I really did.

Spoken like a true civilian.

As most of my comments were 'cut and paste' from a military sites 'sub forces' forum that I've been posting on for years I can tell you the majority of sailors who will be effected do NOT welcome this change, as well many studies show this isn't the best idea, but everyone knows it will happen and will try to make it work. As for me, I'm retired and can state my opinion without fear of retribution from the military, and It's my opinion that the Sub forces will suffer in this attempt to appease a few women whose feelings got hurt because they weren't allowed to join a 'special' club. I'll leave you with this post from a sub crewman whose opinion is common with his cohorts, and reflects my feelings as well.

I served on a ssn from 69 to 71. The mission is tough enough trying to qualify, get squared away in your division, and figure what the hell is going on. Anyone who has made patrols understands
what is expected of you and the enviroment you must live in, and work in. There is already enough
stress and tension on board. Things can get a little testy on long patrols.
It's not like you can go to the fantail to blow off some steam and get away from things for awhile. Most people are clueless about what being confined is all about.
Even today I believe there are enviroments in the military where having men and women serve in
in such a confined atmosphere is not a good fit at all. This is bad juju.
If they want women on the boats it needs to be an all female crew.
I don't care about being politicaly correct. What I care about is these guys going out on patrol and coming home safe with the least amount of problems.
Don't get me wrong the women in the military do an outstanding job, but this throwing common sense out the window, just to make a point

...And another:

When it was initially proposed to place women on submarines too, the Department of the Navy commissioned a lengthy and comprehensive study from outside of the Navy that commenced in February 1995 and concluded that due to the inherent nature of undersea warfare and the increased demands placed on submariners, women would be a detriment to the natural cohesiveness and combat effectiveness of all male submarine crews which are on a higher state of operational readiness and fighting trim than surface warriors on surface ships, again due to the nature of undersea warfare. Also, the old lie that submarines are the safest place to be and surface ships are targets is just that, an old lie.

In a war with a technologically advanced maritime enemy, the U.S., even in victory, will likely suffer extraordinary casualties among surface vessels and submarines alike. Even when I served aboard submarines in the Cold War, we correctly believed we would suffer a 50% loss of submarines at the outbreak of a maritime war. Certainly ASW capabilities have improved even more so since my time in submarines.

In answer to your question, what is the difference in women serving on surface ships and women serving aboard submarines? The difference is that women will not fit into the fighting cohesiveness of the submarine crew due to the challenging nature of submarines and undersea warfare which greatly exceeds those of surface ships. The similarities are that the fighting effectiveness of submarines will suffer even more than the fighting effectiveness of surface ships. The irony is that victory over a technologically advanced enemy will depend on submarines as the determining factor with all other forms of naval warfare as contributing factors. In other words, submarines are our ace in the hole and they should not be part of any experiment in social engineering when previous studies presented a model destined to fail, or at the very least, a model that showed serious compromise of the existing level of combat effectiveness of submarines and their crews.