Volkssturm used in 1942

I've been spoiled by modern technology more than I thought; I forgot draftsmen!

So, here's how an experienced team works.

The engineer realizes that the tank will be So Much Better if parts A, B, C, D, F, and Q have a 0.5" radius here rather than a 0.25" radius. He goes to the draftsman and says "Change this radius on A, B, C, D, F, and Q to 0.5"." The draftsman does it, and hands the new drawings to the shop foreman. He doles the new drawings out to the six machinists who will be making A, B, C, D, F, and Q today. They make the new parts.

Here's how a raw team works.

The engineer realizes that the tank will be So Much Better if parts A, B, C, D, F, and Q have a 0.5" radius here rather than a 0.25" radius. He goes to the draftsman and says "Change this radius on A, B, C, D, F, and Q to 0.5"." The draftsman says "OK, which radius on C did you mean, this one or that one?" "That one. Isn't that obvious?" "No." "Well, OK, that one." The draftsman does it, and hands the new drawings to the shop foreman. He doles the new drawings out to the six machinists who will be making A, B, C, D, F, and Q today. The guy making A thinks he knows what to do, and it will be two days before QC finds the problem and traces it back to him. The guys making B, F, and Q know they're out of their depth and appeal back up the chain for help, which results in the engineer coming down to the shop and the conversation in my prior post occuring. The guy making C actually figures it out on his own. The guy making D doesn't see what the big deal is and keeps making the old parts, figuring if he can't tell the difference, no one else can either.
 
The Russians did this (women MP's and even combat roles)... lets say the value was somewhat mixed and dubious (this was a communist doctrine thing as opposed to a manpower thing)... the frontoviks would give the female MP's a hard time and not listen to them, and they frequently had to use their machine guns to instill order... there is a great photo that exists somewhere (anthony beever retells the story in his battle of berlin book) where this female MP was trying to break up a traffic jam in Poland in 1944 and all the frontoviks where telling her to go fuck herself... she fired her machine gun in the air to show them she meant business... and the frontoviks continued to not obey; then Konstantin Rokosovvsky showed up took the lady by the hand and asked her to show him which troops where not following orders (a squad of NKVD followed behind ready to shoot trouble makers) and the frontoviks bailed out of their trucks and ran away :p

There's also plenty of examples where women performed just fine in frontline roles, including dragging a machine gun around. There is occasional resentment you read about by male bomber pilots etc. in that they did more difficult missions on much better craft with way more support and training, but didn't get quite as famous about it; overall however there were women in most branches of service and presumably not every one had to be rescued by Rokossovsky himself.
 
There's also plenty of examples where women performed just fine in frontline roles, including dragging a machine gun around. There is occasional resentment you read about by male bomber pilots etc. in that they did more difficult missions on much better craft with way more support and training, but didn't get quite as famous about it; overall however there were women in most branches of service and presumably not every one had to be rescued by Rokossovsky himself.

Indeed, front-line troops often behave prickishly to MP’s in general and any serious account of the conditions within the Red Army show that their sobriety and discipline away from the battlefield was rather iffy. Thats one of the reasons why the NKVD cracked down so hard. I should imagine had that female MP been some tough looking old battle-ax who’d spent her entire life doing hard labour on a farm & could swear like a gopnik those Red Army troopers would’ve been a lot less cheeky.;)

Anyway aside from a few who got picked out for a propaganda campaign most Soviet women in the Red Army did much the same hard, unglamorous work their male counterparts did. And I haven’t read anywhere that the results were ‘’dubious’’…
 
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Anyway aside from a few who got picked out for a propaganda campaign most Soviet women in the Red Army did much the same hard, unglamorous work their male counterparts did. And I haven’t read anywhere that the results were ‘’dubious’’…

Right. All I'm saying is, sexism existing in 1940s USSR isn't exactly news, but I think it's hard to dispute you don't allow nearly 1 million people to take up arms on your behalf solely for propaganda value.
 
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