Height in the Military

[Aussie2093]

Hey, my question ~if you will~ is how big a part does height play in the military? I am planning to join up in the Australian Defence Force (Army) and am wondering if my height of 6'6" (200cm) will be a benefit or burden. Please share your thoughts especially if you have served and are or knew guys who were that little bit 'too tall', and how it effected them as soldiers.

Cheers

[Ratamacue]

I can't speak for the Australian military, but I believe the minimum height allowed in the US Military is 5'5" with no real maximum. Fighter pilots, however, can't be taller than 6', as if their height gets much farther past that, they'll need to custom-build a canopy for you just to fly.

[James]

You should be a tanker :P . You might find yourself carrying a radio or a machine gun instead of a rifle if you join the infantry. As long as you are healthy and fit, I don't know why you'd have any difficulty. Best of luck.

[Light Fighter]

In Army infantry units they tend to give the tallest/largest soldier the machine gun as a larger body mass usually helps in humping more weight, so logicaly the biggest guy gets it. The only problem you may come into is uniforms, and by that I mean the trouser lenght. Myself standing 6'4 I have found BDU trouser legs to just barely come down below the top of my boot.

[Seraphim]

I was reading some articles about Vietnam and they said that they tend to give the m60 to the smallest guy. I guest things have changed.

[BMF]

in general the larger soldiers in a platoon nowadays end up with the larger loads: M240, M249, M203, AG. this isnt always possible though, sometimes you just dont have the available bodies, or you dont want to break up a good working team. i'm 6'0, 182lbs and i had no problem whatsoever being a gunner. in all truth i found that the MG actually balanced out my ruck load, so it was fine by me, despite the 100+ lb load.

drive on

[Upfrontreporting]

I'm also 6'6" and haven't really had a problem with my height in
the military, although digging a trench always took a bit longer than my colleages :D

Being in a Mech Inf unit it was sometimes a tight fit sitting in a M 113 but carrying a big load during patrol, then it was clearly an advantage being very tall.

No problems fitting in the passenger section of a helicopter.


regards.

[digrar]

No problems with the height side of things mate. I went through with a few blokes in the 6'4 to 6'6 range, I'm 6'4 myself. As young blokes (we were 18 when we went through) our upper body strength was pretty poor (long arms and skinny chests = pathetic amount of pushups) but after 6 months of recruit and Infantry training we were all doing our 60 push ups with no drama's.
I ended up in recon platoon and did a fair bit of scouting ( I think my patrol commander wanted a big shield up the front :D ) I also did more than my fair share of radio :( and gun :D carrying.
The only problems some of the bigger blokes I served with had was with boots, after size 13 or 14 things got a bit sketchy. It didn't improve when the new generation boots came in either.
Good luck with your application, give Infantry a go, it's hard to get in at the moment as most spots in the Battalions are filled but you never know your luck.

[He219]

Just don't go into the 'Silent Service'!

David Robinson (San Antonio Spurs) served on a Sub after he graduated from the US Naval Academy. Why? Don't ask me.....

p-)

[Aussie2093]

Thanks for your help fellas. Yes I do want to try my hand at Infantry and hopefully manage to swirm my way into 3RAR (Para) which is based in Sydney - a great city to be posted in!

Cheers

[Scrim]

Dont know how they do it in Australia, but in USMC Bootcamp they set up the platoon according to height. So the front of the platoon was taller than the back(big end stop bouncing!) so the big end was always the first into any classes etc. Not that big a deal until you go to the chow- hall! Its always good to be first into the chow-hall.

[...]

...or when you go on humps and the tall guys just stride it out while the little end has to pretty much run the whole time.

I thought it was kinda of intresting when my Platoon Sgt. in OCS was telling us about Recon. During HALO jumps the smaller guys had to carry alot more of the units weight so the team would fall at the same speed and get to the ground together. Kind of ironic that the brick-****houses would carry the least amount of weight.

[kathawk]

I know what you mean about the little legs. Being five three definitely has it's disadvantages. Being the shortest in my squadron, I was practically running up the mountain on my stubby legs. That sucked... But I could definitely maneuver places those huge guys wouldn't dream of fitting into, so maybe a plus...