Quite interesting:
Defence shows off new fitness standard | News.com.au
Doesn't sound that different in concept to the old combat fitness test, is this a case of everything old is new again?
I do actually remember that many of the guys who aced the BFA usually found the CFT a lot harder and the bigger blokes who weren't so quick in a pair of runners often cruised through the CFT. Go on exercise in 40°C + temperatures, 20km route march with full pack and it was the guys who did well on the CFT who were still going often carrying another guys weapon / webbing or even pack at the end of the day.
The PES test basically is a CFA, just one designed by DSTO to be relevant to each job. The article only lists the all-corps PES test, but there is also a combat arms PES test, plus a specific PES test for Infantry, Armour, Artillery and Engineers. The tests for these corps are much tougher than the general one.
The difference between the old CFA and the PES test though, is the PES test is the barrier to get into a corps. For instance, if a soldier joins up to be an infantryman, they will have to complete the combat arms PES test while at Kapooka and then the infantry specific PES test while at IETs. That is actually pretty tough for a new soldier to complete.
The problem with the PES test though, and why it will be a massive waste of time and effort, is that it won't replace the BFA as the requirement to remain AIRN compliant. Once you have completed the PES test to get into your corps, you won't have to pass one again until (or unless) you deploy. In the meantime, each six months you will still only have to complete the BFA, which of course has a different standard for females and ages. When someone is tapped for deployment, they will have to complete a PES as part of MST.
This is the problem - soldiers, especially females, will train very hard at the start of their career to pass the PES to get in, then never have to complete one again, returning to their old, unfit ways. Even if a deployment comes up, I can pretty much guarantee that failing a PES won't get you kicked off the trip. This happened on my trip last year, when the brigade commander decided that completing the all-corps PES test would be a deployment requirement. However, after every single female (and a few males) failed, they realised that you can't afford to kick everyone off and waived the requirement. It made a mockery of the whole process.
This is one reason why integrating females into the combat arms is going to end in tears. I can guarantee that many well intentioned females are going to train their ass off to pass the initial PES test then, once the fear of failure has passed, return to a more normal level of fitness. They will then go bush, not be up to the physical standard required, get broken, end up in rehab platoon, and be medically discharged. I am willing to place a very large bet that the rate of females getting broken in infantry battalions is at least four times that of the male rate. Once this happens, it will hit the media and it will all be Army's fault somehow, and Ms Broderick will get to do another review into why those knuckle dragging males in the Army just wont let females compete equally.
Mind you, not all that many females are putting their hand up to join the combat corps anyway, so the problem may not be as bad as I said. Not a single female in the most recent RMC class put in a preference for a combat corps. Only one female soldier in my whole brigade has applied for a corps transfer, and she failed the PES.
