I've seen a few women, who could outperform their male counterparts, in almost any test.
Strength is never related to muscle size, just the natural fat content or marbling.
Likewise, athletic speed is related to the amount of fast twitch fibre.
And one will find some women who routinely outperform most men!
If women want to fight on the front line or in special forces?
All that ought to be required is they pass a full physical.
Run the required distance carrying all their own gear, and still be able to perform combat roles at the end of it!
One of which could include carrying 2 metre, 120 kilo comrade, in a fireman's carry, over a hundred metres.
Given rape is also part of warfare, and indeed, some co-ed military colleges?
Women will always serve at some disadvantage? Moreover, men can't fall pregnant!
Some of the most courageous heroes in recorded history, were women serving various roles behind enemy lines, and or resisting the Gestapo, or their equivalent.
Most women have a higher pain threshold than most men. So it is never a question of courage, just raw natural ability and strength!
However, I have yet to see even a world beating female athlete, run a full marathon in under 2 hours 10 minutes.
Men and women are not only made different, but are wired differently as well!
They generally have very different priorities?
Men seem to be naturally able to see the big picture, whereas, women seem better able to multi-task, and see the detail?
That ends the argument, given most women simply cannot match men in the grunt department.
Those that can, should find no impediment, given it's their personal choice!?
Rhrosty.

As has been demonstrated by writers here and also through common sense, it is ludicrous that women serve in combat.

However ... if they insist ... let them have contingents of their own sex ... and get on with it.

Here's a point I'd overlooked thus far.
PMC's and "security contractors" operate all over the "war on terror" theatres, there's no legal or bureaucratic impediment to their hiring women for high risk duties, their duties are also much lighter from the point of view of physical exertion and load carrying capacity.
They do hire women, I've seen documentaries following their operators around Baghdad and Kabul and noticed a few female Aussie accents in the briefing rooms and offices, but not out on the convoys.
Why would that be?

JayofMelbourne,

There would be a rationale to allotting duties based on ability. Possibly these women take on those assignments which release men for more physically demanding duties.

No, Jay, I'm not 'just being silly now'. Modern warfare is no longer won by heavily armed dudes carting around the equivalent of a munitions warehouse on their backs and heads. Western combat machinery and the Western combat soldier are dinosaur relics doomed for extinction.

Due to its over-reliance on redundant, heavy and cumbersome weaponry, the West (aka the US and its imperial minions) has lost every combat war it's fought in the last 50 years. Its only superiority now lies in its ability to carpet bomb and surgically strike from the air - a task that is not only devoid of all morality, courage or honour, it's also non-gender specific.

The irony is that, because men have gone to such lengths to make combat as hyper-masculine as possible, they have rendered it ineffectual. The only fighting forces that win conflicts on the ground anymore are those that carry very little, remain lightly armed and can appear and disappear very quickly - something women can do just as well, even better than, men.

[This got left out of my previous comment, due to technical problems in posting.]

A lot of writers here seem to think that men go straight from normal life and slap-bang into a warzone – as if extensive combat training and selection processes never happen. As with men, the sort of women who would excel in combat are those with strong athletic builds and a strong war ethic, who undergo extensive physical and mental training to equip them for life in a warzone. Just as many men are not suited to combat (undoubtedly, the most tragic outcome of conscription), a lot of women ARE suited to it.