Women not rushing to join combat units Australia's female soldiers are in no hurry to join frontline combat units. In the five months since direct fighting units were opened to women, fewer than 20 have applied and none have sought to join infantry units. But women have applied to join armoured corps, artillery and engineering units. Army chief Lieutenant General David Morrison said infantry was always the area most likely to lag for female recruitment, and he expected the eventual take-up rate would be small. Other countries which have long allowed women to serve in combat positions also had few women in infantry units. But higher numbers of female soldiers were graduating from the Royal Military College at Duntroon and were applying to join the armoured corps tank regiments. Among them is the army's first ever female armoured corps officer, who's not been named. She's now serving as commander of a troop of Abrams tanks with the 1st Armoured Regiment in Darwin. Defence force chief General David Hurley said that to date, fewer than 20 women had applied to serve with combat units. "We weren't expecting to be rushed off our feet and deliberately opened the doors in the first step to women who are currently in the service," he told a Senate committee hearing in Canberra on Tuesday. Australia lifted all restriction on women serving in frontline units on January 1, initially for women currently serving in the Australian Defence Force (ADF). This will be extended to women from outside defence in 2016. General Hurley said the important thing was that women walking into a defence recruitment office know all defence jobs were now open to them. "If they meet the performance standards they will be supported to have a successful career like any other person," he said. Head of defence people capability, Major General Gerard Fogarty, agreed the response from women was as expected given many in the ADF were happy with what they were already doing. "It's a big step to actually change employment categories and many don't wish to, because they are thoroughly satisfied," he told the budget estimates committee. After the Australian Defence Force Academy "Skype scandal" in 2011 - in which a male cadet live streamed his consensual sexual encounter with a female cadet to friends in a nearby room - the ADF reviewed its approach to women in the service. It adopted a series of reforms and created targets for females to comprise 25 per cent of RAAF and navy personnel and 15 per cent of the army within a decade. Major General Fogarty said the recruitment of women into the ADF had been significantly better this year. The army now comprises 10.7 per cent females, up 0.7 per cent or just under 300 so far this year. The RAAF now comprises 17.5 per cent women, up 0.36 per cent since January. In the navy, women now fill more than 18 per cent of positions.