Evaluating Fundamental and Operational Marksmanship Performance Across Head-Borne Equipment

Abstract: Warfighter clothing and individual equipment (CIE) can impede the ability of a Warfighter to rapidly identify, engage, and hit their target. This paper describes a laboratory experiment where 32 Soldiers completed a simulated marksmanship scenario in four head-borne CIE conditions. Conditions included the M50 military respirator gas mask, sand-wind-dust (SWD) goggles, the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH): with eye protection, and the ACH alone. The scenario consisted of two sequential marksmanship tasks, referred to collectively as the Individual Shooting Scenario (ISS), consisting of a traditional and a novel marksmanship task. Our results illustrated that the ISS could capture marksmanship performance differences with enough sensitivity to distinguish across head-borne CIE equipment. Of the four CIE conditions, Soldiers generally performed worst while donning the M50 mask while results for other conditions varied by marksmanship measurement. The p(hit) for the traditional marksmanship task was significantly different across all conditions and post hoc testing found that the ACH with eye protection and SWD goggles were significantly better than the M50 condition. The findings collectively indicate a relationship between increased burdensomeness of head-borne equipment and its impact on the application of marksmanship fundamentals, consequently resulting in adverse effects on marksmanship outcomes. Further investigation is warranted to comprehensively probe the relationship and limitations of this finding. Understanding the influence of CIE on marksmanship performance can aid equipment designers to prepare for a wider variety of environments; in addition, it also can improve marksmanship training for Warfighters in equipment, the same equipment which saves lives in diverse and harsh combat environments.

Keywords: Marksmanship, Performance Measurement, Human Systems Integration, Performance Support

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005384

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