Weapon Simulator Test Methodology Investigation: Comparison of Live Fire and Weapon Simulator Test Methodologies and the Effects of Clothing and Individual Equipment on Marksmanship

A novel weapon simulator test methodology has been developed for evaluating the effect of Clothing and Individual Equipment (CIE) on marksmanship performance, without the additional cost, safety, and logistical concerns associated with live fire evaluations. The purpose of the evaluation documented in this report was to determine if the weapon simulator test methodology detected the same effects of CIE on marksmanship performance as seen on the live fire range by comparing the data collected using the same Test Participants (TPs) in both the live fire and simulated conditions. Eleven military TPs with marksmanship experience executed the live fire and simulator test methodologies in both a baseline configuration and in a test configuration which included the M40 Chemical-Biological (CB) protective mask. Marksmanship performance dependent variables analyzed included shot group tightness, radial error from the center of the target, and multiple time variables. The weapon simulator and live fire test methodologies were both able to capture similar trends regarding the impact of the M40 Mask on marksmanship performance. There were no significant differences between the No Mask and M40Mask configurations in terms of shot accuracy in either the live fire or weapon simulator results, and both test methodologies also found significant main effects for firing position. The main difference in the results was that the weapon simulator results revealed a significant difference in time to transition between targets, whereas no significant differences in engagement time were found in the live fire results.