equipment testing
Scientifically Assess Actual Lethality
Customers:
FBI, DEA, USMC Syscom/TECOM
If you served, either in the military or as an officer or agent, you probably wondered “How the heck did they pick this <insert gear> that’s bugging you?”
Think of the shoddy sight on your pistol, or the buttstock on your carbine, or the helmet that couldn’t be strapped to get out of the way.
Equipment testing should INCLUDE PERFORMANCE TESTING.
We defined “performance “ as what is the impact on lethality - speed and accuracy together.
We’ve done this for marksmanship training, sniper rifle configurations, red dot vs iron sights, lasers vs red dots at distances from 3 to 600 meters, and lasers vs red dots with MOPP (see photo).
Add lethality measurement to equipment/Training testing
OBJECTIVE:
The processes with these customers followed what we would like to do with you:
Design an assessment reflecting the mission those using this gear have and the opponent’s capabilities. Customer mission SMEs, human performance experts, equipment SMEs, from customer and ScoringTech and other partners all worked to create a scalable assessment.
Design a valid experiment. This involved customer researchers (if they had them on staff) and also ScoringTech data scientists.
For the effort to be useful the science had to be valid and the right research questions asked.Implement the experiments. In the case of the FBI or DEA this involved every incoming agent for the last 2 years. Thousands.
For other equipment tests, for instance active vs passive aiming tests, or sniper rifle configurations it involved finding participants capable of finding the difference in the gear, and creating scientifically valid environments for them to perform in. And shoot a lot - A LOT!Take the data - all shot times, all hits, other factors and plug it into big data science/statistics and see what the research tells us in an unbiased fashion.
OVERVIEW:
To score the various lethality tests, Scoring Tech deployed its Joint Marksmanship Assessment Package (JMAP) app. The JMAP app captured shot times, target images, scores, and notes for each iteration of each test.
IMPLEMENTATION:
Scoring Tech implemented scientific testing protocols for each assessment and eliminated as many human and equipment variables as possible.
Each test was carefully executed and the results were then analyzed by a Scoring Tech data scientist to provide detailed reports on equipment performance and resulting reductions in lethality gaps. While the results of each test are sensitive and not publicly available, the data obtained allowed each customer (USMC SYSCOM, FBI, and DEA) to make objective and highly-informed decisions regarding equipment selection.
