N193-A03 - Focus Area 1 - Rapid Developent of a Novel Marksmanship Evaluation Package

The 2018 United States Marine Corps (USMC) Rifle Marksmanship Lethality Capabilities Based Assessment (CBA) identified multiple marksmanship related capability gaps in USMC qualification standards and training programs – gaps that they identified as critical to individual Marine lethality in a future near-peer conflict. Notably, the CBA highlights that additional high-resolution live-fire time and accuracy data is needed to enable USMC leadership to make informed and timely decisions about training and qualification standards. The lethality gap can be largely attributed to the absence of relevant, live-fire data indicating that the need for a new live-fire data collection solution is paramount. Lethality, as measured on a firing range, is considered by the USMC to be a combination of speed and accuracy. While accuracy (i.e., hitting the target) is a critical component of lethality, it falls into the category of necessary but insufficient. In near-peer & urban operations, the speed at which service members deliver accuracy is equally critical. Since the late 19th century, the USMC had prioritized accuracy, but not speed, in training and qualifications. However, even as the speed component of the lethality equation became apparent during recent conflicts and increasingly desired by military leaders… there was not a way to efficiently measure time and accuracy together at the scale needed by the USMC. The fundamental problem that needs to be solved is how to collect relevant, live-fire data (speed and accuracy) at scale. In Phase I, we developed a tablet-based electronic scoresheet that replaced the traditional “pen & paper” scorecard and connected it to an acoustic shot timing device via Bluetooth. However, while acoustic shot timing technology and manual target scoring has long been the standard for collecting detailed and accurate (albeit low volume) shooting data, this technology is limited to measuring one individual per location at a time. In order to scale this critical capability to the USMC infantry company and maximize USCMC lethality, novel ways to capture shot timing and accuracy data from multiple individuals at once must be developed. This Phase II proposal builds on technology built, prototyped and proofed in Phase I to provide concurrent timing and scoring tools, called the Joint Marksmanship Assessment Package (JMAP)  to the USMC Company and Battalion to provide scalable training and measurement of time/accuracy-based lethality. With qualifications and training done at the Company level, this makes efficient time/accuracy qualification and training available USMC wide. We will develop and deliver 10 JMAP prototype kits to Office of Naval Research, USMC Weapons Training Battalion (WTBN), and 5 Marine line companies (as specified by WTBN).  These will each provide the ability to time and score 20 Marines concurrently using accellerometer timing, visual timing, and visual scoring technologies.