Effects of Recoil on Rifle Marksmanship Simulator Performance
Abstract
This report determines if the accurate reproduction of a rifle's recoil is a necessary feature of a rifle marksmanship simulator, this research was conducted with 24 adult volunteers in a military research organization. Each research participant fired 12 shots at silhouette targets presented on the Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator (MACS), whose demilitarized M16A1 rifle was equipped with a five-stage solenoid recoil mechanism developed by Larson Lectronics, Inc. Six of these shots were fired with recoil and six were fired without recoil. In each recoil condition, three shots were fired from a supported firing position and three were fired from an unsupported position. The presentation sequence of the recoil and firing position conditions was counterbalanced across firers. In terms of both movement before the shot and accuracy, markmanship simulator performance was not found to differ significantly as a function of recoil. As expected, recoil resulted in significantly greater movement after the shot, because of the introduction of rifle movement by the recoil mechanism itself. Consistent with previous research in the areas of classical conditioning and simulator fidelity, these findings suggest that the accurate reproduction of recoil is unnecessary in rifle markmanship simulation. Keywords: Rifle markmanship training, Simulator fidelity, Training devices, Weapons training, Simulation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA206984
Entities
People
- Kenneth L. Evans
Organizations
- U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences