Army Exoskeleton Prototype Helps Soldiers Learn To Shoot

An anonymous reader writes: Infantrymen live by their shooting skills, but becoming an expert marksman can take a long time. U.S. Army researchers are working on a way to improve these skills with the help of the MAXFAS, an arm exoskeleton that uses arm braces to correct involuntary arm shakes. Designed At the U.S. Army Research Laboratory by Dan Baechle, the MAXFAS has been shown to improve aim even after users have taken it off. "Soldiers need to be able to aim and shoot accurately and quickly in the chaos of the battlefield," Baechle said. "Training with MAXFAS could improve Soldiers' accuracy, and reduce current time and ammunition requirements in basic training."

Comments

What happened to basic training standards?

[adosch]

Ah how the U.S. Military has softened up. I remember pushups, kick in the helmet, and more pushups, sweat in the eyes, drill sergeant fear and pushups to correct my shooting posture and shaking.

I am sure it is a cool corrective tool to use, but its a crutch. But we have been shooting guns for centuries and using less-than-accurate firearms than we have now, its a matter of attention, caring and wanting to be good with your firearm.

And icing on the cake: When I was in the 'motherland' for OIF, it was a great feeling to know I had good shooting mechanics and trusted my shot. I couldn't imagine being in the military and sucking at that.

Re:What happened to basic training standards?

[ShanghaiBill]

The goal here is to finally have women serving as equal.

Marksmanship is an area where women tend to do well. They have a lower center of gravity, less fast-twitch muscle, and a weaker systolic heartbeat. For the opposite reasons, black men tend to be the worst marksmen. In general, if you are good at sports that require sprinting, fast reactions, and upper body strength, you will be bad at shooting.

Alternatively...

[Karmashock]

... a drill sergeant could just push your arm into the correct position and call you a grab-asstic piece of amphibian shit until you get it straight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This reminds me of those tablets they were handing out to school children on the notion that it improves education... and isn't just a great way to play angry birds. Which is exactly what happened to the Los Angeles Unified version of that little genius ploy.

I don't know. I'm all for exoskeletons... in the military and otherwise. But telling me it teaches people how to shoot in the military seems like a solution to a problem that we already have a better solution for... no?

Re:Alternatively...

[Karmashock]

According to the military, that isn't the problem. Apparently the current generation is more willing to kill than any prior generation that they kept records for... WW1's generation had a really hard time actually intentionally shooting someone.

Even up to Vietnam it was quite common for US soldiers to intentionally miss.

The military is saying the problem is not that people are sissies so much as they're fat and weak. So they've shifted a lot of the training from bits where they key up people's killer instincts and instead spend that time running laps and doing push ups.

I can send you reports from the marines and army. They're very happy with the "grit" of the men showing up to serve. They're just annoyed out how out of shape they are.