Military Working Dog Handler, Sgt. David Sheriff, and his four-legged partner, Fargo, with the 947th Military Police Detachment (The Old Guard), Washington, D.C., take part in an evaluation of a brand-new dynamites detection training help April 6 at the Training Support Center here. The evaluation belonged to what’s called the Maneuver Support, Sustainment and Protection Integration eXperiments, or MSSPIX, which supplies Army leaders and ability designers an opportunity to get insights into the practicality of emerging innovations through reputable and verified functional evaluations.
VIEW ORIGINAL
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. — More than 20 military working dog groups from throughout the Army assembled on Fort Leonard Wood recently to take part in an evaluation of a brand-new dynamites detection training help established at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
According to Jarrett Ellis, an experimentation engineer at the Maneuver Support Battle Lab here — which falls under Army Futures Command — the evaluation belonged to the Maneuver Support, Sustainment and Protection Integration eXperiments. MSSPIX, as it’s typically called, supplies Army leaders and ability designers an opportunity to get insights into the practicality of emerging innovations through reputable and verified functional evaluations.
“We usually do MSSPIX in May,” Ellis said. “But because this assessment was so resource intensive, we decided to move it into its own week.”
The innovation being examined has the possible to streamline a few of the procedure of training and certifying dogs that ferret out dynamites, Ellis said.
“One of the major limitations to training these dogs is that you have to have the explosives on hand,” Ellis said. “If you deploy a dog team somewhere, it’s hard for them to train the dogs and do all the certifications and stuff like that. So, what the folks from the DEVCOM Chem Bio Center did was figure out a way to use an inkjet printer, like you would use in an office, to print explosives on pieces of paper at a very small level — a level where you wouldn’t be able to detonate it.”
Ellis said evaluations were carried out inside at the Training Support Center, near Forney Airfield, in addition to outdoors at Training Area 401, where the printed dynamite might be buried to mimic sub-surface dynamites detection. Two kinds of dynamites were printed for the evaluation, Ellis said, however in theory, any kind of dynamite might be printed for training functions.
Staff Sgt. Hector Rodriguez, a kennel master with the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was among the Soldiers selected to offer feedback on the innovation. He called it “a step in the right direction.”
“It’s awesome — the whole concept behind it,” Rodriguez said. “Having those odors on us helps out a lot. They’re replaceable as well, so the continuity stays in those kennels that have them.”
Ellis said bringing the Soldiers who might one day be provided this innovation into the advancement procedure is one part of what makes MSSPIX important to the Army.
“The folks from the Battle Lab, we’re talking to the Soldiers; we’re getting feedback on how this improves what they do on the job,” Ellis said. “Between the Battle Lab and the capability developers, we can really push this in a direction that will suit the Soldiers.”
Rodriguez, who took part in the evaluation together with a few of his more junior MWD Soldiers from the CAC, said it feels good to be part of “the big picture.”
“I tell my Soldiers, there’s not a lot of times when a private and his working dog get to support big Army initiatives, making history for the Army,” he said. “So, I think it’s great that there are different departments within our services that are getting after the research and helping our working dogs into the future.”
