As a bloke who has relied upon  the map and compass - with the paces, I know what you mean. GPS has destroyed what we had in that skill. The handheld GPS is small and easy, but take it out of their hands, and they are clueless.

 

Yak

Again, and this is just my opinion, yes and no. It's made secondary rather than destroy it. I didn't realize this until I tried to get my men maps in OIF. I got looked at funny and told, "just use the plugger and BFT." At first, I was really bothered by this. When I was in the CAV it was all maps and compass. But times changes and A LOT of things are being done electronically now. OK so the obvious question. What if (fill is bad country) takes out GPS? Well then we'd have a lot to worry about! But, by the same token, and much more likely to happen, what if you lose the map? Or what if it gets rained on? What if you fall on the compass because you tried to not step on that Rattlesnake you saw at the last minute!...lol. Happened to me 2 weeks ago!!!

Maps and compass like GPS are technologies. Granted a map isn't as vulnerable to enemy action as is GPS but I digress. It's a very effective tool if you know how to use it beyond simply inputting MGRS coordinates. But if thats all you have to do, it allows for much faster movement and course corrections on the fly. IMHO GPS should be standard issue with the price of consumer electronics being so low these days. I also think the basic map reading skills and use of a compass as a back up should be maintained as well. It's just like computers. We all love them obviously but we still need pen and paper too. 

Land Nav is fun and should include both traditional and new techniques. Its a great thing to put on a training schedule and what I like is you can include it concurrently with other events when in the field. After working on the classroom and individual land nav stuff, you can do things like an 8 to 12 mile tactical road march but do it between points for instance. There are a lot of ways for a commander or leader to be creative and maintain both skill sets. One way I use to "test" the ability of my guys to navigate by means other than GPS is I pick two points with a major obstacle bewteen them. Most "lazy" GPS users simply get a grid and "dead reckon" to that point with the device. Kinda sucks if in doing that you run into a river or step ridge. It kind of motivates them to pull out a map and actually get familiar with the terrain and then plot ways around it. So long as you remember to use the GM angle a compass isn't that hard to use. It's actually reading the map and being able to terrain associate well enough to figure out where on that map you are standing thats hard. So even with GPS, a properly set up course can still push you to rely on other skills. Just remember the crawl walk run method when doing this!

-DA  

 

 

An informative, cheerful and good natured thread? On SP? Never! Quickly Herald, come and burn these fools in the light of your justice! There's still time to turn this thread into a repetetive series of assertions and personal attacks!

Darth,

Regarding the highlighted, unfortunately thats not a possibility.  I discovered the hard way what happens when you try to use a comercial GPS in a non benign EW environment!!!!!   It goes fcuking nuts!!!!!!  You need to have either a PLGR or DAGR which both have whats known as a "Selective Availablity Anti Spoofing Module" (SAASM) integral.  This is the chip that you load the "Crypto" into which lets the reciever decode the "Precise Positioning Signal" (PPS) which by nature of where this info is placed on the carrier wave makes it very hard to jam/spoof.  What I have just written is not 100% accurate, however its goodenough for a public forum ;) 

 

So unfortunatley what that means is that if mil standard GPS receivers became standard issue say to all Combat Arms MOS's you would have a lot of  "Joes" wandering around with "Controlled Cryptographic Items" (CCI).  And we both know Darth they are going to lose them and then the brown stuff will well and truely hit the large rotating thing and days will be spent combing the training area trying to find them!!!!

 <

Ha Ha!!!  These type of threads do occasionally happen ;)  Over on the Artillery forum (which is sadly quiet these days) we always managed to stay civil and were able to discuss numerous systems and capabilities without it turning into a nationalistic pecker measuring contest!!!!!  Now Im sure a lot of folks reading this may be wondering "Whats MGRS and UTM etc..."  Or maybe they are not, but Im going to go ahead and elaborate on exactly what we are talking about regarding these terms and how they are applied to the wonderful task of Land Nav ;)

Firstly, im sure everone has at sometime played with a globe or looked through a regular world atlas.  On these you are almost certainely going to see teh world overlayed with lines of Longituded and Latitude defined in Degrees, Minutes and Seconds format.  See Google Earth Image below:

 

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk297/M777A2/Google%20Earth%20Stuff/LatitudeandLongitudeGrid.jpg" width="600" border="0" />

 

Now while this is a perfectly fine method of defining a points "Geospatial" location on the surface of teh earth, its is not really that user friendly for the purposes of determining distance between points and direction of travel between them.  For that a much more suitable method of determing a points location is the UTM format of grid system.  UTM stands for Universal Transform Mercator and is basically a "Metric" Coordinate system utilising Eastings and Northings given in Meters.  See pic below:

 

In this image we can see some numbers running around the world and some letters running north south.  Each of these numbered strips is known as a "Zone"  Each one of these zones is 6 degrees of longitude wide at the equator, which obvioulsy means there are 60 grid zones in total.  The letters shown further subdivide these zones into strips.  So we can say that the bulk of florida is contained withing UTM location 17R. 

 

So, getting to how the metric system comes into play with this system.  Well, the central line of longitude in each zone is defined as having an "Easting" of 500000m, and the Equator is defined as having a "Northing" of 0m.  So there are identical UTM coorditates in each Grid Zone.  As you move east from the central line of each grid zone your "Easting" increases until you cross into the adjacent zone wherupon it drops to 500000m  minus how many meters West of the central line of this grid zone you are.  The opposite is true as you move West from the central line within the grid zone, your "Easting" decreases until you cross into the next zone whereupon it jumps to 500000m plus how many meters East of the central line of this grid zone you are.  Your Northing is simply how many meters North of the Equator you are.

 

So as an example a full UTM coordinates would look like this 17 S 661142E 3881489N.  Note, the E and N may not always be used so its important to remember that an Easting is always given first and contains 6 digits, Northing is given second and has a 7 digits.

 

Well, thats the basics of UTM coordinate systems explained ;) its a little different regarding the Northing in the southern hemisphere but no need to worry about that right now.  I will explain MGRS tomorrow as I am now tired ;) 

 

By the way, the above Coordinate is a real location.  Who can tell me which military installations training area contains this location ;)

 

One of the reasons GPS is so useful to people who are properly trained is because they started with a solid understanding of land navigation. Having been taught the basics, a GPS becomes more than a navigation needle telling what direction to walk but instead a computational tool that can be used faster in the field than a compass and map. We teach mathamatics by having students memorize formulas and understand the basics before they use calculators. At least that is what is supposed to happen.

 

I learned something on this thread, I'd never thought about the fact that night step counts are different from day. Logical but I'd never heard that inspite of allot of work with civilian SAR teams.

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

 

 

Darth

I get what you mean regarding making an inexpensive non crypto enables GPS standard issue.  You are right the benefits do outweigh any issues regarding accuracy etc in certain curcumstances.  I very often forget that not everyone needs to worry about being able to get to and report position in 8 or 10 digit grid formats.  For the vast majority of land nav tasks simply getting to the correct 100m or even 1000m grid is quite sufficient!!!!  Id like to think that once within the 100 meter grid folks could use the MK1 eyebal to locate whatever specific reference or point they are trying to get to ;)

 

Regards

 

Arty

Quite embarrassing but about a month ago, I was standing no more than 50 meters from a point I was looking for and it must have taken me half an hour to find the darn marker! Adding insult to injury I had a GPS, Map and Compass. I knew exactly how far I walked and where I was standing...lol. I eventually figured out the problem but I'm embarrassed to admit!

-DA 

 

 

Well as I mentioned Im going to go ahead and explain the MGRS (Military Grid Reference System).  I strongly suspect no one is really that interested, but I got nothing else pressing to do right now ;) 

 

Quite simply this system is a further refinement of the UTM system previously explained, however there a re a few important differences.  A UTM coordinate ALWAYS has a 6 digit Easting and a 7 digit Northing and is used to define a Point on the Surface of the Earth.  MGRS However has a variable length format and is actualy used to define an area, i.e a Grid, of varying size.  Another Significant difference is that Each UTM Grid Zone is further broken down into 100,000m grid squares, each of which have a 2 Letter Identifer.  The first letter replacing the first digit of the UTM Easting, and the second letter replacing the first 2 digits of the Northing.   See Picture Below:

 

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk297/M777A2/Google%20Earth%20Stuff/100000mGrid.jpg" width="600" border="0" />

 

This shows the state of North Carolina with a MGRS 100,000m grid overlay enabled.  The green Cross-hair is actually the UTM coordinate I gave previously.  The pic below is slightly zoomed in and you can see that the 100,000m Grid square containing Fayetteville and Ft Bragg has the locator Papa Uniform (PU)  So the full identifyer for this grid is 17S PU.

 

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk297/M777A2/Google%20Earth%20Stuff/100000mGrid2.jpg" width="600" border="0" />

 

By the way, please ignore the place mark for 10th Marines Regimental CP, that does not form part of this lesson ;)

 

So we now have the first part of any MGRS Format location   The next part is the variable portion of the MGRS system, and is given as either a 4, 6, 8 or 10 digit grid.  4 digit defines a 1000m Grid Square, a 6 digit defines a 100m, an 8 digit defines a 10m grid aquare and a 10 digit defines a 1m grid square which for all intents and purposes is a Point and is the equivilent of a full 13 digit UTM coordinate.

 

The next image is significantly further zoomed in and we can now see some significant detail of the Ft Bragg Training area and the specific Firing Point I am using as an example.  Which by the way is contained within Training Area Hotel Hotel 1 (HH1). 

 

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk297/M777A2/Google%20Earth%20Stuff/MGRS4DigitGrid.jpg" width="600" border="0" />

 

This blue overaly is a 1000m grid and we can see the Red Outline Firing Point is contained with Grid 17S PU 6181.  In many cases this is a sufficiently accurate enough grid to say go there and emplace as terrain dictates.  In this case howeer it is not accurate enough.  We can see that at the bottom right of this grid is another open area at the end of an LZ.  A unit not intimately familiar with the Ft Bragg area could quite easily end up establishing themselves at this loation rather than the desired area!!!  So we need to add a few more digits to our location.  The pic below is zoomed in further an now has a 100m Grid overlay enabled.

 

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk297/M777A2/Google%20Earth%20Stuff/100mGridAnnotated.jpg" width="600" border="0" />

 

Here we can see that the centre of this Firing Point is contained within Grid 17S PU 611814.  And that I hope guys and gals is a thorough explanation of the UTM and MGRS methods of defining locations on the surface of teh earth.

 

Regards

 

Arty