The most aggravating thread you might have learned from.

[M118LR]

This thread shall be aggravating, Warning.

Those that know not, yet know that they know not, are ignorant: Teach them.
Those that know, yet know not that they know, are insecure: Nurture them.
Those that know not,yet know not that they know not, are fools: Shun them.
Those that know, and know that they know, yet care not if you know, are Arrogant: belittle them.

Now with all that in advance, how many inches is your pace?
Is it the same when carrying a 66 lb Battle Pack?
How about 15 degrees downhill?
What about 15 degrees uphill?

What does it matter? Are you a walking target? Do they train shooters to expect a certain amount of lead at a normal walking speed? Is 15 degrees uphill or downhill part of a shooting resolution?

Before you get unhinged, every one on this forum owns a compass. What is the radial out your front door? (ie the bearing line your compass displays as you look out your front door)

Why is this relevant? Before the government gives you a rifle, you are required to pass a simple land navigation course. Before you go off about land navigation, did you have to get your compass to determine the radial out your own front door?

Those that silently have the answers to all the questions, Thanks for bearing with me. Those that want to beat thier own drums, this is the rhetorical section. Now the answer to the length of pace question in 30 inches Militarily, uphill, downhill, at the start of a 12 mile ruck, at the end of a 12 mile ruck, with or without 66 lbs of Battle Rattle.

More to come, once this sinks in. (Y'all wanted a little of a 30 year Military Career, here it comes)

If at any time there is a question about synthetic, (this probably being heavy on Sailors Lexicon) please feel free to question.

[Antonyraison]

interesting and thought provoking..
I know nothing of war or military, other than stories my father has shared.
I always find its those that think they know,but do not know (likely the fools) that are the ones to always say oh well, you know we shall just do x or y or z in such situation, without ever have been in them, and I can tell you right now, that they are usually the ones to run off crying within 5min of any such a situation..

[Fixit]

I have found that my pace has shorten over the last few years by about an Inch. As to declination that changes so I resdresdet my compass on my birthday every year . Oh and yes I have detail topos of a about 50 miles around me and ther mi I topo atlas of the state.

[crashdive123]

(Y'all wanted a little of a 30 year Military Career, here it comes)

Who the heck wanted that?

[kyratshooter]

It's all just a white ribbon on the screen to most of us anyway.

This almost reminds me of Gun Kid!

[finallyME]

I have spent a bit of time trying to teach land nav. Mostly to Boy Scouts. The only real time I was not teaching boy scouts was when I was in Basic and was trying to teach my Platoon mates so that they could pass the written. I never used Land nav in Basic, and was given a rifle without having to pass any real land nav test. Luckily, I did do 2 years of college ROTC, in which I was taught a fair amount of land nav, and even practiced it on an amazing course, out here in Utah. I have never done the Land nav portion of the Q course, which I hear is brutal.

That being said, I have had a really hard time teaching it to scouts and no luck teaching it to adults. Most people just plain don't care and don't want to learn. They think a gps will save them. They look at a topo and just can't see "it", and then don't even try to learn. Another option is that I am a bad teacher.... However, I love land nav. I love using a map and compass to find my way around. I love how much a map tells me. I now have the cheapest GPS out there, and use it occasionally to double check myself. Of course, that means that I have to know how to find a grid coordinate on a map, which is a skill most people are impatient with. I think anything less than a map and compass is like walking around with blinders on, or seeing the world through a paper towel roll.

With respect to pace count..... I rarely use it. I don't know what my pace is now. I know I have slowed down, especially since I have to walk along side my wife and children. I live in mountains, which means land association is very easy. Shooting an azimuth and following the line is not something I ever need to do. I have made pace count courses to test scouts though. That is always fun to watch.

[kyratshooter]

The most difficult land navigation I have attempted in the past twenty years was finding the campsite for the Jamboree back in 2013! Crash hid that one between the trout farm and the big mountain in a "no street address zone"!

I found myself sitting on a bridge two miles away from the target with the GPS telling me I had reached my destination.

FM, even in the military they hand everyone a GPS these days.

[Rick]

The closest I'll ever come to a 66 pound ruck is reading about it. As for a compass, I can walk ten steps in any direction anywhere in the state and hit a road.

[M118LR]

Thank Y'all for your patience. Yup, we are mostly civilians now. Most aren't going to march around endlessly, and we have no need to follow hidden trails by pace count on ranger beads, probably because Bambi hasn't got a high powered rifle. (Not to sure about kangaroo's LOL) As a matter of fact nowadays I'll blaze or mark a trail with the most reflective brightest colors, just so that a blind Old Man can be sure of finding it. Now them GPS's and Cell phones are convenient, but I notice that most every restaurant has sign's up stating free power stations and wifi, so I'll guess that they ain't as dependable as the Old liquid filled compass yet.

Since we all are going to have different length paces, it's kind of essential to be able to mark way points along the trail if we want others to get to certain destinations. Back in the days when I lived in cornfield county land navigation was pretty much a straight line over the stubble in the fields. But, usually most treks require a course change or two in order to get around obstacles. Probably the oldest used trail marker was a pyramid of rocks, three on the ground and one balanced on top. (You could pick them up along the way as you traveled to the spot where a course change would need to made) There where many ways of placing the rocks to communicate instructions, but everyone can work out thier own system with those they want to relay information to. But as a minimum the pile of rocks serves notice that you made it to the proper location and a change of direction is forthcoming.

I'm going to assume that most folks have a topographical map of the area around thier homestead, they are available at the county office in most locals. It doesn't take much to prepare a route along the high ground in the advent of that once in a thousand year flood, and you are limited to walking out. But it will be much easier to determine distance if you know the length of your pace, and could rely come in handy if it was dark and miserable.

Now some folks have the luxury of opening the bathroom window and filling thier Sporting Game Tag, but the rest of us shall need to go outside of our normal area to hunt. We all mean to get a topographical map of the area we intend to hunt, but it's not as common as it should be. So now we are going by the instructions of the landowner or caretaker.

I had just such a situation while hunting in Maine many years ago. Got to the cabin late after driving half the night, woke up at O-DARK-THIRTY and got these instructions from the 6-6 Woodsman that spent his every day working the property: Head West Northwest until you reach the octopus, the go due West 500 yards to the tree stand, just before sunset we will all gather at the beaver dam which is about a 15 min walk South Southwest. Clicking on the angle-headed red lens flashlight off I went. Fortunately I managed to hold true to the bearing and discovered that the "octopus" was a massive oak tree with numerous branches. It helped that about six feet up the trunk he had cut a blaze visible from the direction of travel that he gave me. Okay, head due West 600 paces and keep an eye out for a tree stand. Got close enough to find the ladder and get up as the sun rose. Not much action. Using the four finger method figured I had a little over an hour before sunset so it might be wise to head to the beaver dam. Bog,swale,quakies, crashing through the snow covered ice etc... just as the sun was setting I managed to make it to the beaver dam. Heavily laden with the Maine Accent and a wry smile, Cliff (the owner/woodsman) greeted me with "Not many flatlander's show up on time." Of course I wanted to know how on earth anyone made the last leg of the trek across the forsaken stretch ground that I just worked myself through in almost an hour, in 15 minutes. He smiled when he told me that there is a easy pathway that any blind man could follow during the summer! Guess the joke was on me.

[finallyME]

I use caltopo. https://caltopo.com It lets me print my own maps for free. Plus I can overlay a UTM grid at whatever map scale I want to fit what my compass or protractor has. That way I can use my protractor to locate a grid coordinate. I print these out on 8.5 X 11 sheets of waterproof paper. Any place in the US, any scale, free. Not bad.

KYRS, they don't hand GPSs to everyone. Remember, if there are tier 1 units, then their are also tier 5 units. Tier 1 units get what they want. Tier 5 units.... don't. When we got to Iraq, the officers were using personal consumer gps'. We got lost a lot. 6 months into it, a bunch of us got to put a fancy system in our trucks that had a gps and a computer with maps and the ability to "text" each other and home base. We still got lost, just not as much.

[Antonyraison]

as for the navigation, I have learnt to navigate off compass and do pacing, we may do it slightly different cause we use metric not imperial system. We where taught to do our pacing off a 100 meters, and each terrain will differ, but roughly for me about 60 paces to 100m.
I actually do not know the bearing facing directly out my door, other than to say it lies Northward...
I have only hiked with packs on my back about 10-15kg (22-35lbs) for Kilometers, about 20-30km over 2 days... not easy...

[finallyME]

as for the navigation, I have learnt to navigate off compass and do pacing, we may do it slightly different cause we use metric not imperial system. We where taught to do our pacing off a 100 meters, and each terrain will differ, but roughly for me about 60 paces to 100m.

You might be surprised to learn that most of us that have been taught land nav with pacing, used meters. The military system is in meters, so if you learned it in the military, you used meters or Kms. The UTM system that I use now as a civilian is also in meters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univer...rdinate_system

My door faces directly east.

[M118LR]

Attempted to give Y'all the startling conclusion, but it got lost. Time for Dinner, maybe next time.

[Antonyraison]

You might be surprised to learn that most of us that have been taught land nav with pacing, used meters. The military system is in meters, so if you learned it in the military, you used meters or Kms. The UTM system that I use now as a civilian is also in meters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univer...rdinate_system

My door faces directly east.

Ahhh I see.. Makes sense.. just my dad's day they walked clicks which is kinda different I believe...

[kyratshooter]

one "click"=1000meters=1kilometer

Same measure, different terminology.

Pace count was generally only used when crossing featureless landscape; swamp, flat desert, open plains.

If there were landscape features you got your reference, precise measurements and distances from and between the features.

[M118LR]

Abbreviated: Redundancy works- lessons learned/equipment:
A button compass in a rifle stock forward of the point of the cheek weld, is more accurate than a pin on compass.
When you combine the button compass in the rifle stock with a scope reticle designed for ranging, it's even better.
(practice item: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...C&A=details&Q=)
You can use the Barska Monocular in combination with quick reference cards for both land and sea training evolutions.
Shooters signs set: http://www.impactdatabooks.com/Signs_Set_p/i-signs.htm

more to follow.

[cow_rancher]

My door faces directly east.

What if you go out the back door?

Rancher

[finallyME]

What if you go out the back door?

Rancher

Dead North. It is more of a side door, especially since it is on the side of the house. Here in Utah, for the most part (and there are exceptions) all the streets run either North/South, or East/West. Very straight. That means most houses (with exceptions) face either North, South, East, or West. You will get directions like "drive down this road and turn east", or "that store is on the north side of the road". This is possible because of the grid like roads, and the easily visible mountains that also give direction.

[hunter63]

Dead North. It is more of a side door, especially since it is on the side of the house. Here in Utah, for the most part (and there are exceptions) all the streets run either North/South, or East/West. Very straight. That means most houses (with exceptions) face either North, South, East, or West. You will get directions like "drive down this road and turn east", or "that store is on the north side of the road". This is possible because of the grid like roads, and the easily visible mountains that also give direction.

Well if it's like Wyoming....Quote...you will get directions like "drive down this road and turn east (for 60 miles) or "that store is on the north side of the road" (about 90 miles). This is possible because of the grid like roads, and the easily visible mountains that also give direction...Quote........In your plane while checking your cattle.

[M118LR]

Having the newest and most accurate gadgets should make things easier, but due I really need a Kestrel 5700 that connects to a Lazer Range finder and has Bluetooth connection to GPS? https://kestrelmeters.com/products/k...ied-ballistics

Once I've spent enough to get all the newest gadgets, I'm still going to have a button compass integrated into my rifle stock along with a glow in the dark lensatic compass. After a lifetime of having redundant backups one just naturally likes to practice with the most basic of systems. It's kind of like doing math on paper with a pencil, still a useful practice even if it's dated.

Between the landowner and my fellow instructor at Rangeley, they devised the "Rookie route" to determine both skills and character. The landowner wanted to find out if assisting the other members of the group took precedence, or if a "Rookie" was more concerned with his own success. That was why the summertime 15 minute travel time was used. If the "Rookie" waited until the last possible moment, well they would get picked up on the Board eddy road later in night, and a second invitation wouldn't be forthcoming.

The other Rangeley instructor was well versed in land navigation, and he wanted to take everyone out of their comfort zone. Every leg of the journey was intended to give a different challenge. Hence the outdated nautical directions, instead of normal az/bearings, not to mention 1/2 a degree.

G-kids have arrived, more to follow later.