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Land Navigation....

Kirkhill

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A key part of that feedback shows that soldiers are struggling with navigation, which can not only get a unit lost but can be dangerous for units if they are in a real combat zone.

"If you're light infantry, you're going to stick to roads more," Hendrex said. "And so the more you stick to the roads, the more you put your unit and organization at risk, and we get to see that played out in our centers."

Land navigation skills extend beyond going from point A to point B. Soldiers, especially leaders, need to be able to communicate their own coordinates and understand distances, skills that could play a major role in how missions are planned and how logistics such as fuel and time are calculated.
 
Not really a surprise. I remember being a dispatcher, and listening to drivers who couldn’t find the drop site because Google couldn’t. They didn’t understand that if you turn Google directions off, there is a perfectly good map on the screen.

Because we teach orienteering to cadets, we’re still taught map & compass in training. Because I was a 2Lt, I got my group lost, while being entirely aware of the irony of life imitating art. But I did better on test day, and can read topo maps with the best of them...
 
Not really a surprise. I remember being a dispatcher, and listening to drivers who couldn’t find the drop site because Google couldn’t. They didn’t understand that if you turn Google directions off, there is a perfectly good map on the screen.

Because we teach orienteering to cadets, we’re still taught map & compass in training. Because I was a 2Lt, I got my group lost, while being entirely aware of the irony of life imitating art. But I did better on test day, and can read topo maps with the best of them...
Time to start taking GPS etc out of the hands of new troops.

OK once the EMP takes out your electronic maps you need to know how to use the map - yes a paper one - and a compass.

Embrace the suck because without it forward progression is not possible.
 
Not really a surprise. I remember being a dispatcher, and listening to drivers who couldn’t find the drop site because Google couldn’t. They didn’t understand that if you turn Google directions off, there is a perfectly good map on the screen.

Because we teach orienteering to cadets, we’re still taught map & compass in training. Because I was a 2Lt, I got my group lost, while being entirely aware of the irony of life imitating art. But I did better on test day, and can read topo maps with the best of them...

The best land - map and compass type - navigation training I've ever done is by competing in orienteering events, some of them multi-day affairs covering hundreds of kilometres.

The combination of fitness and forest/mountain navigation is so obvious that it might have been invented by the Scandinavians to help prepare their populations for the rigours of national service.

Oh, wait... ;)
 
I had a chat with a co-worker the other day about the need to know how to navigate without a map. He said to me "I've just shut off that part of my brain and just put in an address into Google Maps and hit navigate" I shook my head and asked the obvious question about what will he do when there is a lack of connectivity and was not really surprised at his lack of concern on that possibility.

To me I just don't understand how a person cannot know how to read a map? Isn't that ability natural?
 
Most are over reliant upon technology and the assumption that the map is up to date. Often try to take younger staff and teach them basic navigation off of simple things such as sun position, then hand them a paper map and make them navigate....then, and only then, teach GPS.

A compass is still a critical tool...especially at night and/or low visibility when you can't see visual landmarks well.
 
I had a chat with a co-worker the other day about the need to know how to navigate without a map. He said to me "I've just shut off that part of my brain and just put in an address into Google Maps and hit navigate" I shook my head and asked the obvious question about what will he do when there is a lack of connectivity and was not really surprised at his lack of concern on that possibility.

To me I just don't understand how a person cannot know how to read a map? Isn't that ability natural?
It is not natural ability- you have to work at it. When you are really good at land nav, it looks like you aren’t even trying, but there is a lot of practice that went into that.
 
I find a lot of folks inability to do Nav are often are the product of their training and environment.

I remember having to do remedial topo for folks on my BSOC because, well, they were taught poorly on BMOQ-A and then did an OJE in Ottawa.

Having spent many more years in the field, it was second nature. I also had the advantage of having to teach it many a time over the years and having to teach it many different ways to folks that needed more explanation.

Much like everything we are supposed to be able to do (weapons proficiency, field craft, drill, combatives, etc.), it takes a side line to whatever flavourful of the week the CoC dictates. Real skills that will keep a soldier alive in the field are relegated to a 42 slide DLN course.
 
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And when you think you're good at land navigation, just try it from a vehicle, boat or an aircraft ;)
Or the Arctic or a Desert with no real landmarks. It’s hard to triangulate one’s position with nothing to use for references.

Mind you depending where you are the Ocean can undoubtedly be the worst
 
Or the Arctic or a Desert with no real landmarks. It’s hard to triangulate one’s position with nothing to use for references.

Mind you depending where you are the Ocean can undoubtedly be the worst
That's what sextants are for.
 
It is not natural ability- you have to work at it. When you are really good at land nav, it looks like you aren’t even trying, but there is a lot of practice that went into that.
I guess for me it is. I never had an issue with map navigation.
 
Or the Arctic or a Desert with no real landmarks. It’s hard to triangulate one’s position with nothing to use for references.

Mind you depending where you are the Ocean can undoubtedly be the worst

There are more landmarks in the arctic than a lot of people think; deserts are worse but with some training (and experience) wayfinding can be comparatively easy. However, successful navigating is also situation and mode of travel dependent. Desert travel, especially in a military context, will often be mechanized and characterized by distance and speed; arctic movement will be much slower, even when not limited to pulling a toboggan. I've found it just as difficult to navigate in jungle (heavy vegetation) due to truncated sightlines.

A lot of military land nav training and exercises are repetitions on the same ground. After several years of beating around Wainwright, a map wasn't even necessary to locate a point by grid reference. Probably the most challenging nav test that I did was at Fort Hood over thirty years ago on the EFMB test. I was unfamiliar with the ground, there were day and night portions and 8 figure GRs to hit points that could be within 25 metres of another target. IIRC, the day course requirement was to correctly hit 10 of 10 points (maybe 8/8?) in the time allotted (3 or 4 hours). Plus, it was the first time I had to use an US Army lensatic compass in degrees, not mils like our Silva Ranger. Though the current EFMB test is probably just as strict as it was back then, having to hit three of four points seems anemic.

Land navigation is the second graded event of the EFMB test. During this event, candidates will demonstrate their individual proficiency in navigating from one point to another, while dismounted, without the aid of electronic navigation devices. Candidates must correctly annotate and punch at least three out of four points in under three hours in order to receive a GO for both day and night land navigation. This event is not re-testable.

But not finding your way can have disastrous results. I recalled this story from 2007, as it reminded me of the land nav course at Fort Hood.

Missing Soldier Died From Hyperthermia JUNE 13, 2007 / 3:40 PM / AP
A soldier who went missing for four days after a solo navigation exercise died of hyperthermia and dehydration, according to autopsy results released Wednesday.

The body of Sgt. Lawrence G. Sprader, 25, was found Tuesday night in a brushy area on the Central Texas Army post's training ground, said Eddy Howton, Fort Hood's director of emergency services. About 3,000 people, including soldiers, covered more than 30 square miles searching for him in 90-degree heat.

A brief report on the autopsy, conducted at the Southwestern Institute of Forensics Sciences at Dallas, was released by a Bell County justice of the peace. The report did not provide further details.

Officials have said Sprader had two canteens of water, a water backpack and two Meals Ready To Eat when he left. His body was found near plenty of drinking water from creeks and other sources, said Robert Volk, Fort Hood's chief game warden.

Officials do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Col. Carter Oates, commander of the 11th MP Battalion, Criminal Investigations Division, where Sprader was assigned.

Sprader disappeared Friday during the exercise testing basic map-reading and navigation skills in a rugged exercise area at the sprawling central Texas post.

Officials declined to answer questions about whether there were signs of distress that might indicate how Sprader died, saying all that is under investigation. Eddy Howton, Fort Hood's director of emergency services, said he did not know if searchers found anything that would indicate how long Sprader had been dead.

Commanders said that when they reached Sprader on his phone late Friday, the last time anyone spoke to him, he was determined to finish the exercise and did not indicate he was ill or distressed.

"He was a model soldier. He had a goal to succeed," Oates said.

Sprader was one of nearly 320 noncommissioned officers taking part in a two-week leadership course. Nine other soldiers got lost during the three-hour exercise, but all except Sprader got back to the rally point safely by following the sound of a siren that blasts when time is up, said Col. Diane Battaglia, a III Corps spokeswoman at Fort Hood.

Post officials said no other soldier had ever been lost on the heavily used range long enough to prompt such a huge search.

Sprader had returned from an Iraq deployment in September and worked in the criminal investigation division of Fort Hood. The Prince George, Va., soldier had no orders for redeployment to the war zone.

When I did the EFMB at Fort Hood another candidate (an American who was in the hootch next to mine) got lost during the night nav. When he did not show up after the horn sounded, we started a search, but luckily he was found very quickly.
 
The Army training back the 80's was super helpful when I was doing claimstaking. My best moment was when a helicopter dropped me off on a mountain, hoofed it on snowshoes to the claim corner, manage to triangulate with map and compass on three mountain peaks and mark out the corner post of the claim. 6 months later due a dispute on the claim, they flew a court observer up to the site and found my corner post and confirmed it's location with survey tools and it was within acceptable limits. I was pretty happy with myself, also at the time of putting it in, I never imagined that anyone would ever look at it. My least best moment was realizing we just spent 2.5hrs of helicopter time flying over the wrong area, because I got fooled by the wrong oxbow in the river. Boss was not happy with me that day.
 
Being able to read a map, to plan a paddle in camping trip is a great skill to have.

Tried to learn compass and map skills in boy scouts, but was never taught how to set North on my compass, or how to take a proper bearing or how to walk one. Now able to do that and get some where is great.
 
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