![]() ![]() I have never once needed to navigate with map and compass during my hunting and outdoor excursions but its a skill I really want to get down.ĭue to my interest in the military as a child I read a lot of books on the topic. Its funny how there can be a lot of precision involved yet most of the time you sort of wing it and go off landmarks etc. I sure would have liked to have gotten the training though! Land nav is a skill I am totally inexperienced in and am trying to figure out. I wanted to serve my entire childhood but chose not to for various reasons. Great info here, its awesome to get input from so many military vets. anyway, yeah, the m2 is pretty accurate.Įdit: Per rdec, yes, I remember now. think of it as measuring pi with a yardstick. each mil represents the angle created by 1 meter at 1000m. you can do land nav with a baseplate compass, but it's going to be sloppy.Įdit: re the military M2 artillery/mortar compass, it also uses a different scale of degrees, actually called 'mils', of which there are 3200 in a full circle, vs 360 degrees. 5mm mechanical pencil to draw blueprints with. think of it as trying to use either a crayon or a. regardless, the lensatic uses smaller intervals). I figured it out for another post once, but have slept since then. the military lensatic has them every 2 degrees. A baseplate compass has degree markings every 5 degrees or so. The lensatic compass makes accurate resection and navigation to known points possible with accuracy. I'm former military, and used a lensatic for land nav for a long time. The Sunnto can be the protractor and do the declination automatically, if set properly. Plus you have to do all the declination calculation and carry s separate protractor when doing any serious navigation. I just never found the military compass worth the price or the weight carried. The Suunto MC-2 Global model will work anywhere in the world because of the way the needle is mounted, the Cammenga requires a special model for certain regions of the world, which has to be special ordered. ![]() The actual military model Cammenga has tritium in it to make it glow, which is nice but has a half life that means after about 10-12 years it no longer glows much. The mil-spec lensatic is friction dampened and has not liquid. The Suunto is liquid filled and after a long period could develop a bubble in the capsule, that could effect accuracy it the bubble is large enough. For use with artillery and mortars the military uses a compass called the M2 which is a very accurate, heavy compass that costs several hundred dollars. The accuracy has tested better than the military compass, the lensatic compasses when tested side by side will often have a few degrees of variation. The advantages of the baseplate/sighting compass like the MC-2 is you can use the compass as a protractor with the map and as a sighting compass using the mirrored cover. I used a military compass for many years in the military but most of the guys in my unit bought Silva Rangers (when they were genuine Silva) or Suunto compasses. The cammenga military compass is fairly large and bulky compared to the Suunto MC-2. Navigating over land is an exercise in approximation unless you are a surveyor (I was one of those, too) with all of the surveyor's gear. Remember, you are neither an airplane nor a ship, able to set a bearing and follow it exactly. My companion to the Dakar is the Suunto M9 wrist sighting compass for quickly checking bearing. If you wish to do so a tiny red LED will work even better than a luminous dial. The only lack is luminescence but I haven't navigated at night since I got out of the army. The Dakar is lighter and more compact, has a declination adjustment, the lens allowing reading to 1 degree as well as all of the functionality of the baseplate compass. The army uses magnetic readings, the fire direction center takes care of the conversion to true. It is also "GI-proof" and is both heavy and bulky and not that easy to use with maps. As a former forward observer who actually did direct artillery fire I will say that the military lensatic is both accurate and allows precise direct sighting. ![]()
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