Land Navigation Practice/Exercise

[jerrymrc]

Land-Nav was one of those things I for a REMF was good at back in the day. Was still teaching my children (Soldiers) up through 9-11 because a couple of us had set up a course from the Hospital. After that they put up the fence and then 10th group took over the land our course was set on. We used it for EFMB training.

The biggest thing for me to learn was staying straight. I always leaned to the right. Some courses and terrain shooting a back-azimuth was easy but many it was impossible. ft Riley was always easy because of the radio tower but some of the points at Benning were very close together. i still have one good GI compass but the tritium is just about gone.

[cmailliard]

Question, since I am learning, if your point is say 1000 meters away but you cannot get to it in a straight line, how do you pace that off? Is it a matter of zig zag in straight lines with know distances to get to your waypoint?

[jerrymrc]

Question, since I am learning, if your point is say 1000 meters away but you cannot get to it in a straight line, how do you pace that off? Is it a matter of zig zag in straight lines with know distances to get to your waypoint?

I always did it in squares. Come to a point. 90 in one,pick your point, pace it, 90 forward, pace it, 90 back and 90 forward. In the worst your downhill in the best your up and once you do it can shoot it back to a point you picked before the jog. Hope I made sense of that. I was never a high speed, low drag kind of guy but I learned a lot in PLDC going through with a bunch of 75th guy's. BNOC was worthless for me in my MOS when it came to grunt skillz.

[Irving]

Hope I made sense of that.

You lost me.

[jerrymrc]

You lost me.

I am finding out that is not hard.

[Irving]

I am finding out that is not hard.

My Silva was in the other room when I read your post, so naturally I got lost.

[cstone]

Question, since I am learning, if your point is say 1000 meters away but you cannot get to it in a straight line, how do you pace that off? Is it a matter of zig zag in straight lines with know distances to get to your waypoint?

Break your course down into smaller pieces based on terrain. If it was always straight and level anyone could do it.

If you need to go 1000 m and there is a 500 ft cliff between you and where you need to go, you have to find your route on your map first. Set up intermediate points along your route, estimate distances and bearings, and then pace them off. You should be able to verify your map estimates by matching the waypoints you use on the map with the actual land formations as you check them off. 1000 m as the crow flies often turns out to be a 5k detour around some difficult obstacle. Of course real badasses climb the cliff

[cmailliard]

cstone and jerry, thanks.

I may have found a spot for the first exercise. It looks like a park in Longmont may work, I need to go out an walk it as it has some fences and weird roads/paths. There are some terrain features and flat spots to work most aspects of navigation. It looks pretty flat for the most part and is off a major road. Looks like a good easy start.