EDC compass

[CharlesHarris]

Time to dust off this old thread on Land Nav

Had a conversation a few weeks ago with a couple of Viet Nam vets I hang out with. It was agreed that GPS are neat kit but as was learned early in the Afghan war they aren't bomb proof and are subject to failure. The ability to read compass and map is as much a survival skill as fire making or shelter building.

While visiting friend in Virginia the Quantico Orienteering Club gave the Boy Scouts a compass course and I helped out. During the training up an article was presented about a test that the US Army did with basic trainees who were given minimal 4 hour map and compass training that all US infantrymen receive at 11B training. The trainees were then sent out onto the day movement compass course and a 55% success rate in finding their way points in the wooded Ft Benning terrain. The other half of the class received NO map and compass training beforehand and were given civilian GPS with no instruction from instructors just the written instructions which came in the box. Their success ratio on the day movement compass course was 98%.

I would compare GPS to a chainsaw while map and compasses are hand bow saws.

Sure, you can cut all day with either, but if and the gas stops flowing, an EMP takes out the satellites, the batteries go dead, or whatever, you better have the bow saw and the strength and stamina to get the job done with it. If the GPS goes Tango Uniform, skill with the map and compass is the only way home. So we should have both, yes of course!

Truth be told I have a very hard time finding objectives using a civilian needle compass as opposed to a lensatic compass. Surveyors, ground SAR, almost everybody that I know that spends "real" time doing land nav uses a plate compass if they are out of the military. But in the military, and particularly ex-Infantry types almost every one runs a lensatic. I own several Suunto and Silva plate compasses but military Camega lensatics are the ones that I use for land nav and I carry them in my rescue gear.

I would bet a bottle of the Pusser's Rum that MB here is probably a lensatic guy, because he trained at Quantico within a year or two of the time I did.

I would VERY much like to know what Keith has to say, what do the experienced bush rangers, sheepmen and ranchers in the Land of Oz favor? I might me wrong in my assumption, but my best guess is that many who live in the outback have either regular military or Territorial Forces experience, and IIRC, like the British Army, the ANZACs and Canadians teach the lensatic compass very much in the same way they we do.

When I was in Germany in the 1980s the Bundeswehr used both. Engineers and artillery exclusively lensatic whereas many infantry had sport orienteering experience before entering their National Service and used plate compasses. Don't know if the case is the same now a generation later...

Good discussion topic to warm up, regardless.