Compass

[River Song]

Looking for recommendations for a compass for my kit.

Silva? Seem a bit pricey but maybe the best?


What do you think and can recommend

[Mosstrooper]

not sure if its the best one but the silva ranger was the first one that I thought of, priced from 15 quid up

[NorthernRaider]

Silva Type 4 tritiumin in mils and degrees anything else is less. and compasses are far cheaper than GPS.

[River Song]

(3 June 2013, 09:54)NorthernRaider Wrote: Silva Type 4 tritiumin in mils and degrees anything else is less. and compasses are far cheaper than GPS.

Yeah but I've got a GPS on my iPhone. The manual compass is for when I forget to put the iPhone into my Faraday cage and it goes splat.

[Tarrel]

Very wise. Silva Expedition 4. Longer baseplate than the Ranger, making it easier to take a bearing off the map and measure distances. Personally I wouldn't bother with mils unless you are using other military kit.

The Expedition 4 was recommended to me when I did my Mountain Leader training. Having said that, the Ranger will do if budget is tight. Either, used with a 1:50,000 OS map, will keep you on the right track.

[NorthernRaider]

I like mils cos of the extra precision you get on bearings, but its just a personal thing.

[MaryN]

It took me ages to get to grips with a compass (I used to get lost in Woolworths - no sense of direction at all!). I used to argue the toss with the OK, and could never understand why points on the compass were different depending where you were. What was the point of the thing? But, he persevered with me and fitted me a nice little compass in the Defender (just in case). Then, one day on a long trip I got thoroughly lost. I had no idea what road Iwas on, or where exactly I was. Bizarrely, I new roughly where I was in relation to a map of the country. So, quite panicked, I set my little compass on the direction I knew I was supposed to be going in and set off. Lo and behold, I hit the right road and everything fell into place.

I'm a convert now. Knickers to the GPS.

[Grumpy Grandpa]

The simplest and cheapest, of Silva compasses will do everything you need it to. Take a bearing from a map, convert it, sight along it and off you go. The other way round, take a bearing on an object, convert it, put it on the map. Mils are of immense value, if you're calling in an artillery strike or setting up the equation to deliver one.

Personally, I always figured there were too damn many of the things for general map reading. Yes, you do get extra precision in your bearing but unless you're using a prismatic compass (and even then,) you still have to either follow the bearing on the ground (subjective) or take the bearing in the first place (also subjective).

Whenever confusion reigned and it often did with young soldiers, my fall back explanation was that it mattered not a whit if you called them degrees, mils or shitbags, you were still working with divisions of a circle. We would often then head off into the bundu with group leaders following bearings of 'x' shitbags to the next RV!

[Highlander]

I agree with everyone else, you cant beat the Silva compasses,. any of them

[Grumpy Grandpa]

It does kinda help to know how to use it though. Google Infantry Basic Map Reading Handbook for gentle bedtime reading...