NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: U.S. Naval Academy Reinstates Celestial
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2016 Jan 27, 23:41 +0000
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2016 Jan 27, 23:41 +0000
Good point, Jim.
"Loss of electronic navigation" would mean not only was GPS knocked out (which means taking out 28+ satellites) but also Russia's GLOSNASS, China's Beidou, Europe's Galileo, and the partial-coverage systems fielded by India and Japan. What aggressor (with the possible exception of North Korea) would knock out their OWN navigation system as well as those of other countries??
More important, communication with our fleet is done largely via satellite these days and if I had the technology to knock out GPS, I'd probably go ahead and knock out military communication satellites also, leaving ships not only with no idea where they are but, more important, no idea of where they are supposed to go or do...
Hell, instead of fantasizing about electronic navigation suddenly becoming unavailable, how about imagining a world oil shortage so severe that the Navy can't fuel its ships. Bring back the square riggers!!! I suspect that at least some of us with celestial skills also have sailing skills.
From: Jim Rives <NoReply_JimRives@fer3.com>
To: luabel@ymail.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2016 2:44 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: U.S. Naval Academy Reinstates Celestial
Hi Lu,About 5 years ago I wondered whether they used CN in the fleet anymore and called the Penn NROTC office. The instructor who answered floored me that not only do they not use it in the fleet but all NROTC and USNA curricula had dropped it! I was stunned!I figure the logic is that if things get bad enough to knock out GPS we probably don't have much left to worry about anyway!Jim
