NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Comments on the units
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2006 Apr 7, 14:03 -0700
From: Doug Royer
Date: 2006 Apr 7, 14:03 -0700
Interesting! So the American artillerists sacrifice the ease of calculation to higher precision. "Not because of inferior quality of the compass but I am comfortable useing 6400 mils to a circle." I don't think so. I (and all others in the US military) were 1st trained on and then used the gear. It became 2nd nature to use what we were trained on and to get results quickly. With the experience gained by using the 6400 mil format per 360 degrees one knows without really thinking about it how many mils equal a degree or a quadrant of mils will equal so many degrees etc. Conversions of bearings from one to the other and visa-versa just become 2nd nature. 1 * = 17.78 mils 90 * = 1600 mils The 6,000 mil format the Soviets used on their compasses was just alien to me for fast, reliable readings and conversions with out having to think about it.
