Night Land Navigation

Glad to hear you're keeping busy and still teaching. That's a good skill to have. Finding knuckleheads lost in the woods in the dark sucks.

Basically it is head west come to road, stand there, we will find you.

Have them take glowsticks and whistles. Crack the stick, and blow the whistle 3 times if you have an emergency or get lost.

Fun weekend. Got to Ft Leonard Wood area, met up with 'the troops'. Observed the pre mission planning, looked at each teams routing and patrol points, and marked it on my map. At 1800 the groups took off and the 'fun' began. Sitting in the radio 'shack' I recieved the SITREP's as the groups moved, and marked the 'bravo sierra' information on my map. Group 1 got lost less than 2K into this, and were totally lost, they would send in thier 'location' and they were no were near there. I did mark on my map based on the terrain and my 'expierience' where each group would get disorientated and possibly lost, and guess what. At 0430 we had to safety ENDEX because group 1 was totally lost, and we had to sent group 2 into the area to find them, they linked up at least 3K from the position group 1 sent as thier current position, based on the terrain, I knew where they would be approximately based on the amount of trails, terrain features, and the tendancy for lost troops to go downhill, and again guess what.

AAR for some reason non of the groups used thier compass as much as required, guess it is the GPS generation, pace counts based on daylight rates rather than adjusted for night (add a minimum of 1/3rd on flat terrain, let alone climbing or decending), and map orientation was pitiful (if no part of your route goes south, why are you traveling on a 180* azimuth?)

Showed them oldschool methods, such as actually using a compass, shooting 'short' azimuths based on routes (trails) on map, and the 10m tree to tree method for pacing. How to use intersection and resection from known objects (prominant hilltops in area) to figure out where you are.

Had fun, next months 'training' is 'patroling', day and night, those who have played with me know what the troops can expect in the form of training on that one, lets see how the MW3 experts handle this exercise.

Just a heads up, night land nav course at the Ranger school is near a 70% NO-GO rate on the first try, even with all the 'training'.

Percieved path of least resistance, regardless of tactical need. At night troops tend to to see what they want to see, not what they actually see and go the easiest route to what they want to see.

And at night 'navigation by consensus' usually does not work.