Out of the many subjects encountered during PLDC, land navigation and map reading are the soldiers most difficult task to a good, solid understanding of the material. The reason being that not enough time is being devoted to hands-on training. To become proficient, one must set aside long hours of practice to gain the experience and confidence in navigating through unknown territory. So the objective here is to help the soldiers learn how to use a compass and read a map.
First you need a compass: Official Military Issue Lensatic Compass.
Then you need a coordinate scale and protractor.
And of course the last thing you need is a military map.
A map is a drawing of a piece of the earth's surface viewed from high above. In orde to make a map more useful to soldiers, the map shows much more than just terrain. It shows man-made objects like roads, buildings and bridges just to name a few. All of these objects are represented by a symbol and these symbols are located in the lower left corner of every map called the legend. The legend also gives color codes which explains the meanings of other symbols to get a better idea of what the ground looks like.
To keep from getting lost you have to know how to find your location. In a combat area, there are no street addresses, but a military map can spot your location accurately. To find your location, you must locate your grid square. In order to find your grid square, you read from left to right along the bottom and find the line that borders your grid on the left. Then read up and find the east-west line that borders your grid square along the bottom.
REMEMBER: Read left to right, then read up.
A 4-digit grid square only gives you a general neighborhood, but there is a lot of real estate inside that grid square. To make your address more accurate, just add another number to the first half and another to the last half. During the land navigation course, you will plot out an 8-digit grid coordinate. That will bring you within 10 meters of your point. Here's how to get those extra numbers. Pretend that each grid square has ten lines inside it running north and south and east and west. This will make it into 100 smaller squares.
When you have to go a certain distance on foot without any landmarks to guide you, you can measure distance pretty accurately by counting paces. My pace count is 64. This means that when my left foot strikes the ground 64 times, I will have gone 100 meters. This number is different for everyone mainly because of height. The shorter you are, the mostly likely will have a smaller pace count. Your instructor will have 100 meters laid out near the land-nav course so you can check your own pace count. BE WARNED! Traveling cross-country will have a significant effect on your pace count. My advice is to walk the 100 meter course several times over varying terrain to get an average number for your pace count.
Now that you have learned how to find your location and the distance, the next step is to find the right direction. The direction from one point to another point on a map or ground is called an azimuth. Azimuths are given in degrees in a clockwise direction. They are from any number 0 to 360 just like a circle.
Now I am sure everyone has heard that "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line". True. But that is not the case when there are trees, rocks, lakes, cliffs and 5-foot ant hills blocking your path. If you have ever been to Ft. Lewis, you know what I mean. Anyways, this is where terrain association will play a big part in finding your points. The key thing to remember is know how to orientate your map to the visible terrain features surrounding you on the course. The FM 21-26 manual on "Map Reading and Land Navigation" has an appendix on the subject in the back, but all the material cannot totally prepare you for such varying terrain in all the parts of the world.
There are 5 major and 3 minor terrain features on a military map.
To take a look at how to explain terrain features using this method, click
(1) or (2).
| FEATURES | CHARACTERISTICS | MAP SYMBOL |
| HILL | A point or small area of high ground from which the ground slopes down in all directions | Counter lines forming concentric circles |
| RIDGE | A line of high ground with height variations along its crest | Counter lines forming a V or U; closed end points away from high ground |
| VALLEY | A level groud bordered on the sides by higher ground. Generally has manuever room. Contains a stream. | Contour lines form a U. Lines tend to parallel stream before crossing. Contour line crossing a stream always points upstream. | SADDLE | A low point along a ridge crest; either lower ground between two hill tops or a break in the level crest. | A saddle looks like an hourglass. |
| DEPRESSION | Low point or hole in the ground with higher ground on all sides. | Closed contour lines that have tick marks pointing toward low ground. |
| FEATURES | CHARACTERISTICS | MAP SYMBOL |
| DRAW | Like a valley but normally has less developed stream course. No level ground and little or no manuever room. Ground slopes upward on the sides and toward the head of thedraw. | Contour linesare V-shaped with the point of the V toward higher ground. |
| SPUR | Short, continuously sloping line of higher ground jutting out the side of a ridge. Often formed by parallel streams cutting draws down a ridge. | Contour lines depict a spur with the U or V pointing away from high ground |
| CLIFF | A vertical or near vertical slope | Contour lines are close together or ticks pointing to lower ground |
With all that said, land navigation is not an exact science. I repeat, LAND NAVIGATION IS NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE. So don't hit yourself over the head if you don't get it the first time around. The instructors are there to help you succeed, not to fail you. Of course, they are not going to give you the answers. This takes practice, but most of all,"ATTENTION TO DETAIL".(There's that phrase again) HOOAAH!!
The preceeding charts were taken from the Department of the Army's Publication of the Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks, Skill Level 1, October 1994. (STP-21-1-SMCT)
