Recent reports from civilian instructors at training schools is that SF teams showing up have NO compasses with them at all.

When asked why not, they reply that they have GPS and don't need them.:rolleyes:

I sure hope that this is just a rumor. They are one good vehicle breakdown, battery problem, EMP, or satellite outage from being lost. They are going to wish then that they had the old school gear with them.

TR

TR-
That is a sad state of affairs. I still use a lensatic and a silva as primary - and have a Garmin 76Map for backup. My primary compass on the boat is a floated magnetic compass. Call me a dinosaur - I'll take my low speed equipment all the time. Ask any of those guys if they'd ever think of going to the field without at least 2 knives, even if they've got rifles.....

As long as you have mentioned Ranger, let me expand on a minor experience I had as a Ranger student. I was given the "honor" of having a Thai prince as my Ranger buddy. He was a good guy, but he was also a prince and obviously at that time a State Department selectee for political reasons to attend our Ranger school in 1965. I am sure that this was a political driven decision, much like the Barretta was for landing rights in Italy. Anyway-the lad could not run-I had to carry him on my back for the 2 mile buddy run. He was afraid of heights and during the buddy evacuation rappelling exercise he damn near choked me to death hanging on to my neck. The hand to hand pit was pitiful and I asked for an instructor to be my opponent as I was killing this poor lad. In addition to hauling my sorry butt on the drown proofing class, I had him as an additional piece of equipment. He froze to death in the mountains, but did well in Florida. When he was appointed Patrol Leader he of course appointed me his assistant patrol leader. He took off on a leaders reconnaissance during the patrol after I pre-set his compass, gave him a complete discription of the terrain he was going to have to cross, and thought I had done everything I could for him to succeed in a simple one-leg, 400 meter dead reconing shot with a 50 meter offset to the biggest damn stream intersection in the area which would have allowed him to stop, do a right face and sneak and peek downstream to the target area. After 4 hours my PRC-6 started to crackle with a real faint voice, "Ranger buddy this is me, I lost". So I asked him to describe what he had done and he told me that he had taken out his compass, lined it up on the first tree in the distance, put it away because the moon was just beyond the tree he had shot his azimuth on and decided that it would be just easier to head towards the moon. Took me an hour to find him.

COL Jack,
Sir, I can empathisize with that horror - in PLDC (why they made us go through it after we had already gotten BNOC in the Q, I'll never understand, we walked in with NCOPD with a 2 device...) each of the SF guys got a weak partner - mine just happened to be an overweight female clerk that had never been to the field before, ever. Ft Dix is not a difficult Land Nav course, but this SGT was worthless, I tried my damnedest to teach her what I could, and coached her till she could at least shoot an azimuth. The TAC pulled me aside prior to the testing phase, and told me I had to get my "team" through the course first both day and night. Day phase test - fairly easy, I let her run a few readings, forced her to move pretty quickly and we whizzed through the course, all 3 points and 3 km pretty quickly - first in, all points correct - she got to sleep for a while until the other teams showed up (funny, all of the teams with SF guys were in the first returns...). Night course - she freaked "I'm not going into the wooods (scrub pine and light undergrowth) at night, they said we can't use flashlights, and there are animals..." the TAC overheard and told me - the same rules applied - all points, first back - do what you have to do to make it happen. My 30 ft A7A came out of the Ruck, and I showed it to her and said - you can run the course like an NCO, or I'm strapping this around you, tying it to myself and dragging you through the brush at a dead run... Your choice." same thing as the Day phase, she got some practical experience, a little confidence, and we smoked the course. I found out later that night that the TAC had bet all of the other TACs that she could finish the course in the top 3 teams, and that they said "not even with an SF guy will she even finish the course". He won 8 cases of beer, I got a thank you. She actually learned a little Land Nav that she'd never use at her comfy desk at Ft. Belvoir.

WTF? My team's SOP was everyoe carried a SPARE compass & map (if we could get them :( ) in their E&E kit. Most of us carried Silva's as spares.

Tell me it ain't so!

Now that is a good land Nav story x_sf_med

Would have been even better if the TAC gave you 2 cases of beer for your trouble lol
Next question How pissed was she when you draged her threw the brush hehehe;)

My team was in Area Study (1981/82) for our real world AO (somewhere in Eastern Europe). The Airforce had picked out our DZs and exfil sites by doing a map recon. We looked at the maps and noted that the map datum was from 1898 (yes 1898!). I imediately requested arial photos of the DZs. The Airforce initially denied the request but finally did them thanks to LTC Barber insisting on it.

When we got the photos back, guess what? Every one of the DZ sites picked by the Airforce had factories/buildings on them on them! It took us a long time to find satisfactory DZs and we updated the maps the best we could from the arial photographs.

Check the margin data! You never know how old the map might be.

No dragging required - she figured her nails would get scuffed or her uniform dirty. No roads, minimal swampland - she wasn't happy, but again - she got about 2 hrs of sleep before the last teams came in - again - there was a team that got lost and the skirmish lines went out - can you imagine failing PLDC for land nav? Hi, I'm an NCO, I had to recycle in PLDC because I can't read a map, can I have my first rocker, please.

The field problem was a joke - they wouldn't give any of us 10th guys even squads for longer than they had to - really messed them up when we were building sand tables and building the field order at the same time as we were assigning people jobs and setting out rehearsal schedules. Imagine that? they gave all of the SF guys leadership positions at the same time, for one of the movement phases - that sucked!

Funny to see whos posting on this thread.

For me, I have a compass other than the one that my gps has and my SUUNTO watch. Like its been said, Batteries go dead. How many people really change their SUUNTO watch Battery before they deploy? No one. Just like NVGs, the Battery goes out at the worst time. I'll save my back-up AA Batts for my NVGs over my GPS.

Yes this main covers dimounted, but mounted too.

Pace Count
 

Short Story

We sent a driver back to Wildfleken base camp to pick up chow. Noontime was fast approaching and no chow. LT called our man and ask for location.

Location given: "Stuck in the mud and shifting gears".

BMT

Remember it well. The only place in the world where you can have rain, snow, be stuck in the mud and breathe dust all at the same time while the sun is shinning and some wild boar is challenging your right to travel on the tank trail.

I really wish I had pace counters durring scouts. I usually missed one point durring nav courses by not going far enough. While I did learn how to use a map and compass (and shown how to use a second hand watch) from a WWII Navigator I never thought of them. When I did the course with him he used his watch to my amasement.

Land Nav
 

I always thought that land nav was FM until I got to TACP school. The instructors were great and really taught a good course. I found out that I seemed to bear to the right when I finally got to my points, but I made them. And for some reason, I seemed to do better at night than during the day.

At survival school, they always warned us never to be paired with a navigator because they always got you lost. Of course, my squad leader was a female nav and she was my nav partner, but she ripped the nav course up and we did great.

When we do combat survival refresher in my unit, I always tell the kids to keep sharp with map and compass. The GPS is nifty, but batteries run out, or it could get broken/lost when leaving the aircraft. Ever time I deploy I always kept a spare compass in my pocket just in case.

Do without a compass? Hell no.
 

MiG revetment, Berera, Somalia 1985
Note the item hanging from the dog tag chain.

Here's an article on GPS Denied for Special Forces. Note that the author is mis-using the term "Special Forces" .

http://www.special-operations-techno...cfm?DocID=1611