Welcome. To corporals corner today, we're going to talk about basic, land navigation using a map and compass so, stick around. Last. Time we talked about land navigation we kept it simple and discussed. The basics using a Suunto mc2. So, I thought today why not continue that discussion and keep it simple - a quick review I'm, going through a topographical, map into, that equation. So. Here we have our basic Suunto MC to start. Here at the top we have our signal, and sighting mirror it, can be used for hygiene purposes as, well you could take that mirror and use, it to look in areas on your body that you can't normally see looking, for fights scratches. Ticks etc. Moving. Down we have our rotating bezel, ring now. On that bezel ring we have a series of numbers those. Would be your degrees for your azimuth, or bearing that we'll talk about later. Inside. Of our bezel ring we have our magnetic, needle and, you can see how sensitive that is just, from contact, with this pencil it's. Moving around so, that's good to go red. Means North black, is south the, red will always face north. Now. Perpendicular, to our magnetic needle we have our orienting, arrow sometimes. Referred to as a doghouse or a shed so. Most a put, red in the shed so, all you got to do this, rotate your body with your compass. Put. The red end of that needle in that, shed or that dog in that doghouse. Now, our puzzle ring we actually have or. Right below it we. Have a glow-in-the-dark line, here and, here. Now. I think of it back to the Future analogy, this. One on top up here will. Tell you where. You're going. The. Bottom one will tell you where you were, so. That will be your very inert azmuth that. Would be your reverse azmuth. The. Bottom of our compass here we have a clear, plastic base plate why it's called a base plate compass they. Have a series of scales. My. Personal favorite we have the magnifying lens or Sun lens for starting fires. And. That. Right there in the nutshell is the sole reason why I'm carrying the Suunto mc2, baseplate compass or mirrored, compass over lensatic. Compass example. The lensatic compass would, be an old school military. Commando compass. It's, a multi-use, item and the, options contained in here will make your life a heck of lot easier out there let's, go ahead and do a quick review on how to shoot an azimuth are. You gonna do look. At your compass. You. Have a arrow. On top here or glooms, arc indicator, it. One the bottom as well you want the top is going to tell you where you're going the, one that bottom tells you where you were take. Your bezel. Ring and. Put. It on zero or north, so. Line up north or zero with that glow-in-the-dark. Indicator, on top. All. You're gonna do is, look. Out there where you want to go. So. I'm go ahead take my compass, make. Sure my arms are extended. The. Compass is level I'm, gonna, look from my signal mirror or, sighting, mirror there's, an opening here at the bottom with, a v-notch. Now. I take that v-notch I'm a tree like a gunsight. Looking. Through that gun sight in the direction that I want to go I. See. A tree out there in the distance. So. At this point right here all I'm gonna do I'm. Going to rotate my bezel ring and move that doghouse to my needle put. The red in the shed or the dog in the dog house, keeping. That be nuts or gun sight lined it with my target for my tree. Once. That's complete I'll. Look down check. My brain or azimuth. It's. 40 degrees. And. Go ahead and double-check. We're. Dead on and. Now I know I can walk that Boehner azimuth of 40 degrees and a run right, into that tree once. I'm at that tree all I got to do is step to the opposite side. Reshoot. My barrier has me at the forty degrees, and. Continue on in that straight line. Here's. My start point. Or. 40, degree bearing, or azimuth. Here's. Our tree. I could, then move to the opposite side of that tree. Take. My compass locate. A new target. And. Continue. Walking. At. 40 degrees in, a. Straight line. Opening. My topographical, map the first thing I come to you on the far right hand side is my map the legend and map, information all. The way down here okay, and the, first thing I see is the company name my. Topo and. It, was printed in 2013. Now, the map was printed in 2013, it doesn't mean it was surveyed in 2013, we'll come to that in a minute working. Our way down we. Come to our vicinity map and. The vicinity map is basically a line. Of the state that you're operating in and, looking at that outline you, should see a red square or a red rectangle and. That's gonna give you the area of, that state, but, this map was printed from.
Right. Beneath that you're gonna see a couple of dates this one here is 1995. That. Means the map was surveyed or this section of map was surveyed in 1995. Right. Next to that it gives a contour, line interval will, come to contour lines in a few minutes. Working. Our way down. We. Come to our declination. Diagram, and, that's going to give you a true north reading grid. North and magnetic north then, we discussed that last time last time we only dealt with magnetic north this, time we're gonna deal with grid north. And the, last thing I want to talk about is our map scale we've got two scales on here. The. First one says 1 in 10,000. And what that means is that every inch on, your map represents. 10,000. Inches on the ground so, if your map says one in 25,000. Or one in a hundred thousand, it's the same thing 1 inch on the map gives, you the 25 thousand or a hundred thousand, inches on the ground now. Right beneath that we have our scale, and feet or meters and that. This represents a distance, so if you want to shoot a bearing our azimuth and then, mark it on the map you can actually measure and see how far you're actually gonna walk so, you can confirm that with your pace count now, one thing I want to back up to this. Is 1 in 10,000, the. Lower the number is the, larger, your. Grid square is going to be there, for more detail you're gonna get. So, one in a hundred thousand, your grid square might be like this very. Difficult to see. All. Right so we have five basic cosine map first, one's gonna be black anything, black is gonna be a man-made structure. Next. We have blue, blue. Is gonna be water rivers. Streams creeks, lakes oceans. Etc. Green. Just what it is vegetation. You're, gonna have a forest, or wooded area. Browns, may be a relief feature an, example of a relief feature is going to be a contour, line and, we'll come back to that later. Lastly. We have red and, that's going to indicate boundaries, or highways now, any other color besides these five is. Strictly put there to relay special information and you, can find that in your legend. Let's. Go ahead and move on to contour, lines now. A big part of a topographical, map are contour, lines and. Contour line gives you a way to judge, elevation. That's, the sole purpose on your, map Legend and gives you the contour line interval and I showed you that earlier and I believe it was 20 foot between each line. Every. Fifth line is darker and marked, with the specific elevation, and. The. Closer the lines are together which. Is a rapid, gain elevation. So. Right here's a pretty good example that, this contour line is darkened it's 700, and, you follow that all the way around that means that whole area is 700 feet now. According to our map legend, every, contour line is 20 foot and every. 5th line should be darkened, with a specific. Elevation. Let's. Go encounter contour lines so, from right here we have one two three. Four. And, five the. Fifth one is darkened and the, distance between each one is 20 foot so. It's seven twenty seven forty. Seven sixty seven. Eighty eight hundred. So. Far so good you're doing an outstanding job let's, go ahead and power through this and talk about major, in minor terrain features the. First major, terrain features are going to be a hilltop. Here. We have a good example of the hilltop we. Have rings within rings or. Circles inside of circles, the. Rapid elevation gain we talked about earlier and. There's our circle there's our hilltop a. Ridge. There's. A good example of a ridge a ridge, is nothing more than a series of hilltops in a row, starting. Right here is one two, and three. Saddle. When. You look for a saddle all you're doing is looking for two or more hilltops, in a row which, is your Ridge and between. Those two hilltops, is a saddle. Valley. Hey. Valleys look round that's. Usually bordered by two or three sides of higher ground and. It forms this u-shaped right here. And.
Depression. And. Unless we have a depression you. See one right here perfect example it's. Bordered on all sides by higher ground and, you have the sloping tick marks right here. To. Show that's lower ground. All. Right good to go we talked about five major terrain features now, let's talk about three, more the Minor Train features those are going to be a draw. So. In this example right here it's. Pretty good indicator of a draw now. It draw a sloping, terrain that. Forms a V, that. Points towards that Ridge so, here's our rich one two and three hilltops in a row is a ridge, and. We have that V that points up towards. That Ridge a. Spur. And. A cliff. Here's. A good example of a spur now. Spurs are contour lines that jut outward, from. That Ridge so. Here's our hilltop and our ridge and. They're jutting outward. And. Making its way down into that Valley and lastly we have an example of a cliff cliff. Is nothing more than vertical or sloping contour lines that are close together, with. Tick marks. Indicating. A steep drop-off. Let's, go ahead and move on to reading the map how do you read a map and determine which grid square you're actually operating in on that large map well, it's very simple, before, we get to that let's go ahead and make sure that we understand something here so there's no confusion no matter what scale that you use meaning, one in ten thousand one. In twenty five thousand evening one in a hundred thousand, the, grid square is made up of one, thousand meters by, one thousand meters which, actually creates that square one. Thousand meters by one thousand meters now, those lines that create that actual, grid square are longitude. And latitude lines, now, looking at your map the. Lines that run up and down are, longitude, ones. They go horizontal, or sideways, which are east and west our, latitude, lines now. The, million-dollar question how. Do you actually read the map think. Of Battleship, got. Your numbers and letters you. Go over and up boom, you hit or miss it's, exact same thing we're, gonna look at our numbers and we're gonna read it from the right and then. Go up okay. So we're talking about battleship, and the, Rita map is very simple, all you're gonna do you, have our imaginary. Mock-up, map right here we're gonna start at the bottom left corner I'm. Going to move to the right so. Let's say if you want to be in grid square. 6922. Six. Nine two two all. I'm gonna do. Start. The bottom left corner I'm. Going to slide over to my right tell. You at 69. Once. I get to 69 I'm gonna go ahead and go up to, twenty-two put. A dot right there. That. Tells me, six. Nine two two. Is. This grid square right here. And. We have 1,000.
Meters By 1,000, meters to work with I. Start. At the bottom left corner and move. Over to where it says 69, 69. We're. Gonna go up to. 22. And. That one's 22 so, that corner right there gives. Me this. Grid square. To. Work with. Now. The last thing I want to talk about before we go ahead and move, on to plotting the route is, making. Our map and compass work together in unison, horn harmony now. A previous video we talked about three, types of north we had true north magnetic. North and grid north now. True north is north according to the Earth's axis. Magnetic. North from last time there's nothing more than that magnetic, needle and which direction that it points to and. Grid north refers, to the northern Lea lines on your map, that's, why you always want rotates your map to the north before you go ahead and use it so, with that understanding let's. Talk about this right here this is our declination diagram, and, it can be found on your map legend. So. Looking at this declination diagram, it, gives me a sixth degree offset, or six degree difference between my, magnetic, north and my grid north what, does that mean that means I'm out here and, I'm shooting an azimuth of, saying, 100. Degrees. It. Could be six degrees more, which is 106, or could be six degrees less 94, now, keep this in mind. Every. Single degree that you're off equals. 92 feet in one, mile or, it. Means one mile off in 60. Miles so. People say I'm only a couple degrees off over. A long distance you can walk right by something and have no idea was there to. Think about that so. The million dollar question again how. Do we go ahead and account for that six degrees how do you make our map and compass work together in unison here's. How I learned it. Think. Of the military. Major. To general is a promotion, so. Magnetic, north to grid north we're. Gonna add. General. Two major is a demotion and the. Heck of a demotion or. Grid. North to, magnetic north we're, gonna subtract. Just. Like we talked about there's. A six degree difference between my neck north and grid North even. Tells you right here the, magnetic declination of. Six, degrees west at. The center of the map on, June 11th 2018. So. I wanna go I don't want to add six, degrees to my compass or if. You have a Suunto mc2 you, flip it over it tells you east or west so, six degrees west or simply, add six degrees now. Looking at our seem to mc2 bezel ring we. Have a declination, indicator, right here and set to zero and. I mentioned before with six degrees west so. There's our West and there's, our east declination. So. I want to go ahead I want to add six degrees to this. On. The backside are assumed to mc2. We. Have an adjustment screw right there we. Also have our declination. Indicator, tells. Me western declination, and Houston, declination so, I want to go and I want to add six degrees I want to rotate, using. A key or a small screwdriver I, want. To adjust it and move that indicator, six. Degrees every. Single one of these red tick marks represents. Two degrees. Someplace. In a key or. A small screwdriver. Into. Our adjustment, pin. You. Can now rotate this left or right so. I want to head to the west I. Want. To add six degrees. It's. Two four. Six. You. All. Right now that my map and compass can work in unison let's go and talk about Rob planning before, you plan a route and you go ahead and orientate your map so take your map outside and, what I found works best let's put your map somewhere dry, flat. Level. You. Have no contact with metal whatsoever. And, that goes for picnic tables well this place does have fancy, wood, or plastic picnic, tables well. They're held together with what nails. Screws, metal. Hinges things like that all right so very adjusted, our compass to grid north and a counter for that six degree offset or six degree difference so, to do this all you gotta do take, our compass.
Place. It at the bottom left corner. Lamp. The edge of my base plate, with. That line or, that border of that map and. Just. Like our first video or, I put red in the shed or that dog in that doghouse. And. As long as you don't bump remove that map you're dialed in to grid north you should be good to go let's, talk about route planning route. Plan is very simple it's, that infamous. Day hike but, it shouldn't go wrong. Route. Planning are you doing as a series of as miss or bearings, you. Want to get the reverse azimuth, or bearing to each location that you go to why. Go ahead and keep track your pace count, and. You want to know what grid location that you're gonna operate in. So. Right here we got 300 meters or going to measure the distance on, here looks like an inch, and 3/16. Is. Approximately, 300 meters. Let's. Go ahead and plot a route to figure, out our start point let's say our start point is right here here's. A parking lot right there my, vehicles park for the day and, I want to go out here and explore all this area and check it out. So. I want to go ahead and walk from here to that hilltop right there, then. We're gonna go ahead and go across this saddle. To. That hilltop. From. The hilltop we can look down this spur right there and see the water so. That'd be a good spot to go down and get some water we supply, once. We're all hydrated, again we're gonna go ahead and from this water source. Back. To our vehicle so, how do we do that. Not. Moving the map once again I'm, gonna go ahead and take our compass, and. Place. It on. Our start point. And. Where. We want to go want, to go to the center of that hilltop, so. It's good advantage point so we can look around, so. All I'm gonna do just. Line. Those two up. And. Put a dot right there at the center of that tilt up. Now. Can draw a line from. The hilltop. To. My start point. Though. Since we're already here to, get our bearing our azimuth all we got to do, is. Now rotate our bezel ring from zero. And. Put that dog in the doghouse or that, red in the shed. And. Once we do that you, go. To our top glow-in-the-dark indicator. And. Read that number and. Said. It's 30 degrees so. I know there's. A 30 degree azimuth, or bearing from my start point to. That hilltop, now. Go ahead and measure our distance. We. Said about an inch and 3/16. Was. Somewhere around 300. Meters. So. Now we're looking at let's. Round up say inch and a quarter so an inch and a quarter an inch into quarters two and a half inches, that's. 600, so we're looking at about 620, meters from. My start point to. That hilltop. So. From start point to our point number one we're to walk of bearing our azimuth of thirty degrees, we're. To walk to half of 620, meters now, what about back azimuth what we're gonna do go. To our bottom glow-in-the-dark, indicator, here's our top one tells. Me where I'm going bottom, one tells me where I was and. Looking, at that it's. 210, degrees. To. Have a back a Smith, of. 210. Degrees. Down. Here I'm in a note 4, features point, number one is a hilltop. You. The, last thing I want to talk about before we get out of here that pertains to route planning are five navigational. Tools that, you can use that will make your life a lot easier when you're out there once. You get confidence, built up give a little more experience you, can apply these tools and basically sort. Of cheat the system and get, to where you want to go a lot faster and, with a lot less hassle these. Five navigational, tools are handrail. Backstop. Baseline. Aiming. Off and escape. Or panic asmath a. Handrail. Is simply a linear object, that, can be used as a guideline, talking. About a handrail look, at our start point that parking lot we're.
Going To move along this burying our azmuth to our hilltop. Directly. To my left we have a road and. It parallels, the direction of travel. So. In a way I can, use this road as my linear object like a shooting Baron or azimuth to that Road walk. That row for that 600 meters, once. They get at six iron meters, shoot. An azimuth to that hilltop and. I'm there and that. Might be a lot easier. Not. As scenic but, it'd be a lot easier than busting brush all the way across here for six hours. Backstop. Is the point at which you shouldn't go past for, example fences. Walls, large. Rivers, bodies. Of water pipelines, etc. In. This next example we're, looking for a backstop so, on the top of this hill I look, down and I see that Creek, I'll. Make my way down that spur into. That Creek so I can get hydrated now. Here's. My pipeline the, creek is located on this side of that pipeline so. I know if I cross over that pipeline end up over here I've, gone too far so in a way I could use that pipeline as a backstop a. Baseline. You. Use a baseline so you can return to we started from, and. Now a baseline, goes hand in hand with aiming off if, you want to go ahead and aim off deliberately, so you can use a baseline, you, take a bearing left or right of the objective, then. Use the baseline to get back so. In a sense what you're doing you, know where you need to be and, you see an easier route so, you going to shoot an azimuth their bearing through. That easier route or that place where there's less brush you. Go through it once you get through that area you, know a turn left or right to, get back on track or, go back to your start point, aiming. Off and baseline go hand in hand let's, use our example this, hilltop right here we can look down and see that Creek or that stream let's. Say for example we can look over and see a road right here and, we want go ahead and shoot an azimuth or burying directly to that intersection so, we can get the name of that road for our map. So. All you gotta do is shoot, azimuth, to, that corner and be good to go well what if lateral, drift occurs or I'm careless and we end up over here we're. Not really going to know we're actually past that intersection so, I'm gonna deliberately aim off, over. Here use. This road as a baseline so I can turn left and, walk right to that intersection and. Number. Five we have an escape or panic asmath and, that's meant for exactly, what it says you're out there you get lost start, to panic and you need to escape it's a predetermined, as myth or burying but you can dial into your compass if, you are lost and you can get to a known point like a road or a house.
And. Lastly. We have an escape azimuth or panic azimuth. So. Looking at our entire route here we went first point second point third point and then, back to our starting point now. Anywhere on here I should be able to dial in a predetermined. Bearing. Or azimuth and, will take me to a road or to a pipeline. So. Somewhere I get lost in here and I need to escape I just got a dial in zero while my compass take, me right to that road or, 270. Will, take me to that road ninety. Will take me to the pipeline and worst. Case 180. Will take no heed down here this road. Welcome. Back land, navigation is, still outstanding. Just. My humble opinion now. If you haven't already go ahead go back and watch my first video on land navigation simplified. Take. Those tools techniques, go. Out there and practice them apply them and then, go ahead and try and attack this bad boy there's, a lot of information it, was a real long video and I apologize for that it, was better in my opinion to do it one, long video then, go ahead and break. It down into five or six 10-minute videos. But. Truth be told the. Only way you're gonna get better at this is actually go out and do it practice. Practice, practice practice, will, make you better not. Perfect or make you better and. You can always do better than you are now. With that once, again think if your comments abusing support thanks for watching get out in the field have some fun I'm gonna catch you. Next. Time.
2018-10-20