 Hello everyone. I'm Staff Sergeant Eckhart. I'm the senior instructor at Jungle Operations Training Course out here at Lightning Academy for the 25th Infantry Division. I'm Sergeant Bostick. I'm the primary instructor for land navigation here at the Jungle Operations Training Course. In this video series we will be covering the four steps to land navigation, know where you are, know where you're going, follow your route and recognize the objective. We will cover all of the basics to land navigation as well as some jungle considerations. The first video will consist of the first step to land navigation, know where you are. In order to know where you are, as soon as you get your map, you're going to want to orient it. And anytime you look at it, you're going to want to orient it. The easiest way to orient your map is to place your compass on your map and rotate your map until your compass is pointed due north with the North Seeking Arrow towards Magnetic North. And it's in line with grid north on the map. What this allows is for you to stand with your body oriented due north so that if you look off to your left, you know that you're looking to the west. You know that if you look off to your right, you're looking due east. If you're doing about face and look behind you, you'll be facing south. Once you orient your map, it allows you to look around and identify the terrain features around you. To determine where you are, you need to be able to self-locate. There are a few methods to self-location. The first method of self-location is terrain association. In order to conduct terrain association, you need to be able to identify and understand each terrain feature. All terrain features are derived from a complex landmass known as a mountain or a ridgeline. The term ridgeline is not interchangeable with the term ridge, which we will discuss in a moment. The ridgeline is a line of high ground, usually with changes in elevation along its top and low ground on all sides, from which a total of 10 natural or man-made terrain features are then classified. Among those 10 natural or man-made terrain features, there are five major terrain features. The five major terrain features are hills, saddles, valleys, ridges, and depressions. They are uniquely represented on maps. A hill is an area of high ground. From a hilltop, the ground slopes down in all directions. A hill is shown on a map by contour lines, forming concentric circles. The inside of the smallest closed circle is the hilltop. A saddle is a dip or low point between two areas of higher ground. A saddle is not necessarily the lower ground between two hilltops. It may simply be a dip or a break along a level ridge crest. If you are in a saddle, there is high ground in two opposite directions and lower ground in other two directions. A saddle is normally represented as an hourglass on the map. A valley is a stretched out groove in the land, usually formed by streams or rivers. It begins with high ground on three sides and usually has a course of running water through it. If standing in a valley, three directions offer high ground while the fourth direction offers low ground. Depending upon its size and where a person is standing, it may not be obvious that there is high ground in the third direction. The water flows from higher to lower ground. Contour lines forming a valley are either U shaped or V shaped. To determine the direction the water is flowing, look at the contour lines. The closed end of the contour line or V or U always point upstream towards higher ground. A ridge is a sloping line of high ground. The center line of a ridge normally has low ground in three directions and high ground in one direction, with varying degrees of slope. If a ridge is crossed at right angles, a soldier climbs steeply to the crest then descends steeply to the base. When moving along the path of the ridge, depending on the geographic location, there may be either an almost unnoticeable slope or a very obvious incline. Contour lines forming a ridge tend to be U shaped or V shaped. The closed end of the contour line points away from high ground. A depression is a low point in the ground or a sinkhole. It could be described as an area of low ground surrounded by higher ground in all directions or simply a hole in the ground. Usually only depressions that are equal to or greater than the contour interval is shown. On maps, depressions are represented by closed contour lines that have tick marks pointing toward the low ground. There are three minor terrain features. Minor terrain features include draws, spurs and cliffs. They are represented on maps in unique ways. A draw is a stream course that is less developed than a valley. In a draw, there is essentially no level ground and little or no maneuver room within its confines. In a draw, the ground slopes upward in three directions and downward in the other direction. A draw could be considered as the initial formation of a valley. The contour lines depicting a draw are U shaped or V shaped pointing toward the higher ground. A spur is a short continuous sloping line of higher ground normally jutting out from the side of a ridge. A spur is often formed by two roughly parallel streams cutting draws down the side of a ridge. The ground slopes down in three directions and then up in one. Contour lines on a map depict a spur with the U or the V pointing away from the higher ground. A cliff is a vertical or near vertical feature that is an abrupt change of the land. When a slope is so steep that the contour lines converge into one carrying contour of contours, this last contour line has tick marks pointing toward the low ground. Cliffs can also be shown by contour lines very close together and in some instances touching each other. There are two supplementary terrain features. These supplementary terrain features include cuts and fills. A cut is a man-made feature resulting from cutting through raised ground usually to form a level bed for a road or railroad track. Cuts are shown on a map when they are at least 10 feet high and they are drawn with a contour line along the cut line. This contour line extends the length of the cut and has tick marks that extend from the cut line to the road bed if the map scale permits this level of detail. A fill is a man-made feature resulting from filling a low area usually to form a level bed for a road or railroad track. Fills are shown on a map when they are at least 10 feet high and they are drawn with a contour line along the fill line. This contour line extends the length of the filled area and has tick marks that point toward the lower ground. If the map scale permits, the length of the fill tick marks are drawn to scale and extend from the baseline of the fill symbol. Being able to identify and recognize these terrain features on a map will be critical to success at land navigation. Later on in this series, we will cover terrain association more in depth and we will walk you around the training area and show you different terrain features from the map to what they actually look like on the ground. For now, in our training area, the terrain features you are most likely to see are hills, saddles, ridges, spurs, and draws. The second method you can use to self-locate on a map and determine where you are is known as re-section. Re-section is using two known points on the map to determine an unknown location. So for this scenario, I want to say that I am somewhere over here on this map. I wandered off the last time I knew where I was. I was over at this intersection. I got all turned around. I know I am somewhere around here, but I don't know exactly where and I want to determine where I am at so that I can plot my point. So what I do is I shoot an azimuth using my compass to easily identifiable terrain features. For this scenario, I am going to say that I want to use this bridge right here. I know that it is a bridge and it is easily identifiable on the map as well as the ground because I can see that this hard ball road goes over this waterway right here. So I know there has to be a bridge right there. So I shoot my azimuth to this bridge and I am going to also use this power line intersection because on the ground I can see two sets of power lines intersecting at two different locations and I use the power line intersection closest to me to identify on the ground. So what I am going to do is shoot an azimuth from wherever I am standing to the power line intersection and shoot an azimuth to the bridge. So for this scenario, I shot that azimuth with my compass and I got 96 degrees to the power line intersection and 226 degrees to the bridge. Now using that azimuth, I am going to then determine my back azimuth. A back azimuth is simply 180 degrees difference from your current azimuth. What that does is allows you to determine the exact opposite direction from what you just shot. So if my azimuth is less than 180 degrees I am going to want to add 180 and if my azimuth is greater than 180 degrees I am going to want to subtract 180. This is because a compass is a circle using 360 degrees so by adding 180 when it is less than 180 and subtracting 180 when it is greater than 180 it allows you to never have to come up with negative degrees or something greater than 360 degrees and it makes the math easier. So less than 180 add, greater than 180 subtract. So now that I have added 180 to 96 and I have subtracted 180 from 226 I have gotten 276 degrees magnetic from my back azimuth from the power line intersection and 46 degrees magnetic back azimuth from the bridge. So once we have determined our back azimuth the next step is going to be converting that magnetic azimuth into a grid azimuth so that we can plot it on our map. In order to convert from magnetic to grid we are going to reference our declination diagram located in the lower right hand margin of our map. This declination diagram lets you know what the GM angle is and it also allows you to reference in case you forget that to convert a magnetic azimuth to a grid azimuth you add the GM angle and to convert from grid to magnetic you subtract the GM angle. A good way to remember this is from magnetic to grid M to G or major to general is a promotion and from G to M or general to major is a demotion. So magnetic to grid M to G major to general you're going to add and from G to M or grid to magnetic general to major you're going to want to subtract. So for our instance we are transferring from magnetic over to grid we're going to want to add the GM angle of 9 degrees for Hawaii so that 276 degree magnetic back azimuth from the power line intersection adding 9 degrees then becomes 285 degrees grid azimuth and the 46 degree magnetic back azimuth from the bridge then becomes 55 degrees grid azimuth. So the next step would then be to plot our grid azimuths from those locations. So from the power line intersection I'm going to want to put my protractor lined up exactly with that easily identifiable terrain feature on the map and then I plot the 285 degree azimuth that I figured out by doing my math. So in order to do that after I put the center dot on my actual easily identifiable terrain feature or intersection here I can then use a straight edge to line up from the line to 285 degrees I pull my protractor off and I draw a straight line along that I then take my protractor I put the center dot exactly on that bridge which is my other identifiable terrain feature that I determined my grid azimuth my grid back azimuth from I put a straight edge underneath it I line it up from that center point all the way over to 55 degrees I can move that protractor and I can draw a straight line extending out Now I have these two lines drawn on my map and what I'm going to want to do is look for where they intersect at and where these two lines cross is exactly where I'm standing because from right here is where I shot that initial azimuth over to the bridge and where I shot that initial azimuth over to the power lines and where they came back through and they cross that, that's where I'm located The next thing I need to do is to plot this point Now that I know where my two lines intersect I know where I'm standing I need to actually pull the grid for my location In order to pull a grid for your location and plot your point you're going to need to read your map right and up as I'm sure you've heard before What this means is we're going to determine where inside of this grid square we are located So first thing you need to get is your easting which is 0, 2 So we know we're in the 0, 2 and up to the 7, 6 So since we're reading right and up we know we're somewhere in the 0, 2, 7, 6 grid square We're going to take our protractor and we're going to use the appropriate triangle for the scale map that we are using As you can see the triangles are labeled with which scale you are supposed to be using and the map is also labeled So using the 1 over 25,000 meter scale In order to plot this grid location we're going to need to start with our protractor in the lower left hand corner of the 0, 2, 7, 6 grid square This allows us to move right because we read right and up until the vertical line of our protractor is in line The first thing we're going to do to plot this point is to start with our protractor in the lower left hand corner of the 0, 2, 7, 6 grid square This allows us to move the protractor to the right until the vertical line of our protractor is in line with our point Since we read this right and up we're going to determine our easting first This easting is telling us how far into the 0, 2 we went Each one of these marks denotes 100 meters So we know that 100, 200, and almost 300 meters into the 0, 2, easting is where our point is Each one of these 100 meter increments is further broken down by 20s So from the 2 we're at 20, 40, 60, 80 is where it lines up with that 0, 2, easting line Therefore we know we are in the 0, 2, 2, 8 0, 2, 2, 8 is our easting What this is telling us is that we are 280 meters east of this 0, 2, easting The next step is to determine our northing We know that since we read this map right and up we are now going to determine what the northing is So since our vertical line is already in line with the point all we have to do is read the number associated with our vertical line So from the 7, 6 we are the 9, 2 because 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 So that's telling us that we are in the 7, 6, 9, 2 or 920 meters north of the 7, 6 line So now that we have determined our location we write down our grid This 8-digit grid is getting us within 10 meters because we know that this is 280 meters east of the 0, 2, easting and 920 meters north of the 7, 6, north Now if we added another digit onto there we'll say 0 for now That could get us within 1 meter This gets you within 1,000 or 1 grid square Adding another digit will get you within hundreds because they are, like we said, in increments of 100 Adding 8-digit gets you within 10 meters because it's in the 10 meter intervals and then 1 more digit will get you within that 1 meter The last method of self-location is known as modified resection Modified resection is very similar to resection except you are only using one easily identifiable terrain feature and a linear terrain feature to self-locate on the map What this means is that you are going to be walking along some sort of linear terrain feature or you are going to locate yourself using a linear terrain feature For this instance, let's say that we are walking along centerline road right here You just walked all the way down this road and you lost track of where you might be You stopped counting your pace count Last time you paid attention was at that intersection You are somewhere in between this intersection and these power lines You have no idea where and you need to self-locate on the map Using this linear terrain feature, all you have to do is shoot an azimuth using your compass out to an easily identifiable terrain feature which will use this power line intersection for instance The exact same way you did for a resection you are going to determine your back azimuth from that easily identifiable terrain feature You get back azimuth from magnetic to grid You plot it on the map and wherever you get your back azimuth from that terrain feature and where it intersects with this road that you think you are on is where you are standing on that road Knowing where you are is the most important step to land navigation and it permeates throughout every other step that follows The ability to self-locate and know where you are at all times will be imperative to your success at navigating through any terrain including the jungle The self-location methods that we discussed in this video will give you the basic knowledge and tools to determine where you are Your distance and direction will then be determined from that location This brings us to our next step to land navigation Step two, know where you are going Stay tuned for the next video in this four part series to land navigation