Posted: 3/25/2007 5:51:11 PM EDT
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I have heard at Ft Benning you shouldn't use "attack points" you should use dead reckoning, basically shooting a azmith and walking. people have told me that the roads aren't marked correctly on the maps? |
Some of the trails and roads are not marked correctly. With the deadfall and underbrush, you are better off doing terrain association and watching your compass carefully. If anything, use the roads and trails as backstops. Which course are you attending? |
| Ranger School in particular took pride in using 20-30 year old maps 20 years ago. There are Interstates on the ground that aren't on the map! Learn to navigate with Dead Reckoning and Terrain Association. Plot a course. Draw the lines on the map. Follow the needle. Observe the terrain and contours (elevation & how steep) along the way along the lines drawn on the map. |
| I shoot a azimuth and whatever landmark I can find in that direction I walk to it until my pace count is up. I dont think roads or trails are properly marked by any map, just move as if terrain wasnt there. Should be good unless the points are all more than 1000m apart (farthest from point to point I had at Hood was 1200m, shouldnt be much worse there.) |
This is for a new course for 2LT's called bolc, the reason i was asking is some guys i knew who went through this course said the bolc course was actually much harder than the course in Ranger School! I was just wondering if there info was correct, one said he failed the course because he tried to use the roads. |
Does anyone know how to ranger roll a kevlar??? 
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sorry i was just talking to some friends tonight and they have been through some similar training and they told me that its not like back home where you can use terrain association and your map and be golden. I was just checking the hive mind... If it makes you feel any better i have completed everything else without asking arfcom too many dumb questions! |
I'm pretty sure the BOLC course uses Yankee North/South. They are pretty easy land nav courses. Some legs are 3km or so, but most are shorter. There is a lot of traffic out there. ANCOC/BNCOC/WLC/WHISEC/BOLC all use it. The points are on/near terrain features and they are fairly observable. Harder than the Ranger school? Which part? I haven't been through BOLC, but it sounds like a bit suspicious. But, I went through Ranger School when it was hard.  Ranger Class 14-86. |
My friends said that they thought the bolc course was harder than RS because the RS was self correcting. I dont know thats just what they said? Sounded weird to me |
We didnt get maps in BT/AIT during land nav. We had set points and directions/azimuths/distances. 
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Blue Force |
I disagree. Learn/know the basics before you get hi-tech. electronics are prone to failure (murphys law) If you don't know how to use the basic tools of navigation (map, compass, terrain association, dead reckoning) you're essentially screwed . |
In 1976 the Yankee Road land nav course was a tough mother. One point's marker was in a draw (unmarked on the map) on the hill (marked on the map). Try looking for a 6' pole with marker panels, only to find it was literally right at your feet. Use a good compass and do it the right way. |
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I hope you learn something at BOLC II at Benning, all I did was get fat at Sill. Attack points are not bad if the map is near current (10 years or less) but if the map is older than that then consider that some roads will not show. The key things to land nav. 1) Plot your points accurately 2) Always orient yourself to your map when navigating by it 3) Know your pace count, and have a good way to keep your pace . ranger beads work. 4) When dead reckoning look for something to walk directly to that is in your azimuth, preferably more than 100 meters, after the walking to it reshoot the azimuth 5) Use a search method like clover leafing when you are where you think the point is. If the instructors used GPS to mark the points then the points can be quite off if the map is old. Land Nav will most likely be a combined day/night with night having no glow sticks. The best advice is terrain associate and go for the easy/close points, and look for groups of red lights around a *clicking* sound during the night portion. And remember it is not cheating if you are not caught. Just some friendly advice. |
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Find where you are on the map. Find out the grid where you need to go. Put it on the map. Draw a line between the two. Measure the azimuth( a string through a protractor is very handy, btw.) Go that way till you find it. Repeat as necessary. Drink water. Got me 10 out of 10 at Ranger School. |
Nothing personal, but you are scaring the shit out of me. What the hell kind of officers are we putting out when they can't spell or use proper grammar? |
Funny story... The DS are like, "if you get to the sandy road, you've gone too far north cuz thats the farthest northern edge of the land nav we're doing." So we're walking on the azimuth and counting distance. We get to like 400m and we're supposed to go like 650 and we hit the sandy road.  We were like, "uhhh....we dont think we're suppose to be here..." So we start to double back and then we see like 3 deer stands in teh trees.  Finally figured out what we did wrong and still made it with plenty of time. We were 4/5 because we forgot to look at the # of one of the flags and asked someone what the one we just came from was. We thought it was 11 and they told us 18. It was 11.  
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I say that only because of the way they have changed training in the last 10 years from the boy scout/vietnam traiing we got in the 90s to the Iraq/Afghan specific training they get today. Realistically, a butter bar will be riding TC in a truck 95% of the time if he even does anything outside the FOB, and a compass wont be issued. His place will be mounted sitting behind a bunch of rediculous tv screens anyways. |
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To the OP: Everytime a platoon of tracks goes through the woods, they create four new unimproved roads. As for 2LT's and sitting on their rear ends in a TOC, ain't gonna find that too often with Infantry 2LT's. Brother's tour in Iraq was with a MiTT, 15 or so Americans living with and training an Iraqi battalion. They were typically running multiple dismounted patrols per day. |
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AGAIN - - Learn to navigate with Dead Reckoning and Terrain Association. Plot a course. Draw the lines on the map. Follow the needle. Observe the terrain and contours (elevation & how steep) along the way along the lines drawn on the map. Shoot a azimuth at a specific landmark that you are sure will not move in the direction and walk to it until your pace count is up. Please - LEARN your PACE COUNT. WHAT IS YOUR PACE COUNT ????? ----- LEARN IT , DO NOT FORGET IT , EVER Hope it helps |
That is what I should have said! Thanks for the help. I totally left the pace count out, but I am getting older and have sometimers - not quite full blown altzeimers! I should have said about the azimuth to terrain features instead of our slang - follow the needle. I guarantee if you watch the needle you won't get where you are going! That correction to my posting is the way it is done.
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I would say the advice thus far has been good, I've been screwed by the roads and fire breaks out there before, so dead reckoning may be a good option. That said, if your pace count is good, I don't think you will find the 'wrong' road/fire break from which to use attack points (that's what got me--complacency, but it worked more often than not). So, it seems 'use both' is in order here--close/easy use roads, but if time or terrain prevents it, use dead reckoning. To those wondering about the spelling abilities of future officers, let me just say this, IMO: I've seen some guys that would make you want to cry--don't know land nav, don't know tactics, don't know anything. On the other hand, I've seen guys that make me feel like a bum (and I do alright).  Several of you sound like you are/were out there....just give each of us a chance, please. We will either surprise or disappoint you, but give us a chance first. Don't believe the hype ("All LT's from __________ are ate the fuck up"), just wait and see. Oh, but trying to G-2 BOLC II is lame--it's LDAC on steroids.  |
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I thought you were talking about the course for navigation we did for 11b skool... had to follow the compas thru th ewoods finding stakes with something written on them- found our first stake - pretty simple- but no sign. looked around- nothing... so we wrote down "no sign" on the card. finished the course and gave the card to the range folk. They failed us on the spot for not finiding the sign....fuckers
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Oh yeah i've done that before when i was here. I'm pretty good at land nav, so we will have to see how i did on this course, another class had a 35% no go on land nav so thats why i am a little nervous about this course.I have a good pace count though (65) and i am really good at plotting points and doing intersections and resections. About BOLC, overall i think it could be a really good course there is just too much filler, 1 week of inprocessing is just way too much time. The course could actually be gutted. A lot of people here complain all day about how much it sucks, I just have a good time, hell the Army is paying to do cool shit and some of the cadre members are complete badasses so i try to talk to them and learn anything i can. They are here to help and they love teaching and i think they appreciate 2lts trying to learn. One thing to look out for is they feed you alot and the PT is weak, you have to pt on your off time which can be tough if your in leadership and you dont know when the next fraggo is coming down. I came into this course with a 290 pt and was hoping to bump it up to a 300 but i'm honestly scared to see what i get on the next pt test! |
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Wow, you guys got maps? They still don't make you walk in circles till you learn your pace count and send you out w/ a coordinate for your first sign? Careful about following directions till you fall in a ravine full of concertina wire. Oh, and don't pick a waypoint/ target and send a guy running out to it w/ a masked flashlight just to make up time, the instructors always show up at the worst times.
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We just did the land nav here at BOLC on Thursday. About a 1/3 of each platoon generally fails it. The case for mine was the same but somebody another platoon had a data sheet with all the points' grid locations and numeric code and stuff on it and they had like 2 people get no-go's. As luck would have it one of the idiots got caught with it when they turned in their score sheets. They've changed the maps since we went on Thursday so I can't give you any guidance about how accurate they are. The maps we had were pretty worthless. There are a number of roads/trails not shown on the map and some pretty major terrain features are not listed on the map. It was still an easy course if you aren't a complete retard at land nav. We started the course at 0530 and were given 5 hours to find 5 out of 8 points. What company are you in btw? I'm in A/4 |
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I thought it was a challenging course, or maybe it was just that my lane was really spread out but I had points spread all over the place which was a little tougher than some of the other lanes where all the points were in one grid square I got my 5 points that i knew where right but there was one point right off the road that i just couldn't find, i swear I dont understand how I couldn't find the point, so I clacked a point that i figured couldn't possibly be it but better than nothing. I still got a Go but there was about 40 no gos from the company. |