land nav. methods

[ashort]

hey guys lately ive been practicing some land nav out in the local state forest.....plotting points and headings all that good stuff but im having a little trouble heres the deal.

each segment of each course ive done is roughly 1000m no more to each target and i have to use some type of landmark as a target because all the maps i find on the internet arent then same scale as my protractor they gave me at the requruiting office, so i use a landmark such as trail intersections so i can tell if i was on or not, no pace count involved yet but ill get there. but every point i go for it seems im always about 20 to 30m off the exact point.

now ive picked the old sf guys brain apart at the office but now hes not there anymore so im coiming to you guys now. but to make a long story short, all the times ive tried it was in pretty thick forest and its hard to sight somthing with my compass thats more then 30m away so i could be getting off course because of that but i dont know.....how do you guys go about navigating through thick terrain where visibility is shot outside of 30m with dense underbrush in places where its almost impossible to walk through?

thanks fellas

[Bell]

Practice, practice, practice.

Learn the pace count. When you get to an obstacle do a 90 degree turn and count your paces. Once past the obstacle do a 90 and count paces for your original course. Once past the obstacle again do a 90 and count paces back to the original course. Do another 90 and continue on your way. Practice, practice, practice.

RLTW
Bell

[Boattail173]

Its kind of difficult to practice military land navigation without the proper equipment...IE maps, M2 compass...etc. I would do what Ranger Bell suggested...I would also do the following:

-Learn your terrian features and be able to ID them on a map
-Learn Terrian Association and pracitce it

I did a search and found the Army FM for LandNav here is the link
http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/f ... 26/toc.htm

LandNav is a great tool for conditioning the mind and body...Do it with a ruck weighing around 60-70lbs and you will have yourself and good little workout.
Hope this helps, good luck to you

RLTW