Posted on Oct 21, 2016
As a leader do you feel that Land Navigation should be taken out from the Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development System (NCOPDS)?
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Basic Leaders Course (BLC formerly WLC PLDC)
Advanced Leaders Course (ALC formerly BNCOC)
Maneuver Senior Leaders Course (MSLC)
Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 170
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Want to see a young high speed soldier shit, just let the batteries run down on his handy dandy GPS, or a your pilot. You better know how to navigate.
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There are a lot of perishable (easily forgettable) skills in the military. Land Navigation is definitely one of them. With that being said, I do not think it should be "taken out" but, I can understand the limitations with time and training to transition to a more professional and "college"-oriented training for BLC. Units individually are responsible for a lot of the 350-1 training that soldiers receive, while many units do regularly fail to conduct that training to standard (e.g. time/resource constraints/check-the-box). We can see that BLC should set leaders up for success.
In reality, the world is changing. No one really reads a hardprint map anymore, the rise of smartphones and GPS has made that task easier, despite the calls against it (what if it dies, what if it fails, etc). In that case of course, being able to use a compass and plot your grid coordinates is useful, but again it is an easily forgettable skill unless you do it regularly (i.e 1-2 a month?). Plus who is always walking around with a compass and a grid square? Not too many people, even in some high-speed units, they will just give you a DAGR or tell you to use a similar device.
We must of course try to mitigate all this against the greater need to train professional soldiers, who will operate in a multi-domain battlefield, often, soldiers will not be outside the wire in an unknown area battling or navigating some foreign space with no clue how to move around. They will be briefed and given the tools they need to succeed. Leadership has grown and adapted since the days of the early 90s and earlier decades where technology did not play such a crucial role in defending our National interests. With that being said, we must of course ensure that our leaders are competent in at least the most basic skills and of course, Skill Level 1 Warrior Tasks are the very basic soldiering skills which will be again be refreshed on an annual or semi-annual basis with their individual units (hopefully).
Other than that, I would expect any good leader to self-study and stay abreast on anything they need to know with their specific job or assignment to be competent and provide good leadership to their subordinates.
In reality, the world is changing. No one really reads a hardprint map anymore, the rise of smartphones and GPS has made that task easier, despite the calls against it (what if it dies, what if it fails, etc). In that case of course, being able to use a compass and plot your grid coordinates is useful, but again it is an easily forgettable skill unless you do it regularly (i.e 1-2 a month?). Plus who is always walking around with a compass and a grid square? Not too many people, even in some high-speed units, they will just give you a DAGR or tell you to use a similar device.
We must of course try to mitigate all this against the greater need to train professional soldiers, who will operate in a multi-domain battlefield, often, soldiers will not be outside the wire in an unknown area battling or navigating some foreign space with no clue how to move around. They will be briefed and given the tools they need to succeed. Leadership has grown and adapted since the days of the early 90s and earlier decades where technology did not play such a crucial role in defending our National interests. With that being said, we must of course ensure that our leaders are competent in at least the most basic skills and of course, Skill Level 1 Warrior Tasks are the very basic soldiering skills which will be again be refreshed on an annual or semi-annual basis with their individual units (hopefully).
Other than that, I would expect any good leader to self-study and stay abreast on anything they need to know with their specific job or assignment to be competent and provide good leadership to their subordinates.
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SGT Chris Cordell
That's the problem. "No one reads a hardprint map anymore". In combat, what are the two assets we try to take out first? Power and Communications. Smartphones, satellites, and most other electronics won't work. Today's society has become far too dependent electricity. Gadgets are cool but it still takes troops on the ground that can stick and move.
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First of all I hated it! LoL! But no, it should not be taken out. Your not always going to be able to depend on a GPS device cause you never know what might happen. I have actually used my training several times and I was super glad I had it! Land navigation is part of military tradition and in some ways it brings soldiers together (while in training).
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Needs to stay in the POI! The SSG below puts it well. It's not only the back-up to the back-up, an intuitive sense of direction can be crucial in a tight spot. We need to know our maps for the bigger land picture and not just rely on our GPS prompts which have no perspective only the limited area around us on the ground.
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I think that it should be taught starting in basic for night and day land nav and should continue through your time in service.
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So I guess that people have forgotten the story of Willie Lump Lump from what I heard here
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