Navigating on the Ground

Lesson Overview

The earlier lessons gave a soldier the pieces. Lesson 02 taught the map, its scale, signs, and grid; Lesson 03 the shape of the ground read from its contours; Lesson 04 the compass and the taking, setting, and following of a bearing. This lesson joins those pieces into a route across real country: following it with confidence, knowing at every moment how far you have come and where you are, and acting correctly when, despite everything, you are no longer sure. It is the skill the field actually tests.

This is the knowledge layer. The judgement that reads a slope underfoot, holds a bearing in fog, and knows when a leg has run too long is built only on the ground, with a real map and compass on real terrain, under instruction, and certified in person. This lesson sets out the method in enough detail that you arrive at the practical already understanding what you are doing and why.

By the end you will be able to plan a route by breaking it into legs and to write a route card recording for each leg the bearing, the distance, the time, and the expected features; apply the techniques that keep a soldier found, namely handrails, collecting and catching features, attack points, and aiming off, knowing when each is the right one to use; judge distance travelled by counting your own pace count and by estimating time on the move; navigate by dead reckoning where there are no features to use; and carry out the relocation drill correctly, while understanding that constant checking of map against ground is what prevents being lost in the first place.

Key Terms

• Leg: a single straight stretch of a route between two recognisable points, navigated as one unit on one bearing.
• Route card: the written plan of a route, listing for each leg its bearing, distance, estimated time, and the features expected along it and at its end.
• Handrail: a linear feature such as a stream, wall, track, or fence that runs in your direction of travel and can be followed instead of a strict bearing.
• Collecting feature: a feature you expect to pass and tick off as you reach it, confirming you are on line and on distance; also called a tick-off feature.
• Catching feature: a feature beyond the objective that you will meet if you have gone too far, warning you to stop and turn back; also called a backstop.
• Attack point: a sure, easily found feature near the objective, from which the final precise approach to the objective is made.
• Aiming off: deliberately aiming to one known side of a point that sits on a line feature, so that on reaching the line you know which way to turn.
• Pace count: the number of paces a particular soldier takes to cover one hundred metres, measured rather than assumed, and used to track distance on the ground.
• Dead reckoning: finding a point by following a measured bearing for a measured distance, used where there are no features to navigate by.

Planning the route and the route card

Navigation begins at the map, before a soldier moves. A route is not walked as one long journey but built as a series of legs, each a straight stretch between two points recognisable on both the map and the ground. The art of route planning is choosing those points well. A leg that ends at a road junction, a bridge, a distinct knoll, or a field corner ends somewhere a soldier can stand and be certain of arrival. A leg that ends "somewhere along this track" ends nowhere. So plan from sure point to sure point, and prefer the linear features that cross your path, a stream, a hard road, a ridge, a wall, since these are easiest to recognise and least likely to have changed since the map was drawn. Treat small features near a settlement as provisional until you see them.

For each leg the soldier records four things on a small card carried in the hand or a map case, the route card. First the bearing, measured on the map as a grid bearing and converted to the magnetic bearing the compass will follow, as in Lesson 04. Second the distance, measured against the scale by the paper-strip method from Lesson 02 and written in metres. Third the time the leg should take, estimated from the distance and the climb by the method given later. Fourth, and the one beginners most often omit, what you expect to see: the two or three features that should appear along the leg, in order, and the feature that marks its end. A route card need be no more than a few ruled lines on waterproof paper:

   Leg   Bearing   Distance   Time     Expect to see / leg ends at
   1      048°       900 m     12 min   wall on left as handrail; ends at wall corner
   2      012°       400 m      6 min   open ground; pool at 200 m on right; ends at sheepfold
   3      ...        ...        ...     ...

Written this way, the plan turns "head that way" into a checkable sequence. At the start of each leg you brief yourself on the bearing, distance, time, and features; as you move you tick the features off; at the leg's end you confirm arrival before opening the card to the next leg. The card also lets another soldier take over the navigation without the route vanishing with the first navigator, and lets a commander be told exactly where a section is. Plan the whole route before you step off, and on the ground you are free to navigate one leg at a time.

Techniques that keep you found

A bearing and a pace count will, in theory, take a soldier to a point. In practice the ground, the weather, and human error all work against a bare bearing, so the experienced navigator leans on the ground itself through a handful of techniques. Each has a name and a moment when it is the right one to reach for, and a single leg often uses several together.

A handrail is a linear feature that happens to run your way. A stream, a wall, a track, a fence, the edge of a wood, a ridge line: any of these, if it leads where you are going, can be followed by eye while the compass merely confirms direction. This is easier and surer than holding a strict bearing across open ground, removing the slow drift that creeps into a long bearing and letting you move faster with less effort. Use a handrail whenever one runs roughly along your line. The one discipline it demands is knowing where you must leave it: the point where your route and the feature part company is a decision point you must watch for, or you will follow the handrail on past your turning. Note on the card where the handrail ends and what tells you that you have reached that point.

A collecting feature, or tick-off feature, keeps you honest along the leg. These are the things you expect to pass: a pond at three hundred metres, a track joining from the right, a lone barn, a fence crossing your front. You list them on the card in order, and tick each off as it appears on cue, confirming you are on line and on distance. Their real value is in what they tell you when one does not appear: if you have walked well past where the pond should have been and there is no pond, that absence is early warning to stop and check before the error grows. Use collecting features on every leg of any length.

A catching feature, or backstop, is the safeguard at the far end of a leg: a feature beyond the objective, a road, a river, a wall, a sharp change of slope across your path, that you would only reach if you had overshot. You choose it when you plan the leg and note it on the card. When you meet it you know at once that you have gone too far, and the correct response is to stop and work back, not to march on hoping. A good catching feature is long, so you cannot miss it to one side, and unmistakable, so you cannot doubt it. Use one whenever your objective is small or easily passed, which is most legs that matter.

An attack point solves the problem of a small objective that is hard to find directly. Rather than navigate from far off straight to a thing you may walk past, you navigate first to a large, certain feature close to it, the attack point, and from there make a short, careful, measured approach. The attack point should be unmistakable and close, ideally within a few hundred metres. A path junction four hundred metres from a hidden spring is far easier to hit than the spring; reach the junction, stop, confirm you are there, then take a fresh bearing and a counted distance from it, and the spring is found. The longer your navigation to the attack point, the more error you may carry, but it does not matter, because the attack point is large enough to catch you; only the short final leg need be precise. Use an attack point whenever the objective is small, low, or hidden.

Aiming off answers a particular trap. When an objective sits on a line feature, a footbridge on a river, a gate on a long wall, a hut on a track, and you aim straight for it, a small error to either side leaves you on the line not knowing whether the objective is to your left or your right, and you can waste much time searching the wrong way. The cure is to aim deliberately to one side. Offset your bearing by a few degrees, enough that you are certain to strike the line to one known side of the objective. Aim well to the left of the bridge, say; then when you reach the river you know without doubt that the bridge lies downstream to your right, and you turn confidently toward it. Use aiming off whenever your objective sits on a line you are approaching across country. A known turn is always better than an even chance of turning the wrong way.

   ONE LEG, THE TECHNIQUES TOGETHER

   [START] --follow a HANDRAIL (wall, stream, track)--> [ATTACK POINT]
            tick off COLLECTING features as you pass          |
                                                              v  short final leg
                                                         [OBJECTIVE]
                                                              |
                          [CATCHING FEATURE beyond] ----------+
                          if you reach it, you have gone too far

   AIMING OFF: to find a point on a line (a bridge on a stream), aim
   to ONE side on purpose, so at the line you know which way to turn.

Judging distance travelled: pacing

To know where you are on a leg you must know how far along it you have come, and the surest method on foot is pacing. Every soldier has a personal pace count, the number of paces they take to cover one hundred metres, and it must be measured rather than assumed, because stride varies with the person, the load, the slope, and the going. Establish it once, properly: walk a measured hundred metres at your natural marching stride, carrying what you will carry on the task, and count as you go. For a steadier figure, walk a longer measured course, say four or six hundred metres, and divide the total by the number of hundreds. The result is your pace count for those conditions, and it is yours alone.

Count in double-paces to keep the numbers small. A double-pace is two steps: you count once each time the same foot, say the right, strikes the ground. A soldier who takes about a hundred and twenty single steps to the hundred metres counts about sixty double-paces, far easier to hold in the head over a long leg. Fix your own figure and carry it on a card, with separate counts for the conditions you will meet:

   Conditions                         Example double-pace count per 100 m
   Light order, flat firm ground      ~62
   Full equipment, flat firm ground   ~65
   Uphill                             higher (a climb shortens the stride)
   Soft going (sand, mud, snow, bog)  higher
   Rough or broken ground             higher

The figures above are only an example; you must establish your own. What matters is the pattern of the adjustments, which is consistent. A load shortens the stride, so the count rises; a climb shortens it further, so the count rises again on uphill ground, while on a downslope the stride lengthens and the count falls a little. Soft surfaces (sand, gravel, mud, snow, bog), rough or broken ground, thick vegetation, and fatigue late in a long day all shorten the stride and raise the count. The disciplined navigator learns roughly how much each adds and corrects on the move, rather than trusting one flat figure across changing ground.

On the leg, count the hundreds and you always know the distance run. Because a count easily slips after a stumble or a word from another soldier, keep the tally outside your head: advance one bead on a set of pace-counter beads, one knot on a cord, or one mark on the card at every hundred metres, so that a lost count costs you one hundred metres of recounting and not the whole leg. Begin the count anew at the start of each leg, and reset it the moment you confirm your position against a known feature, because a pace count is only as good as the point it was started from.

Judging time on the move

The second method of judging progress is timing: if a soldier knows their speed, the clock measures distance. The standard planning method, long associated with Naismith, is simple. Allow a steady time for the ground covered on the level, add a fixed allowance for height climbed, and add more for difficult going. A serviceable working rule for a soldier under load is about twelve minutes to the kilometre on moderate going, a steady five kilometres in the hour, plus about ten minutes for each hundred metres of ascent. To that you add time, never subtract it, for a heavy load, thick vegetation, soft or broken ground, darkness, and bad weather, because all of these slow you and none speed you.

Worked through, a leg of two kilometres with one hundred metres of climb plans at about twenty-four minutes for the distance plus about ten for the climb, near thirty-four minutes in all, and more if the going is poor. Write that figure on the card. Its purpose is not to march to a stopwatch but to give you an expectation: if a leg you timed at thirty-four minutes has taken an hour and the objective is nowhere in sight, the clock is telling you something is wrong, so stop and check. Timing comes into its own where there is little to pace against or little to see, on long open legs, in poor visibility, and at night, where it may be the steadiest guide you have.

Pacing and timing check each other, so the wise navigator uses both. When the pace count says the objective is near but the clock says it cannot yet be, or the reverse, the disagreement is itself information, and the answer is to stop and confirm rather than trust one method blindly. Two rough measures that agree are worth far more than either alone.

Dead reckoning: bearing and distance with nothing to see

Sometimes the ground offers nothing to navigate by: a wide stretch of low, featureless moor, thick forest with no view, fog, falling snow, or darkness. Here the techniques that lean on features fall away, and a soldier falls back on dead reckoning, finding a point by following a measured bearing for a measured distance. It is the most basic method and the most demanding of care, because once an error enters it goes uncorrected, and small errors of bearing and of pacing compound with every hundred metres.

The drill is exact. At the start point, set the magnetic bearing on the compass and pick out a feature on that line as far ahead as you can clearly see and recognise, a lone tree, a boulder, a hummock, a post. Do not walk along staring at the compass, which will not read steadily in the hand. Instead walk to the chosen feature, then sight on and pick the next, and so cross the leg in a series of short straight stretches, the compass setting each one, while you count your paces so that distance is measured as carefully as direction. Where there is truly nothing ahead to sight on, in dense fog or thick wood, a second soldier is sent forward to the limit of sight and waved precisely on to the line, then becomes the mark to walk to, and the process repeats. Where an obstacle forces you off the line, go round it on a measured detour and count only the paces that take you forward along the original bearing.

Two cautions govern dead reckoning. First, confirm your position against the map the moment any known feature appears, and start the pace count and the bearing afresh from there, because the method drifts and a fix resets the drift to nothing. Second, where dead reckoning ends at an objective on a line feature, combine it with aiming off, so the inevitable small error leaves you on a known side. Dead reckoning is accurate over short distances done carefully and dangerous over long ones done blindly, so the rule is to dead reckon only as far as you must and to confirm against the ground as soon as you can.

When you are no longer sure: the relocation drill

However careful the navigation, there will come a moment when a soldier looks up and the ground does not match the map. Being temporarily unsure of position is not a disgrace but an ordinary event; the danger lies entirely in how it is handled. The wrong response, and the one the tired and the proud reach for, is to walk on hoping the ground will start to make sense. It rarely does, and every step taken in hope makes the recovery harder.

The right response is a deliberate drill, carried out in order. Stop. Each pace taken now adds to the unknown and widens the search. Then work back in your mind to the last point at which you were genuinely certain of your position, recalling it as a grid reference and a time, for that point is the anchor for everything that follows. From there, reconstruct the route since: every bearing followed, every distance paced, every collecting feature seen, every estimate of time, laid against the map to give a best estimate of where you now are. Then confirm that estimate against the ground. Where features are visible, take a resection from any two or three you can both see and find on the map, the method taught in Lesson 04, and where they cross is your position. Where nothing distant can be seen, read the shape of the ground itself: match the slope under your feet, the way it falls, and the line of any watercourse or wall to the contours and detail on the map, and walk a short, careful distance to test the match. The ground will agree or disagree within a short distance.

Having relocated, you either confirm the new position and carry on, checking map against ground at every step, or you back-track on a measured bearing to the last certain point and re-plan from there. If, having done all this honestly, you are still truly lost, the safe action is to stop in a findable place, take stock, and make yourself recoverable rather than press deeper into trouble. A soldier who has stopped, who knows roughly where they last were, and who can be reached is in a manageable position; one who keeps moving while lost is the one a search is later mounted for. The relocation drill is the cure; the prevention is simpler still: check the map against the ground constantly, leg by leg and feature by feature, so an error is caught while it is small and the moment of being lost never arrives.

The relocation drill, in order:

flowchart TD
    U["The ground does not match the map"] --> S["STOP. Do not wander on"]
    S --> B["Work back to your last certain position<br/>(a grid reference and a time)"]
    B --> R["Reconstruct: plot every bearing, distance, feature, and time since"]
    R --> C["Confirm against the ground:<br/>resection, or read the slope and watercourses"]
    C --> Q{"Position confirmed?"}
    Q -->|"yes"| G["Carry on, checking map against ground"]
    Q -->|"no"| F["Back-track to the last certain point,<br/>or stop and make yourself findable"]

The satellite receiver: an aid, never a substitute

A satellite receiver will report a grid position at the touch of a screen, and a soldier should use one where it helps. But its place is exactly defined: it confirms the navigating a soldier is already doing, it does not replace it. Use it to check the map, not instead of the map. Navigate by map, compass, ground, pace, and time, and let the receiver confirm position at a checkpoint, at an attack point, or to settle a doubt; do not let it do the thinking, because then the skill withers and the soldier is helpless the moment it fails.

And it does fail. Batteries go flat, screens break, cold drains power, water gets in, signal is lost under trees or in a valley, and a receiver that has quietly lost most of its satellites may still show a position with false confidence. A soldier who has navigated by map and compass all along simply carries on when the device dies, having lost nothing but a convenience, because the route card, the pace count, and the bearing are all still in hand. One who navigated only by the screen is, at that moment, lost. If the receiver and the map ever disagree, do not assume the screen is right; cross-check the bearing, the pace count, and the visible ground first. The receiver is a useful extra. The map and compass are the navigation.

In Practice: The Leg Across the Flats

A section is sent across the flats, a broad stretch of low, featureless moorland on the far side of the training area, to reach a small ruined sheepfold from which a stream is to be checked after heavy rain. On the map the sheepfold is a tiny square in a sea of pale ground, and a beginner would set a single bearing straight for it and hope. The section's navigator does better, and her route card shows why. The first leg runs along a drystone wall that strikes north-east across the flats, a clean handrail she follows by eye while the compass confirms the line; her card notes the leg ends where the wall meets a marked corner. There, her attack point, she stops, certain of her position, and only then reads from the card the fresh bearing for the sheepfold, four hundred metres beyond, with a pace count of just over sixty double-paces a hundred to match.

The sheepfold sits a little back from a stream that runs left to right across the front, so rather than aim straight at it she aims off to the right, knowing that when she strikes the stream the fold will lie upstream to her left and she will turn to it without hesitation. Along the way she ticks off the collecting features her card lists, a pool at two hundred metres, a fence joining from the right, and when the pool appears on cue she knows she is on line. Behind the sheepfold, well beyond it, runs the metalled road that bounds the flats: her catching feature. Were she to reach that road she would know at once she had overshot and would work back, but she does not reach it, because the fold appears as the card said it would, on the bearing, at the counted distance, and inside the time she allowed. The receiver she switches on once, at the wall corner, to confirm the grid before her final approach, then pockets again; had it failed, the crossing would have been no different. The whole thing is unremarkable, which is exactly what good navigation looks like.

Check Your Understanding

1. What is a leg, and what four things does a soldier write on the route card for each leg? Why is choosing leg end-points that are recognisable on both map and ground so important?
2. Explain handrails, collecting features, catching features, attack points, and aiming off, and say when each one is the right technique to use. For aiming off, why is a deliberate error better than aiming straight at the objective?
3. Set out the relocation drill in order. Why is "stop, do not wander on" the first and most important step, and what is the single habit that best prevents a soldier from becoming lost at all?

Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson insists that a satellite receiver is "an aid, never a substitute", to be used to check the map and not instead of it. Think about a real RKA field task, such as crossing low, featureless ground in failing light to reach a search area, and describe how a soldier who navigated only by the screen would fare the moment the battery died, against one who had been navigating by route card, compass, pace, and time all along. What does that tell you about how to treat the device, and about how seriously to take the practical that builds this skill on the ground?

Summary

• A route is planned by breaking it into legs, each between two points recognisable on map and ground; for each leg a soldier writes on a route card the bearing, distance, time, and expected features, then navigates one leg at a time.
• Handrails (linear features followed instead of a strict bearing) speed and steady a leg; collecting features ticked off in turn confirm progress; a catching feature beyond the objective warns of an overshoot; an attack point gives a sure base for a short final approach to a small objective; aiming off puts a deliberate error to one side of a point on a line so you know which way to turn.
• Distance is judged by pacing, a personal count measured over one hundred metres, counted in double-paces, kept on beads or a cord, raised for load, climb, soft or rough ground, and fatigue, and started afresh at each confirmed position.
• Time is estimated by a speed-and-distance rule in the manner of Naismith, about twelve minutes to the kilometre plus about ten for each hundred metres of climb, with more for load, poor going, weather, and darkness and nothing ever taken off; pacing and timing check each other.
• Where there are no features to use, navigate by dead reckoning, following a measured bearing by short stretches between sighted marks while counting paces, confirming against the map the moment any feature appears, and combining it with aiming off onto a line.
• When unsure of position, follow the relocation drill: stop, work back to the last certain point, reconstruct, and confirm against map, compass, and ground by resection or by reading the slope; if truly lost, make yourself findable. Constant checking of map against ground is what prevents being lost in the first place.
• A satellite receiver is an aid that confirms position and fails when relied upon; use it to check, never to replace, the navigating. These skills are mastered on the ground and certified in person, and they carry forward into the Patrolling and Tactical Movement course, where a route is walked under tactical conditions.

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