From: bill.gunshannon@gmail.com

On 4/22/2025 9:57 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
> In article ,
> bill   wrote:
>> On 4/22/2025 10:54 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>>> I learned land navigation using metric units in the US Marines,
>>> using the NATO grid system (not lat/long).
>>
>> It's called Universal Transverse Mercator and NATO had nothing
>> to do with it.
>
> Actually, I was referring to MGRS, the Military Grid Reference
> System, which is the NATO standard.  MGRS is based on UTM, but
> is more succinct, with some changes around the poles derived
> from UPS (Universal Polar Stereographic).
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Grid_Reference_System
>
>> Just a few blurbs:
>>
>> The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) system was developed by the US
>> Army Corps of Engineers starting in the early 1940s.
>>
>> Provided by AI overview.
>>
>> The Universal Transverse Mercator projection and grid system was adopted
>> by the U.S. Army in 1947 for designating rectangular coordinates on
>> large scale military maps. UTM is currently used by the United States
>> and NATO armed forces.
>
> This is incorrect; or at least, misleading.  MGRS is the NATO
> standard.
>
>> MapTools.
>>
>> Note the dates, long before NATO even existed.
>
> I didn't say that NATO invented it; I said it's the NATO grid
> system, that is, the one used by NATO.
>
>> Developed by the US Army Map Service in the late 1940s — probably 1947 —
>> and shortly thereafter adopted by US Army
>> as well as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, the
>> Universal Transverse Coordinate (UTM) projection and grid system
>> remained a classified secret for many years.
>>
>>
>> The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) geographic coordinate system
>>
>> By
>> Michael A. Neiger
>> Marquette, Michigan
>> © Copyright 2010 - 2022
>>
>> It was originally developed not by NATO but by the US Army.
>>
>> By the way, just for the sake of curiosity the reason I am rather
>> well versed in this is because my first job after high school and
>> leading up to my first enlistment  in the U.S. Army was with  the
>> above mentioned Army Map Service where I was both a Cartographic
>> Technician and a Geodetic Aide.  When I went into the Army I was
>> hell on the Land Navigation Course.  :-)
>
> Land Nav kicks everybody's ass.
>

Not mine!!  :-)

bill

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