I know we have some good landnav guys here so I'm interested to hear what you think.

The iconic US military lensatic compass is made by Cammenga. I was visiting their site and found that they are offering a baseplate compass. It looks like they have transplanted the core of the lensatic model onto a plastic baseplate.

I like the selection of grid corners they've printed on the baseplate.



However a couple things seem problematic:

1) they retained the mils, and the degree markings are closer to the axis of the compass card than the mils, so you lose a fair amount of resolution if you want to read degrees instead of mils.

2) I don't see any type of meridian lines or a clear base to the capsule, so you lose one of the great features of any baseplate compass: easy use as a protractor. I know you can orient the map & compass to north then (somewhat) guesstimate the azimuth but still...

The pics aren't that great but as far as I can see, they made a hybrid model with no great improvement. You lose the fine sighting function of the lensatic in exchange for a baseplate model that doesn't offer the best feature of a baseplate compass. Am I missing something?

Wow! Another baseplate compass - as if we didn't have an adequate selection already. I agree with your comments about protractoruse, but for me, at least, it is fairly irrelevant, since I live in fairly "bumpy" and terrain orient my map using landscape features almost always. On land, I compass orient about every other decade.

Well, one of the chief benefits of a baseplate compass is that it eliminates the need to tote a separate protractor. But that function (essentially) requires a clear capsule with meridian lines to align with the map's north lines (of whichever flavor you prefer). So I just don't see the point of this new Cammenga unit.

Here's something else I noticed on the Cammenga site. If you look at the ordering options for the USGI lensatic compass, you have to select Northern or Southern hemisphere. I thought the USGI compass was specifically designed to be usable globally without concern with local magnetic inclination.

IIRC correctly, and I should, as I have the GI issue compass here at my desk, it is usable anywhere. The compass can be set to magnetic north by rotating the bezel the required number of degrees.

I have used mine mainly north of the equator, but the time or three I went south, it seemed to work fine.

You had me going for a minute there - I almost thought I found the holy grail of compasses.

I really love the liquid-free (and therefore bubble-free) inductively damped design of the mil-spec lensatic. The downside is the weigth and size of the bulletproof cast aluminum housing.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It's not a lensatic compass any more but it's still not a baseplate compass. It's a pocket compass with a straightedge on it.

I might consider buying one some day as a lighter weight alternative to my trusty lensatic.

Not Really. The US military has never been known for precision navigation, that's why GPS was invented!

I prefer this Compass;

http://www.recta.ch/en/ds-50g

Baseplate compasses are designed for speed and ease of use with grid co-ordinate map navigation, so the new Cammenga compass is not exactly an orienteering compass.

This Cammenga baseplate compass is a essentially a military compass hence the preference of the use of Mils rather than the poorer +-5 degrees scale. Even the Cammenga M-1950 sighting compass won't be any more accurate in use for navigation than the Recta DS-50G with its adjustable declination correction scale. i.e. it will improve accuracy and speed of navigation as you don't have to mentally add/subtract the magnetic declination angle to the measured azimuth/bearing assuming that the M-1950 users know of such things!

The Cammenga M-1950 will be tougher and can be used in tougher environments, but you probably wouldn't want to walking around in such weather though.

I take issue with that comment! Of all of the foreign military units I have worked with (including the best of the UK), there are few who teach land navigation the way the US military did. I have been retired for a while so I do not know how much of the training is done now, but special operations units still teach map and compass before using a GPS. In my experience, only the top special operations units were teaching that type of navigation at the lowest levels. Except the armed forces of Canada, New Zealand and Australia who all used to teach map and compass very rigorously down the the lowest squaddie.

I am just poking at you, I too know that most military units do not teach it extensively or well, in my opinion.

I do agree with the comment about not being able to use it on the map very well. It looks like they are trying to do too many things with it, and none of them very well. I generally carried a Silva Ranger while I was in the Army. The lensatic is bulky, heavier and slow. It is however durable and the mils are important, or at least used to be, when calling for fire. I don't know why they would include that on this compass. Maybe they had too many of those old parts left and are trying not to lose money.

LOL me too man. I like the ruggedness of the inductively damped USGI compass, and I understand declination well enough to get along without a mechanical adjustment for it. But like you so perfectly said:



Yup. I was so disappointed when I figured that out.



Same here, I use the Suunto M3G and MC2G. IIRC, Suunto makes the Recta. IMO you can't beat that global needle. The Recta is even better since it has the grid corners I use the most printed right on the baseplate. On my Suuntos I put a narrow strip of white vinyl electrical tape on the baseplate edges and marked it at 1:25,000 with an ultrafine Sharpie to make a grid corner tool. It's a little ghetto but I just can't bring myself to buy the Rectas just to get the convenience of the corner tools.

this is another new model from cammenga.

http://dealnews.com/Cammenga-Military-Lensatic-Compass-for-2-4-s-h/664104.html

You need to go easy on him, Montanero. Keep in mind that the Brits still haven't quite gotten over Yorktown.

I spent 20 years in the military and learned advance land navigation in phase one of special forces school. I used the miltary lensatic compass a lot and never got a real love for it, like some have.

Most of us in SF would buy a good compass like the genuine Silva Ranger, or when the Silvas were no longer true Silvas, we went to Suunto compasses.

The military lensatic compass is NOT world-wide, there is a spacial model for different areas of the world. You can get that from the fine print at Cammenaga.

The global needle Sunnto compasses are the best out there today.

While the military lensatic compass has tritium in it for night navigation, that has become something of a liability when operating against an enemy equipped with night vision devices. The light from the lensatic compass can be seen from a fair distance by someone with good NVG equipment.

I for the life of me, do not understand the facination with the US military compass, it's too heavy, too hard to read for someone sight challenged and they tend to lose their ability to point to magnetic north over the years. Oh, and they cost too much.

There is a lot of fascination with things military, even when there are far better options available at lower cost.

I am amazed that the US 9mm pistol is not more popular.

I think part of is that people think military gear is made better. What it really is made to do is be usable by semi-trained teenagers and hard for the semi-trained teenagers to break.

I think the M9 Berreta lost it's initial appeal after they had problems with the slide coming off the pistol when being fired. The civilian version is the 92SF. The other thing is that 9mm is not all that highly regarded, particularly in a large frame pistol.

All of what you said is very, very true. Besides the P-38 can opener, I can't think of a single piece of military gear that I actually still use. I guess I still use the miltary belt, the webbing one with the open face buckle. Most services have replaced that with some tacticool wide belt, a poor man's riggers belt.

Over the years, I have used a lot of mil surp, especially back in the starving student days. Nowadays, I use it much less, but I still pack my 1951 Mountain cook set occasionally;most days I don't need its large capacity. I would still employ a P38, but who needs a can opener all that often?

Mil surp is abundant, generally strong, and often relatively cheap. Some of it is very good indeed. I was grateful for Hueys on many a SAR operation - they and their pilots saved quite a few lives. I always had a high regard for the M1 Garand, and even the M1 carbine, and the 30-06 cartridge is a versatile, timeless classic. M16s and their ammo seem to be in demand these days. What would we do without GPS (kind of surplus, in a way).

Never did care for the military type mops and brooms, though. Haven't seen any of them lately...

You've got to still be using 7-strand paracord, aren't you?

Yes, I do use the 7-strand paracord, it is commercial copy though:)

Hijack Warning - several of my buttons got mashed



Heh - gotta pile on to this: DEAD WRONG - at least back in the stone age. And modern SF. Me: Officer 23 years active duty; long retired. Youngest son: Enlisted SF (now medicaled out). Middle son: Enlisted USAR Combat Engineer, and they did not go past basic (good) land navigation up to this point in his service. I don't miss my objectives and "close" in an unsupported night attack is not close enough. 'nuff said.

I (still) use a Silva Ranger; always have. In IOBC, I spent one day with the lensatic and dashed off to Ranger Joe's for the first of what (so far) has been 3 of those over the decades. My sole issue with those has been a bubble sometimes appearing (why I've gone thru 2 so far).

Radium paint on, not tritium in the lensatic, IIRC. Same as an analog watch used to be (photoluminescent mostly nowadays on watches). ETA - the lensatics may be photoluminescent also - IDK. But not tritium.

Meh, seriously, don't anyone take this harshly, as it's not intended to be, but I surely do not agree with blanket bashing milsurp gear or the soldiers who use it. It depends. (BTW, scouts are even harder on gear than soldiers, believe it or not). Discerning users with hands-on experience can really pluck gems out of a lot of milsurp gear. Some of it is quite superior to anything equivalent off the shelf commercially. Some of it is terrible for even its intended purpose (Large ALICE ruck comes to mind <shudder>). I speak from real world usage of all sorts of gear (I have too much...), including really good commercial stuff from underwear to internal and external frame packs.

I cannot recall a time that I used(use) purely milsurp or purely commercial - even on active duty.

Whew! Got that off my chest!

I like the Cammenga M3.It IS bulky and heavy. It's pretty rugged though, as far as compasses go.

I also like the "military sleep system." It's bulky and heavy as well. It is affordable, modular, well manufactured and effective, however- despite being a pain to lug around.

I agree with many of the comments posted about this new compass.

I don't particularly care for the $79 price tag either.

Land Nav. isn't hard but a compass with out the clear rotating housing is just making it more difficult than necessary.

Blake

www.outdoorquest.blogspot.com

P38, paracord, the canteen cup and the woobie.

Four things I still use.