Land Navigation

A Marine Raider participates in the land navigation portion of the annual Marine Forces Special Operations Command 2019 Marine Raider Competition on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., on June 12, 2019. The competition fostered camaraderie and tested participants’ operational capabilities consistent with special operations missions through a rigorous evolution of events and to honor […]

A soldier from the U.S. Army‘s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School checks a compass while completing a land navigation course during Special Forces Assessment and Selection near Hoffman, North Carolina on May 7, 2019. Candidates who attended the three-week assessment and selection were evaluated on their ability to work individually and as […]

For the benefit of some of the aspiring members of the Special Operations community, we’ve been going back to the basics of passing Land Navigation. This was after a recent article that stated the Army has noticed a lack of expertise at junior NCOs with a map and compass. Waiting until one gets to Selection […]

On yesterday’s post, we talked about the Army’s junior NCO’s (E-4 – E-6) are exhibiting a definitive lack of Land Navigation skills where nearly a third can’t pass a Skill Level 1 map, compass, and protractor exercise at the Ft. Benning, GA NCO Academy. We’ll go back to the Basics, much of this you’ll have […]

A recent piece in MilitaryTimes stated that many of the young sergeants in most infantry and close-combat units don’t know how to maneuver their squads or do basic land navigation. For “soft skill” MOS’ that isn’t necessarily a show stopper, but for the infantry and combat arms types, that is a very bad sign that […]

We’ve been going hard at Land Navigation for the past week or so with a refresher 101-type, of course, to get everyone on the same level playing field. We started we a basic map reading piece and moved on to the necessary basic skills every candidate should be familiar with before arriving. The key to […]

Our previous articles in the last week or so have centered upon getting back to the basics of land navigation. It is imperative that all of these skills and they are the basics of finding your way in the field, become second nature to all of the candidates who aspire to be in the Special […]

In our ongoing refresher series of articles dealing with Land Navigation, we’ll move on to another basic skill that all Special Operations candidates should know how to conduct. And they should know this before they attend one of the Selection courses for the different units. We’re starting with the basics of land navigation, a 101 […]

This week, we’ve hit on a variety of subjects in regards to the basics of Land Navigation, what we call the 101 level of topics. It is the absolute best place to start. Practice the basics and become so well versed in it until you can teach the class in them. It is always preferable […]

In helping candidates prepare for Selection, we’re going back to the basics and hitting on and revisiting all of the topics that generally give candidates the most issues. The three biggest issues that stop candidates from being selected, and are foremost on their minds (judging from the emails we get) are Physical fitness preparation, rucking […]

Yesterday we looked at getting back to the very basics of Land Navigation and some of the terms and skills that candidates in the Special Operations Selection courses will have to know. Today, we’ll take an in-depth look at a few of those skills which will help you get started in your prep for Selection. […]

This may be a bit presumptuous of me, but our dependence on technology has made us weaker militarily, in my humble opinion. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be incorporating technology where we can to make us more effective, just that if there are more primitive methods available we should not forget them. Sure, there […]