fellas, i thought you would find with interest this excerpt from the following:
excerpt from " a rifleman went to war" by herbert mcbride.
"In all our work, designating targets, making corrections in range, etc., we used degrees and minutes of angle as did the artillery. I have been acquainted with this "mil" business ever since it was introduced in the U.S. army, but, up to this present year of our Lord, 1932, I must confess that i have never been able to form the slightest idea as to the "why" of it, and if there is any real and practical advantage in its use, the same has never been explained to me or in my prescience. Every rifleman in the United States and in the British possessions is familiar with the "minute", as a measure used for changes in elevation or horizontal deflection. probably some of them do not know it is just a sixtieth part of a degree or that an angle of one minute, extended to the distance of one mile, equals 18 inches, but they all do know that a change of one minute is equal to one inch for every hundred yards of range ( the mile being 1760yds and the minute equalling 18 inches at that distance is plenty close enough for all practical purposes).
And whenever we have to make up a real army, for war, we will take in men from every walk of life; but, no matter what their normal vocation, they will have a general idea of the structure of the circle and its divisions, used by astronomers, navigators, engineers and surveyors, the world over--and really understood by the nucleus of shooting men with whom we would have to start out"
excerpt from " a rifleman went to war" by herbert mcbride.
"In all our work, designating targets, making corrections in range, etc., we used degrees and minutes of angle as did the artillery. I have been acquainted with this "mil" business ever since it was introduced in the U.S. army, but, up to this present year of our Lord, 1932, I must confess that i have never been able to form the slightest idea as to the "why" of it, and if there is any real and practical advantage in its use, the same has never been explained to me or in my prescience. Every rifleman in the United States and in the British possessions is familiar with the "minute", as a measure used for changes in elevation or horizontal deflection. probably some of them do not know it is just a sixtieth part of a degree or that an angle of one minute, extended to the distance of one mile, equals 18 inches, but they all do know that a change of one minute is equal to one inch for every hundred yards of range ( the mile being 1760yds and the minute equalling 18 inches at that distance is plenty close enough for all practical purposes).
And whenever we have to make up a real army, for war, we will take in men from every walk of life; but, no matter what their normal vocation, they will have a general idea of the structure of the circle and its divisions, used by astronomers, navigators, engineers and surveyors, the world over--and really understood by the nucleus of shooting men with whom we would have to start out"
