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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

This looks really cool. But I'm stuck on understanding the setup. I spawn at a known point defined as 32QAU04710542. I have a list of "given" points that I'm trying to reach, all beginning with 32QAU0 and then ranging from 3500715 to 5790531. And I have a map.

I assume I'm supposed to locate these points, including the known point, on the map. And I'm hoping the names of the points will help me do that. But I don't know what they mean or how to find them on the map.

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I assume the game is meant to be played with the knowledge of some supplementary course and material.

the coordinates seem to be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Grid_Reference_System

This seems to be run by TRADOC, the US Army's TRaining And DOCterine Command.

I assume that it is intended to facilitate the Army's Land Navigation (LANDNAV) training for Soldiers. MGRS is the standard format for all US Army maps.

I have no doubt, but that supplementary material isn't present here.

That might be part of the game; how resourceful are you? Can you find the information needed to play it without someone handing it to you?

That's interesting, if true.

I suspect it's because in real life, you will have just sat through a death-by-powerpoint on principles of landnav for 90 minutes of some bored E6 reading off the slides to a whole bunch of even more bored E4's and then you get to play the game to practice.

Generally the expectation is that with a map, compass, and protractor a member of the Army should be able to navigate a land nav course(the simulation is very similar to the real courses). In practice, it's much more likely that a combat arms soldier would know how to use this than someone that works in something like cyber operations.

In my time in the Infantry we spent a significant amount of time working on honing landnav skills, both theory, and practice.

*Edit* Also, there is already a manual for everything you do in the military.

> Also, there is already a manual for everything you do in the military.

They seem to be doing great work on that front. I was favorably impressed by the documentation attached to the tools in the game.

> To convert a magnetic azimuth to a grid azimuth, add G-M angle

> To convert a grid azimuth to a magnetic azimuth, subtract G-M angle

(emphasis original, but provided by underlining instead of italics)

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