Terry, The Oxford English Dictionary defines mil (No. 6) as 1/1600 of of a right angle, and goes on to cite O.M. Lissak, 1907, "Ordnance & Gunnery", xiii, 507. The "mil" was probably first created earlier than 1907.
I conclude that the mil was used in field artillery *before* WW-I. However, I have a brass lensatic compass stamped with the date 1918 with only a zero to 360 degree scale N to E, and a zero to 360 degree scale N to W in mirror imaged numerals (to avoid confusion with the N to E scale, I suppose). There is no mil scale, a surprise for a 1918 compass. I also have an aluminum lensatic compass which *includes* a mil scale (with suppressed zeros). e.g. "16" at 90 degrees, "32" at 180 degrees, and "64" at 0 and 360 degrees (at magnetic north). If I remember correctly, I bought both of these magnetic compasses at military surplus stores at widely separated times. I don't know the vintage of the mil compass. It is possible to aim and read the mil compass on a tripod to several tens of mils, but one must be careful to relate readings to magnetic north on terrain maps. Two artillery observers, triangulating on a target, could easily accumulate an error greater than 2%, as you suspect, and I agree. The usual compensation for error is to fire several rounds for confirmation of target location, and then many rounds for destructive effect. Gene. ....................................................... On Mon, 24 Jun 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > ... > I have been digging around trying to find a good web reference for the > date that the mil was created but I can't. There are a couple of pages > out there but for some reason I can't find them anymore. > > I was under the impression that they were created in Germany but not for > WW1. There is apparently also a Soviet version of the mil which is 6000 > in a circle. > > Since mils are still very highly regarded by NATO, WW1 shell error > cannot be the reason for the continued success. I suspect that the 2% > error 'budget' is mostly within the observer.
