The scary, practical reason the navy is once again teaching celestial navigation

[Onkel Neal]

The scary, practical reason the navy is once again teaching celestial navigation (http://www.sciencealert.com/the-scary-practical-reason-the-navy-is-once-again-teaching-celestial-navigation)

As GPS technology steadily becomes better and better, so does our reliance on it. Need to go to the store? Google Maps. Need to go on a road trip to a distant city? Boot up the Garmin. You can even pinpoint why your Uber driver is taking so long to pick you up. At this point, if GPS suddenly vanished, we’d all be a bit confused and upset.

However, the stakes are significantly higher when your job requires you to fly a fighter jet or steer an aircraft carrier, which is why the US Naval Academy has decided to start once again teaching sailors how to navigate with the stars.

http://www.sciencealert.com/images/articles/processed/celestial-navigation_1024.jpg

[Aktungbby]

They must be catching up with the Maritime Academy just down the road at Vallejo. Two of the cadets living aboard a 30' Hunter in my dock mentioned they were learning that. My captain has two sextants and says he knows how...meanwhile we just use our tablet's GPS or a worthy chartbook. :arrgh!: Fortunately today is sunny and in the 70's so I'll probably use 'solar navigation' ie "let's see it's high noon and the sun is to my left so I must be headed west":doh:

[moose1am]

If a full scale all out war was to start someday the first target may be command and control operations. That only makes sense IF war were to break out. Let's hope it never does.

But the Chinese have anti satellite rocket/missiles designed to destroy our GPS Satellites. Without those GPS Satellites our GPS navigation system is not going to work.

I heard on the news last night that the Navy's GPS signals may have been Jammed by Iran which caused those sailors to be lost and end up captured by the Iranians. I'm not sure that can be done but if you know the frequency of the signal it might be possible to jam the receiving equipment maybe.

Why do you allow Iran to control those islands in the first place. I'm talking about the islands in the Northern Part of the Persian Gulf.

[mapuc]

Up to the end of the 90s
A cadet In the Swedish navy, had to learned it the old way and he or she is not graduated before they can their stuff and first then they moved up to learn about modern navigation.




Markus

[XabbaRus]

It's not hard to jam a GPS signal. You can easily make a simple one with stuff from a local electronics store. The signals are quite weak.

[ikalugin]

Depends on the receiver type. Military receivers require either multiple jammers or an extremely powerful one to achieve effects at reasonable range.

[XabbaRus]

Yea I was meaning one that could screw up things like phones etc. The principle is quite simple. Definitely with in the means of the Iranians if they wanted to spoof a GPS.

[ikalugin]

Civilian GPS - yes. Military - no. Military grade receivers use a phazed array receiver and other such measures, meaning that you need 7-14 20kw jammers or 1 3Mw jammer to get effects at good ranges (ie over 100km).

[Onkel Neal]

If a full scale all out war was to start someday the first target may be command and control operations. That only makes sense IF war were to break out. Let's hope it never does.

But the Chinese have anti satellite rocket/missiles designed to destroy our GPS Satellites. Without those GPS Satellites our GPS navigation system is not going to work.



That's exactly right, moose. Under war conditions, it would be pretty dangerous to rely solely on GPS.

[Aktungbby]

:sign_yeah:^Except when steering for the sound of the guns!:D