From: bill.gunshannon@gmail.com   
      
   On 4/22/2025 10:54 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   >   
   > I learned land navigation using metric units in the US Marines,   
   > using the NATO grid system (not lat/long).   
      
   It's called Universal Transverse Mercator and NATO had nothing   
   to do with it.   
      
      
   Just a few blurbs:   
      
   The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) system was developed by the US   
   Army Corps of Engineers starting in the early 1940s.   
      
   Provided by AI overview.   
      
   The Universal Transverse Mercator projection and grid system was adopted   
   by the U.S. Army in 1947 for designating rectangular coordinates on   
   large scale military maps. UTM is currently used by the United States   
   and NATO armed forces.   
      
   MapTools.   
      
   Note the dates, long before NATO even existed.   
      
      
   Developed by the US Army Map Service in the late 1940s — probably 1947 —   
   and shortly thereafter adopted by US Army   
   as well as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, the   
   Universal Transverse Coordinate (UTM) projection and grid system   
   remained a classified secret for many years.   
      
      
   The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) geographic coordinate system   
      
   By   
   Michael A. Neiger   
   Marquette, Michigan   
   © Copyright 2010 - 2022   
      
   It was originally developed not by NATO but by the US Army.   
      
   By the way, just for the sake of curiosity the reason I am rather   
   well versed in this is because my first job after high school and   
   leading up to my first enlistment  in the U.S. Army was with  the   
   above mentioned Army Map Service where I was both a Cartographic   
   Technician and a Geodetic Aide.  When I went into the Army I was   
   hell on the Land Navigation Course.  :-)   
      
   bill   
      
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