please use meters

Matt Wilson wrote:Until England starts driving on the correct side of the road, I don't want to hear anything.

Well the US also has a territory that drives on the left. The U.S. Virgin Islands. ;-)

I like how everyone thinks the rest of the world is metric. Watch an episode of top gear on BBC.
Did they just say speed in MPH and distance in KM?
what size rims does your prius have? on what bolt circle?
The US government agencies and the auto industry have been metric for decades.
Go to canada, buy a sheet of plywood. What size is it? What kind of 2x4 are you going to hold it up with? A 2 what by 4 what?

patto wrote: Well the US also has a territory that drives on the left. The U.S. Virgin Islands. ;-)

Until they gain statehood, I don't want to hear it
:p

Brian Scoggins wrote: That is simply horrifying. Fractions are probably the most complicated mathematical concept that everyone should know.

"Yo, I want the 1/4 pound burger because it's bigger than the 1/3 pound burger."

Apparently, this was a real problem:
nytimes.com/2014/07/27/maga…

I think we should include rope length requirements too. My 120m rope doesent seem to be cutting it for some of the Euro crags. I am thinking of upgrading to 200m.

gtluke wrote:The US government agencies

As someone who works for said agencies, no we dont. We use US Standard for most stuff just like everyone else in the US. NASA maybe being the main exception. Hospitals tend to use metric though.

I'm talking about the big ones. NASA obvously, but the Army has been using metric forever right?
I"m sure their pants are still measured in inches, but when they call in airstrikes, 1 click out. 1KM.
But I thought clicks were measurements of how many clicks on your garand's sight to be on target. hmf.
maybe I'm confused.

gtluke wrote:I'm talking about the big ones. NASA obvously, but the Army has been using metric forever right? I"m sure their pants are still measured in inches, but when they call in airstrikes, 1 click out. 1KM. But I thought clicks were measurements of how many clicks on your garand's sight to be on target. hmf. maybe I'm confused.

A click comes from older guns on ships that could shoot dozens of miles. A full click of the dial (9.1-10.0) would change the point of impact of the shell by 1000 meters on the deck, with no altitude change or weather variables.

When sighting a rifle people will often use the term click as in: "4 clicks L, 2 clicks up" which is also how to call impact changes with artillery.

gtluke wrote:What kind of 2x4 are you going to hold it up with? A 2 what by 4 what?

Of course, a 2x4 is NOT a 2 what by 4 what...

We have both types in the USA, country and western...

why rednecks in pick-up trucks suck at science

Ah awesome. Cool info and I didn't have to visit wikipedia :)
I have an M1 Garand, those iron click sights are almost impossibly accurate. i couldn't believe how accurate a gun could be with iron sights. Really cool piece of history. I complain carrying my climbing pack around, I couldn't imagine having to haul that gun around, it's sooooo heavy. My back hurts shooting it while standing for just a few minutes! haha

Jake Jones wrote: Yep, it's both. The distance changes with the application of the word though. Obviously with a rifle, 4 clicks L is not going to change the strike of the round by 4,000m starboard. A click also means 1,000m when applied to distance traveled via land navigation. The metric system is much more readily applied to military largely because of land navigation and indirect fire. It's all about the target and how close you can get to it. A 4 digit grid gets you to within a click, a 6 within 100m, an 8 within 10m and so on and so forth. Try that shit with miles, yards, feet and inches and you'll see some heads pop pretty quickly.

To add on to this and clarify my original point: Indirect fire uses mils(6400 mils to a circle). 1 mil difference adds a 1m different to target location per 1000m traveled. E.g. - Firing at 1600mil 10km out, then changing to 1601mil 10km out will put the round 10 meters farther south. The values are different for each gun but the principal is the same.

Here is one odd bit of info i never understood. The USMC zeros their rifles at 30yds, then proceeds to use meters in literally every other part of using the rifle.

Jake Jones wrote: LONG POST

On the M16A4 they taught us meter stuff, at least I remember it in meters. The boot camp KD range is still measured at 200, 300, 500. However, they have since added a 100yd combat course. Plus they were really adamant on teaching us how to fire with ACOGS. In MCT is where they hammered home the meter thing, moreso on the UKD range.

Pistol qual is at 75yds too. What's with the yards?!