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From: chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Definition of a mil
Message-ID: <1991Apr29.050918.4011@amd.com>
Date: 24 Apr 91 12:48:52 GMT
References: <1991Apr22.072111.25750@amd.com> <1991Apr24.054558.18824@amd.com>
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Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
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From: Irving Chidsey <chidsey@smoke.brl.mil>


emery@aries.mitre.org (David Emery) writes:
<In general, angles in artillery are measured in "mils".  A "mil" is
<the angle subtended by 1 meter at 1000 meters.  (There are about 17
<mils per degree, and 6400 mils in a circle).  

	NEVER!  A mil is NOT the angle subtended by 1 meter at 1000 meters.
It is, by definition, 1/6400th of a circle; that makes it very close to the
angle subtended by 1 meter at 1000 meters.  The army does not yet have
sufficient statutary authority to change the value of pi.

-- 
I do not have signature authority.  I am not authorized to sign anything.
I am not authorized to commit the BRL, the DA, the DOD, or the US Government
to anything, not even by implication.  They do not tell me what their policy 
is.  They may not have one.		Irving L. Chidsey  <chidsey@brl.mil>