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From: vvirrankoski@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Definition of a mil
Message-ID: <1991Apr30.044817.5067@amd.com>
Date: 29 Apr 91 15:33:48 GMT
References: <1991Apr22.072111.25750@amd.com> <1991Apr24.054558.18824@amd.com> <1991Apr29.050918.4011@amd.com>
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From: vvirrankoski@cc.helsinki.fi


chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey) writes:
> 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.

In fact, both of You are right. As definition, mil is the angle subtended
by 1 meter at 1000 meters. That would mean that in the circle there would
be about 6283 mils (and 1 mil is about 3.6').
But in practical reasons it has been defined that circle is more round 
number, that differs in different countries and history.
The most usual is circle = 6400 mils but in the Finnish Armed Forces
and in the cross-country track finding they use circle = 6000 mils 
and in the Swedish Army circle is 6300 mils.
I'm not sure about the last fact, becouse my information is quite old.