[Proj] Scale factor for Transverse Mercator

Gerald I. Evenden geraldi.evenden at gmail.com
Wed Sep 10 12:37:26 PDT 2008


On Wednesday 10 September 2008 3:17:50 pm Clifford J Mugnier wrote:
> The State Plane Coordinate Systems were 
...
> The Scale Factor at a Point maximum of 
> 1:2,500 at the Central Meridian was considered OK for Fire Control because
> for this application, the 6° Zones were limited in longitudinal extent
> because of the convergence angle between Grid North and Geodetic North -
> soldiers don't really care that much about the difference between Grid
> Distance and Geodetic Distance ... the blast radius of a 155mm Howitzer
> shell takes care of that little "problem."

Under the same logic, I could never understand the reason for fuzzing the GPS 
signals because what difference does a few meters mean with the blast radius 
of an H-bomb?

The wonders of the military mind.

If one is laying in air burst of with 155 a little fuzz will not make much 
difference because you are probably doing a carpet barrage anyway.  But if 
you are trying to knock out just one house in a city block (like they do with 
the smart bombs) then ... .  Curious about the electronics in some of the 
newer artillery pieces.  New command and control is something else from what 
little I've seen and heard.

-- 
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due
to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
-- Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) British psychologist




More information about the Proj mailing list