[Proj] MGRS invented by Germany?

[Melita Kennedy]

-----Original Message-----
>
>Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:31:18 -0500
>From: Charles Karney <charles.karney at sri.com>
>Subject: [Proj] MGRS invented by Germany?
>To: PROJ.4 and general Projections Discussions
>	<proj at lists.maptools.org>
>
>This paper
>
>   M. F. Buchroithner and R. Pfahlbusch,
>   "Geodetic grids in authoritative maps -- new
>   findings about the origin of the UTM grid" (2016)
>   http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2015.1128851
>
>has some interesting background on the origins of UTM and MGRS.
>
>In particular, the division of non-polar regions into 60 zones, the
>numbering of the zones, and the specific conventions adopted for MGRS
>all seem to have been borrowed by the US Army Map Service from the
>German military work in 1943-1944.
>
>Figures 3 and 8 show 2 wartime orthophotos of 1km squares in Estonia and
>Lithuania with designations (UTMREF), 35VLF6992 and 34UEG0578, which
>coincide with the present-day MGRS designations for these areas
>(respectively 59.451N 24.698E and 55.752N 21.088E).
>
>(The correspondence isn't exact because of differences in the datum and
>in the choice of the scale on the central meridian.)
>
>-- 
>Charles Karney <charles.karney at sri.com>
>SRI International, Princeton, NJ 08543-5300


That looks like a very interesting article. Thank you for posting about it. 
I've put in a request for our library to get a copy. Do they explain why "UTMREF" 
was used? I would have expected UGKREF instead.

Melita