Can someone tell me why Compass is backwards?
East is left, West is Right North is South and South is North.
If you lived in the Southern Hemisphere it would be normal.
Thank You for looking.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R3E9ZHLIQ79LWD

"Unlike a standard Army lensatic compass, where the user holds the compass in a fashion where the lid of the compass is positioned away from the user and aligned toward the desired direction, the M2 can be sighted using sights on either side. The thing to remember is with the M2 the north end of the needle indicates the degrees at which long sight is pointing at the target, where as the south end of needle is the back azimuth."

What you have is not strictly a compass; it's a transit- a surveying instrument.

I remember when I used it (it's been a while), when sighting through it, one read the compass in the mirror.

I have used a Brunton pocket transit for many years in geology. You are supposed to sight along the compass towards a bearing point using the alignment aids (preferably the mirror and large sight) and read the bearing from the north end of the needle. Thus, if you were facing east, the north end of the needle would be pointing to your left, which is labeled "E" on the compass.

Hope that makes sense.

Reverse azimuth

To see where there shooting at you

Used south of the equator

That's a load off my mind lol, makes sense. Now all I need is a 155 to try it out!
Fixing Aircraft was not that complicated.
Thank You for clearing that up.

The white end of the needle points north.

Sight the compass at something. What the white needle is pointing at is the direction you’re facing.

So, I come into my firing position and am given an azimuth of fire of 1700 mils, I level the compass and turn until the white end is on 1700, then I’m facing the direction of fire.

You can adjust them to read true north, but I just did the math. The compass was just used for general direction into a firing point, lay the guns with an aiming circle. The M2 was the backup, but nowhere as accurate as an aiming circle.

The M2 was also used by the forward observer (FO) to determine the direction of the target from their own position. This direction (in mils, of course) was used by the fire direction center (FDC) to properly orient the FO adjustments (Right, Left, Add, or Drop) with the target from his perspective.

quote:

Originally posted by KPSquared:
The compass was just used for general direction into a firing point, lay the guns with an aiming circle.

As a battery XO, after laying the battery with the aiming circle, I always stood behind each howitzer with an M2 compass and confirmed azimuth of lay before starting any fire missions. Also did this each morning before shooting.