Talk:Relative bearing

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I started to put some material on the 360 degree face under clock positions but some critics could not make the leap between clock positions and degrees. As I was looking at the material I perceived that when you talk relative bearing you are mainly talking degrees. So, it seems to me now the material that discusses bearing in degrees belongs here and under absolute bearing. I will get to this topic but for now here are some degree statements excised from clock position.

In terrestrial location finding, as practiced by the military, the clock points can be relative to an absolute, or "true," bearing of a landmark shown on the map. A true bearing is a meridian. It can be used as 000, being either in a north or a south direction, of a relative bearing detected on a compass. The true bearing at 000 plus the relative bearing is termed an azimuth. It can be in either degrees on the 360-degree dial, or hours, with 12:00 along the meridian. Botteville (talk) 02:56, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

The United States Navy requires lookout reports, which are made to the Officer of the Day, the daily commander of the ship's operation, to be relative bearings. Most loosely they are verbal descriptions. They may be dead ahead or dead astern (000 or 180), port beam or starboard beam (270 or 090), port bow or starboard bow (270-000 or 000-090), port quarter or starboard quarter (180-270 or 90-180). More typically the three-digit angle is required. The swiftness of an air combat left little time for precise calculations. Aircraft observers on a ship required and require more precision to target threats effectively. The lookout resorts to a second clock face, this one vertical, passing through both the observer and the target. 000 is the intersection of the face and the surface, while the hand marks off the degrees in a clockwise direction. The lookout reports the horizontal bearing followed by the position angle, the clock position of the line of sight to the target. Aircraft are so fast-moving that the second clock position is usually given in one or two digits. As a rough guide, the lookout inserts portions of his hand covering the observed space between the surface and the target, numbers of degrees being assigned to each part of the hand.

In the most modern time, electronic equipment can locate the target in a fraction of a second without these measures from an earlier day. However, the requirement that a vessel possess such equipment, and that it is in working order and is turned on, is more difficult to meet.