Milliradians: Mil-Relation Formula
‘At 1000 metres, 1 mil is 1 metre.’
This relationship is the key to acquiring ranges quickly and accurately. Just like you know now how many milliradians are in different shapes of your hand, you can remember the real size of different objects, then use milliradians to get ranges from them.
Let’s go through that step by step.
Remember our finger (known size) appeared bigger (milliradians) the closer we held it to our eye, but always the same moved side to side. Therefore:
One metre (known size) will always appear as 1 milliradian at a distance of 1000 metres.
That same metre will appear as 2 milliradians at a distance of 500 metres. Then again 4 mrad at 250, 5 mrad at 200, 10 mrad at 100 metres. Note how the distance halves for every factor of 2 mrad. What would be the distance to that 1-metre object when measured 8 mrad?
So if you can remember different ‘metre sticks’ common to targets and terrain you encounter, you have a veritable arsenal of rangefinders using just your eyes and quick maths.
The specific formula is:
(object size in metres) * 1000 / mrad = (range in metres)
With this knowledge, you are also not limited to using objects that are exactly 1 metre. You can plug in any number for the (object size); 1 metre just makes it easier since you can divide 1000 by the number of mils you measured straight away, because 1 * 1000 is always 1000.
As a note, 1000 is a conversion factor. You could plug in the object size in millimetres without it and get the same effect.
Therefore, it will serve you well to remember or collect a list of objects that are easy whole numbers either tall or wide. A standing person measures about one metre head to crotch, likewise head to toe when kneeling. You can approximate doors as 2 metres, which is a similarly nice round number for the formula.
A collection of common objects and their dimensions:
| Person, standing | 1.8 m | Image tbd |
| Person, head to crotch | 1 m | Image tbd |
| Person, crouching | 1 m | Image tbd |
| BTR-80, height | 2 m (2.5 m with turret) | Image tbd |
| BTR-80, length | 7.7 m | |
| BMP-2, height | 2 m (2.5 m with turret) | Image tbd |
| BMP-2, length | 6.3 m | |
| T-72, height | 2.2 m | Image tbd |
| T-72, length | 7 m (9.5 m with barrel) | Image tbd |
| Mi-8, height | 5 m | Image tbd |
| Mi-8, length | 18 m | Image tbd |
| Altis warehouse, wall | 5 m | Image tbd |
| Altis warehouse, window | 1 m | https://i.imgur.com/4cRv13M.png |
| Average door | 2.1 m (~2 m) | Image tbd |
| Cobblestone wall, pillar | 2 m | https://i.imgur.com/wRsYjzd.png |
| H-barrier, big | 2 m | Image tbd |
| H-barrier, small | 1.4 m | Image tbd |
| Sandbags | 1 m | Image tbd |
| Bunker tower | 5 m | Image tbd |
| Cargo watchtower, height | 6 m | |
| Cargo tower, height | 20 m | Image tbd |
| Cargo HQ, height | 6 m | Image tbd |
