Hi all,

Was wondering if somebody (probably anyone from RAA) that has seen the Long Tan movie Danger Close could give some info about the counter battery fire at the start of the film

SGT Buick takes a compass bearing of an incoming mortar round and then gives it to PHQ for them to resection. My main question was how he got the bearing in the first place; he seemed to just hope he was underneath the trajectory of the mortar round and gone off that which off the cuff I would have thought was unreliable

Any further info somebody could provide? Most of what I have tried to find out on the wider internet mainly mentions using sound and radar direction finding or the flash-bang method but nothing about just using a compass for incoming indirect fire

Trying to take a bearing off sound is pretty sketchy, but if you get enough reports, it should start making a bit of sense. The firing point was only a couple of Km away and they were getting compass readings from the flashes too. A Coy were on a TAOR patrol towards the area, they would have taken bearings, C Coy had a platoon on a night ambush towards Long Tan as well, more bearings.

Bob taking a bearing by himself isn't how the counter battery fire was kicked off. There was a lot more data coming in than that.

A bearing as I understand it is a 90deg quadrant of the compass in reference to magnetic(?) north qualified by the cardinal directions, for example, "South 22deg West". It means in general terms that you're confident where north is and, your nav in general, and have reasonable fix on target. An azimuth on the other hand in "where in relation to north" ie azimuth 90 is to our right, should north be ahead of me and the almighty. I could be wrong.