> 63 required on the left and 64 on the right....
Has nuttin to do with ditches or road camber....
It's due to the Coreolis Force. Grid squares on the map are bigger at the bottom due to the earth's curvature, so if the track wasn't corrected, if you drove the vehicle in circles, you'd eventually be in Australia. (not that Australia is a bad place to be, but disappointing when your objective was Cincinnatti)
Ever wonder why nobody ever attacked Russia from the East? They'd wind up in Malaysia!
Whenever you drive a track vehicle East or West, the track toward the South must be longer to cover the greater length of that Parallel of Latitude. This effect stops at the Equator, which explains why no Southern Hemisphere nation has ever become a meaningful Armor power. It also explains why those strategic maps of armor movement in Europe during WWII had those big curved sweeping red arrows on them. Armor in Europe must drive North and South a lot cause Europe is so skinny, and this causes one track to cover more distance than the other, resulting in big sweeping curves. The half track was invented to counter this effect.
BTW, the Coreolis force is what causes the water in your terlet to swirl as it goes down the drain. If not for this swirling, septic tanks would be square, and the corners would always be clogged. Ain't nature wonderful?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 06 2002 - 22:26:52 PST