On 4/6/2014 11:17 PM, Swingman wrote:
wrote:

It's not a Canadian thing, but a metric thing. In the lab when working
with milliliters, it's common to refer to them as 'mils'. A 'mil' is
commonly used but the context must be known for it to have meaning (i.e
length, volume, mass).

A 'mil' is also an angular measurement (milliradian) commonly used in the
military for adjusting rifle/sniper and artillery fire, among other things.

An artillery 'Forward Observer" bets his life in close combat on the fact
that: "1 mil of angle subtends an arc of 1 meter (+/-) at 1,000 meters."
(actually it is the chord of the arc he is attempting to correctly
calculate to get rounds on target, but close counts when the effective
burst radius of a 105mm round is 50 meters). For (American) military
purposes there are 6400 'mils' in a circle ... actually a bit less
mathematically, but close enough for horseshoes, hand grenades, and
artillery fire.



And I always thought a mil was a ton of money!