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Soldiers and Marines alike preferred commercial global positioning systems to the military’s precision lightweight GPS receiver.

The military's lightweight PLGR GPS is 4 times the size of my personal GPS I bought with my own money. My GPS uses only 2AA batteries, gets a lock on sattelites much faster, will float if dropped in water, only cost $99, and is super easy to use. The PLGR uses a round lithium battery that doesn't fit in anything else (the MELIOS laser range finder uses a square lithium battery), is expensive, and the supply sergeant never had enough to go around. The PLGR is not user friendly, it's heavy and bulky, and takes longer to get a lock. There is a AA battery adapter but it takes 8AA batteries if I remember correctly. The same thing goes for radios. While on dismounted patrol we would usually only get a 1.5 kilometer range with the SINCGARS manpack (35 lbs. approx) with it's egg carton size lithium batter. When we started buying Motorola talkabouts with our own money we usually got a range of about 4 kilometers in a radio that weighs around a pound and takes 4AA batteries. It's so stinking stupid that the Japanese can put a TV on a wrist watch but the US military is using a 35lb radio that can't even reach out and touch someone.

My last ship I had PLGRs and commercial units for use in our ship's boats. I agree with everything you said about them, especially the headache of the special lithium batteries. I hated the PLGRs.

I figured out everything I needed to know to use the commercial sets in 15 minutes with no manual just by playing with them. No way you could that with a PLGR.

The military's lightweight PLGR GPS is 4 times the size of my personal GPS I bought with my own money.

Have you tested your GPS against EMP? :-) A decent air burst about 20 miles up would turn that and most civilian electronic devices into paper weights.