I have just been putting a bit of a guide together to explain the map in ArmA 2 I think it have all that is needed. The reason I think is that people have a hard time reading a map and therefore it wont help to throw them feet first into a navigational scenario. If you see anything that I have forgotten feel free to ad it.

Your ingame map is textured which makes life easier since you can easily tell where fields are and general navigation is made easier. To help you further there are a number of symbols placed on the map. There are also 2 different colours that have been painted on the map these are green that represents forest and grey that represents rocks. Buildings are represented with grey squares and Stone fences with long grey squares. The two are not that hard to distinguish so I will not go further in-depth. Individual trees and bushes are marked on your map with green circles. There are the following markers on your map:



Comms towers are the towers that have the dome at the top.
Trig Point is not something that is useful for navigation in game since they have not been put in the game (at least I haven't been able to find them).
By water source it means anything from a well to a fountain.
The rest should be self explanatory.

There are also a text on the map the below explains what the different text indicates. On the right you have what it looks like on the map and to the left what it is.



Depending on the zoom level you have on your map you will see different elevation lines. When zoomed all the way in each line represent 1 meter in elevation every fifth is thicker then the others. The next set of lines are 2 meters, then 5 meters, then 10 meters and then 20 meter. In all of these levels every fifth line is thicker then the others. When zoomed way out you have height given in 50 meter or 100 meter increments with no thick lines. If you see a dot on the map with some numbers behind it you have a hilltop. Then numbers indicate the height of the hill. This together with the elevation lines can be used to figure out where you will have a superior position on the enemy. It is a good idea to keep this in mind when planning an attack since it is going to be annoying as hell attacking uphill if you thought you were attacking downhill (have seen this happen).


I am also trying to get a TGU class going that will do exactly this. Where I will try and tell people what to focus on when needing to find their bearings, how to get to a certain point and some other stuff the format isn't really finished yet.