Simple.
I think it's about time animations were developed to show someone pulling out a map and looking down at it. Why wouldn't you wanna be able to see if your squad leader paused for a moment, took a knee, and pulled out a map to look at it, rather than just see him crouch and suddenly stop?
This same thing applies to wrist watches...simply lift your wrist to show your watch, or a wrist mounted GPS such as a Garmin Fortrex 400 series. If you had a lower end hand held GPS system that the indigenous or rebel forces would use, they pull it out and hold it up in front of them.
Lastly, as you guessed based on the title, compasses. When you get out a compass to identify directions in real life, it takes time. Granted, the whole waiting for the compass thing to settle is nice, but it's still way too quick. Give us an animation to show pulling out a compass, it would be awesome.
I think it's about time we get away from old legacy systems such as instant map viewing in such a modern game as Arma 3 which is suppose to be a simulator.