military communication

military communication

Introduction

      the transmission of information from reconnaissance and other units in contact with the enemy and the means for exercising command by the transmission of orders and instructions of commanders to their subordinates. As such, it comprises all means of transmitting messages, orders, and reports, both in the field and at sea and between headquarters and distant installations or ships. Military communication has thus long played an important role in warfare.

Early development
      Messengers have been employed in war since ancient times and still constitute a valuable means of communication. Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar each developed an elaborate system of relays by which messages were carried from one messenger post to another by mounted messengers traveling at top speed. They were thus able to maintain contact with their homelands during their far-flung campaigns and to transmit messages with surprising speed. Genghis Khan at the close of the 12th century not only emulated his military predecessors by establishing an extensive system of messenger posts from Europe to his Mongol capital but also utilized homing pigeons as messengers. As he advanced upon his conquests he established pigeon relay posts across Asia and much of eastern Europe. He was thus able to use these messengers to transmit instructions to his capital for the governing of his distant dominions. Before the end of the 18th century European armies used the visual telegraph system devised by Claude Chappe, employing semaphore towers or poles with movable arms. The Prussian army in 1833 assigned such visual telegraph duties to engineer troops.

      At the same time that these elementary methods of signal communication were being evolved on land, a comparable development was going on at sea. Early signaling between naval vessels was by prearranged messages transmitted by flags (flag), lights, or the movement of a sail. Codes were developed in the 16th century that were based upon the number and position of signal flags or lights or on the number of cannon shots. In the 17th century the British admiral Sir William Penn and others developed regular codes for naval communication; and toward the close of the 18th century, Admiral Richard Kempenfelt developed a plan of flag signaling similar to that now in use. Later Sir Home Popham increased the effectiveness of ship-to-ship communication by improved methods of flag signaling.

The advent of electrical signaling
      Despite the early pioneering efforts on land and sea the real development of signal communication in war did not come until after invention of the electric telegraph by Samuel F.B. Morse. In his successful demonstration of electric communication between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore in 1844, he provided a completely new means of rapid signal communication. The development of the Morse Code of dots and dashes used with key and sounder was soon used to augment the various means of visual signaling. Vice Admiral Philip Colomb's flash signaling, adopted in the British navy in 1867, was an adaptation of the Morse code to lights. The first application of the telegraph in time of war was made by the British in the Crimean War in 1854, but its capabilities were not well understood, and it was not widely used. Three years later, in the Indian Mutiny, the newly established telegraph, which was controlled by the British, was a deciding factor.

      In the American Civil War (1861–65), wide use was made of the electric telegraph. In addition to its employment in spanning long distances under the civilian-manned military telegraph organization, mobile field service was provided in the Union army by wagon trains equipped with insulated wire and lightweight poles for the rapid laying of telegraph lines. Immediately before and during the Civil War visual signaling also received added impetus through development of a system, applying the Morse code of dots and dashes, that spelled out messages with flags by day and lights or torches by night. Another development for light signaling placed a movable shutter, controlled by a key, in front of a strong light. An operator, opening and closing the shutter, could produce short and long flashes to spell out messages in Morse code.

      Simultaneously, the Prussian and French armies also organized mobile telegraph trains. During the short, decisive Prussian campaign against Austria in 1866, field telegraph enabled Count Helmuth von Moltke (Moltke, Helmuth von), the Prussian commander, to exercise command over his distant armies. Soon afterward the British organized their first field telegraph trains in the Royal Engineers.

      Another instrument was added to the techniques for visual signaling through the development of the heliograph. It employed two adjustable mirrors so arranged that a beam of light from the sun could be reflected in any direction. The beam was interrupted by a key-operated shutter that permitted the formation of the dots and dashes of the Morse code. Where climatic conditions were favourable this instrument found much use, notably by the British army in India and the U.S. Army in the American Southwest. Because consistency and regularity of sunshine were important, the heliograph was never widely adopted throughout the armies of continental Europe.

      The invention of the telephone in 1876 was not followed immediately by its adoption and adaptation for military use. This was probably due to the fact that the compelling stimulation of war was not present and to the fact that the development of long-distance telephone communication was not achieved for many years. The telephone was used by the U.S. Army in the Spanish-American War, by the British in the South African (Boer) War, and by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War. This military use was not extensive, and it made little material contribution to the development of voice telephony. Before the outbreak of World War I, military adaptation of the telephone did take place, but its period of growth had not yet arrived.

      Near the close of the 19th century, a new means of military signal communication made its appearance—the wireless telegraph, or radio. The major powers throughout the world were quick to see the wonderful possibilities for military and naval signaling. Development was rapid and continuous, and, by 1914, it was adopted and in extensive use by all the armies and navies of the world. It soon became apparent that wireless telegraphy was not an unmixed blessing to armies and navies, because it lacked secrecy and messages could be heard by the enemy as well as by friendly forces. This led to the development of extensive and complicated codes (code) and ciphers as necessary adjuncts to military signaling. The struggle between the cryptographer and the cryptanalyst expanded greatly with the adoption of radio and continued to be a major factor affecting its military use.

From World War I to 1940
      The onset of World War I found the opposing armies equipped to a varying degree with modern means of signal communication but with little appreciation of the enormous load that signal systems must carry to maintain control of the huge forces that were set in motion. The organization and efficiency of the armies varied greatly. At one end of the scale was Great Britain, with a small but highly developed signal service; and at the other end stood Russia, with a signal service inferior to that of the Union Army at the close of the American Civil War. The fact that commanders could not control, coordinate, and direct huge modern armies without efficient signal communication quickly became apparent to both the Allies and the Central Powers. The Germans, despite years of concentration on the Schlieffen Plan, failed to provide adequately for communication between higher headquarters and the rapidly marching armies of the right wing driving through Belgium and northern France. This resulted in a lack of coordination between these armies, which caused a miscarriage of the plan, a forced halt in the German advance, and the subsequent withdrawal north of the Marne. On the Allied side, the debacle of the Russian forces in East Prussia—a crushing defeat at the hands of General Paul von Hindenburg in the Battle of Tannenberg (Tannenberg, Battle of)—was largely due to an almost total lack of signal communication.

      As the war progressed there was a growing appreciation of the need for improved electrical communications of much greater capacity for the larger units and of the need within regiments for electrical communications, which had heretofore been regarded as unessential and impractical. Field telephones (telephone) and switchboards were soon developed, and those already in existence were improved. An intricate system of telephone lines involving thousands of miles of wire soon appeared on each side. Pole lines with many crossarms and circuits came into being in the rear of the opposing armies, and buried cables and wires were laid in the elaborate trench systems leading to the forwardmost outposts. The main arteries running from the rear to the forward trenches were crossed by lateral cable routes roughly parallel to the front.

      Thus, there grew an immense gridwork of deep buried cables, particularly on the German side and in the British sectors of the Allied side, with underground junction boxes and test points every few hundred yards. The French used deep buried cable to some extent but generally preferred to string their telephone lines on wooden supports set against the walls of deep open trenches. Thus electrical communication in the form of the telephone and telegraph gradually extended to the smaller units until front-line platoons were frequently kept in touch with their company headquarters through these mediums.

      Despite efforts to protect the wire lines, they were frequently cut at critical times as the result of the intense artillery fire. This led all the belligerents to develop and use radio (wireless) as an alternate means of communication. Prewar radio sets were too heavy and bulky to be taken into the trenches, and they also required large and highly visible aerials. Radio engineers of the belligerent nations soon developed smaller and more portable sets powered by storage batteries and using low, inconspicuous aerials. Although radio equipment came to be issued to the headquarters of all units, including battalions, the ease of enemy interception, the requirements for cryptographing or encoding messages, and the inherent unreliability of these early systems caused them to be regarded as strictly auxiliary to the wire system and reserved for emergency use when the wire lines were cut. Visual signaling returned to the battlefield in World War I with the use of electric signal lamps. Pyrotechnics, rockets, Very pistols, and flares had a wide use for transmitting prearranged signals. Messenger service came to be highly developed, and motorcycle, bicycle, and automobile messenger service was employed. Homing pigeons were used extensively as one-way messengers from front to rear and acquitted themselves extremely well. Dogs (dog) were also used as messengers and, in the German army, reached a high degree of efficiency.

      A new element in warfare, the airplane (military aircraft), introduced in World War I, immediately posed a problem in communication. During most of the war, communication between ground and air was difficult and elementary. To make his reports the pilot had to land or drop messages, and he received instructions while in the air from strips of white and black cloth called “panels” laid out in an open field according to prearranged designs. Extensive efforts were made to use radiotelegraph and radiotelephone between the airplanes and ground headquarters. The closing stages of the war saw many planes equipped with radio, but the service was never satisfactory or reliable and had little influence on military operations.

      During World War I, wireless telegraph communication was employed extensively by the navies of the world and had a major influence on the character of naval warfare. High-powered shore and ship stations made wireless communication over long distances possible.

      One of the war lessons learned by most of the major nations was the compelling need for scientific research and development of equipment and techniques for military purposes. Although the amount of funds devoted to military development during the period from World War I to World War II was relatively small, the modest expenditures served to establish a bond between industry, science, and the armed forces of the major nations.

      Of great importance in postwar radio communication was the pioneering by amateurs and by industry and science in the use of very high frequencies (VHF). These developments opened up to the armed services the possibilities of portable short-range equipment for mobile and portable tactical use by armies, navies, and air forces. Military work in these fields was carried out actively in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. As early as 1938 Germany had completed the design and manufacture of a complete line of portable and mobile radio equipment for its army and air force.

      Between World Wars I and II the printing telegraph, commonly known as the teleprinter or teletypewriter machine, came into civilian use and was incorporated in military wire-communication systems, but military networks were not extensive. Before World War II, military radioteleprinter circuits were nonexistent.

      Another major communication advance that had its origin and early growth during the period between World Wars I and II was frequency-modulated (FM (frequency modulation)) radio. Developed during the late 1920s and early 1930s by Edwin H. Armstrong, an inventor and a major in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War I, this new method of modulation offered heretofore unattainable reduction of the effect of ignition and other noises encountered in radios used in vehicles. It was first adapted for military use by the U.S. Army, which, prior to World War II, had under development tank, vehicular, and man-pack frequency-modulated radio transmitters and receivers.

      On the eve of World War II, all nations employed generally similar methods for military signaling. The messenger systems included foot, mounted, motorcycle, automobile, airplane, homing pigeon, and the messenger dog. Visual agencies included flags, lights, panels for signaling airplanes, and pyrotechnics. The electrical agencies embraced wire systems providing telephone and telegraph service, including the printing telegraph. Both radiotelephony and radiotelegraphy were in wide use, but radiotelephony had not as yet proved reliable and satisfactory for tactical military communication. The navies of the world entered World War II with highly developed radio communication systems, both telegraph and telephone, and with development under way of many electronic navigational aids. Blinker-light signaling was still used. The use of telephone systems and loud-speaking voice amplifiers on naval vessels had also come into common use. Air forces employed wire and radio communication to link up their bases and landing fields and had developed airborne long-range, medium-range, and short-range radio equipment for air-to-ground and air-to-air communication.

World War II and after
      In communications electronics, World War II was in one sense similar to World War I: the most extravagant prewar estimates of military requirements soon proved to represent only a fraction of the actual demand. The need for all kinds of communication equipment and for improved quality and quantity of communications pyramided beyond the immediate capabilities of industry. An increase in manufacturing plant became vital, and research and development in the communications–electronics field was unprecedented. The early German blitzkrieg, with tank and armoured formations, placed a new order of importance on reliable radio communication.

      The development of the air, infantry, artillery, and armoured team created new requirements for split-second communication by radio among all members. Portable radio sets were provided as far down in the military echelons as the platoon. In every tank there was at least one radio and in some command tanks as many as three. Multiconductor cables were provided wire communications; they could be reeled out rapidly and as many as four conversations could take place on them simultaneously through the use of carrier telephony. The Germans were the first to use this type of military long-range cable, and their example was followed promptly by both the British and the U.S. forces. High-powered mobile radio sets became common at division and regimental level. With these sets telegraph communication could be conducted at distances of more than 100 miles (160 kilometres) with vehicles in normal motion on the road. Major telephone switchboards of much greater capacity were needed. These were developed, manufactured, and issued for use at all tactical headquarters to satisfy the need for the greatly increased number of telephone channels required to coordinate the movements of field units whose mobility had been expanded many times.

      Radio relay, born of the necessity for mobility, became the outstanding communication development of World War II. Sets employing frequency modulation and carrier techniques were developed and used, as were also radio relay sets that used radar pulse transmission and reception techniques and multiplex time-division methods for obtaining many voice channels from one radio carrier. Radio relay telephone and teletypewriter circuits spanned the English Channel for the Normandy landing and later furnished important communication service for General George S. Patton (Patton, George Smith), after his breakout from the Normandy beachhead.

      The need for communication between the homelands and many far-flung theatres of war gave rise to the need for improved long-range overseas communication systems. A system of radioteletypewriter relaying was devised, by which a radioteletypewriter operator in Washington, London, or other capitals could transmit directly by teleprinter to the commander in any theatre of war. In addition, a system of torn-tape relay centres was established so that tributaries could forward messages through the major centres and retransmit quickly by transferring a perforated tape message from the receiving to the transmitting positions. In addition a system of holding teletypewriter conferences was developed. These conferences, called “telecons,” enabled a commander or his staff at each end to view on a screen the incoming teletypewriter messages as fast as the characters were received. Questions and answers could be passed rapidly back and forth over the thousands of miles separating the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., for example, from the supreme Allied headquarters in Europe or General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in the Far East.

      During the latter years of the war, new and improved communication and electronic devices came forth from research and development in ever-increasing numbers. A new long-range electronic navigation device, known as loran, used for both naval vessels and aircraft, was developed, as were short-range navigational systems, called shoran. Combinations of radar and communications for the landing of aircraft in zero visibility were perfected. One such system was the GCA, or ground-controlled approach system. Combinations of radio direction-finding, radar, and communications systems were developed and used for ground control of intercept aircraft—the system called GCI (ground-controlled intercept). Radio-controlled guidance of falling bombs enabled an operator in a bomber to direct a bomb to the target. Electronic countermeasures made their appearance in the form of jamming transmitters to jam radio channels and radar, navigation, and other military electronics.

      The military services learned well from their wartime experiences the importance of scientific research and development in all fields, including communications electronics. Advances were made in the communication capacity of wire and radio relay systems and in improved electronic aids for navigation. Measures to provide more comprehensive and more reliable communication and electronic equipment continued to be stressed in the armies, navies, and air forces of the major powers.

      After mid-century, accordingly, military efforts in all the many facets of signal communication continued to intensify almost as extravagantly as during World War II. Two major additions in the U.S. Army were television and “electronic brain” equipment. The latter, in many forms of digital and analog computers (computer) and of such data-processing devices as punch-card machines, were applied increasingly to personnel record handling and to depot and supply operations interconnected over wide areas by signal-communication networks.

       television proved a valuable training aid in military schools, where mass instruction, especially in manual skills, was needed and where instructors were few. A single instructor could teach many small classes simultaneously, each grouped before a TV set where they could watch demonstrations closely. Two-way communication permitted the instructor to call and question any student in any classroom and enabled any student to put questions to the instructor. Portable television equipment in the field proved valuable for sending back to headquarters, by antenna radiation or coaxial cable, a picture of any scene of operations such as a river crossing. Equally valuable was a television camera in the hands of a forward scout or in a reconnaissance aircraft, whether piloted or remotely controlled, to scan enemy territory.

      Thus signal communication, combining in itself the powers of photography, television, radar, and other instruments using the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, moved into such new areas of military electronics as battle area surveillance and electronic warfare devices to interfere with, or jam, enemy transmitters. In the U.S. Army, battle area surveillance radically augmented conventional reconnaissance methods. An electronically controlled target acquisition system, to discover enemy troops or transport on the ground or in the air, was being developed using optical, sonic, photographic, infrared, and radar equipment. The aggregate of information gathered by these devices over a wide enemy front can be assembled electronically and displayed at headquarters where the combat commander can quickly estimate the situation and make tactical decisions.

George I. Back George Raynor Thompson

Additional Reading
For information on military communications, see R.J. Holbeche (ed.), Land Mobile Radio Systems (1985); William C.Y. Lee, Mobile Communications Design Fundamentals (1986); H. Hodara (ed.), Optical Fibres, Integrated Optics, and Their Military Applications (1977); Ray Bonds (ed.), The Modern U.S. War Machine: An Encyclopedia of American Military Equipment and Strategy, rev. ed. (1987); and, for a more general view, L.H. Gann, The Defense of Western Europe (1987). Ed.

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Universalium. 2010.

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