Signals and Field Communication

FLD 220 · Fieldcraft, Tactics, and Soldiering · Level 200 (Phase Two)

A Royal Army College course in how soldiers pass orders, information, and intent in the field.

Course length: approximately 10 hours of online self-study, studied asynchronously at the student's own pace, together with any in-person practical instruction and assessment the course requires.

Foreword

A force that cannot communicate is not a force; it is a number of individuals who happen to be in the same place. Every other skill a soldier has, moving, observing, treating a casualty, applying or withholding force, is wasted the moment it cannot be coordinated, and coordination is communication. The commander's intent reaches the soldier by communication; the soldier's report reaches the commander the same way. When communication is good, a small team acts as one and achieves far more than its size; when it is poor, the same team mills about, duplicates effort, misses the moment, and sometimes turns a manageable problem into a crisis.

Good field communication is not about equipment. It is a discipline: saying the right thing, in the right form, to the right person, briefly, clearly, and securely, whether by radio, by hand signal, by a written message, or by a set of orders. This course teaches that discipline. It is a short, practical course, the partner of Patrolling and Tactical Movement and the servant of every other course, because there is no military task that communication does not hold together.

Who this course is for

Every member of the Royal Kaharagian Army. Communication is not the signaller's job alone; every soldier sends and receives, gives and takes orders, and must do so to a common standard so that the meaning carries without guessing. The course is a Phase Two course, assuming Recruit Training (Phase One), and it pairs most closely with Patrolling and Tactical Movement, whose drills it holds together. It expands the Basic Training Manual's module on command, control, and communication, written fresh for a small force.

What you will be able to do

By the end you will be able to:

• explain why command, control, and communication together turn individual skill into coordinated effect;
• use correct voice procedure on a radio net, with call signs, prowords, and readback;
• pass and receive the standard field hand signals, and use whistle and light signals correctly;
• send accurate, brief field messages and the standard reports, including the situation report and the contact report;
• understand and deliver a section-level set of orders in the five-paragraph format, and give and take a warning order and a back-brief;
• receive, relay, and act on information accurately, completing the loop the sender began;
• observe methodically and indicate and describe what you see so another can find and understand it;
• communicate plainly, calmly, and humanely with the public and with partner agencies on a home or humanitarian task;
• keep functioning when communication fails, using a lost-comms drill, acting on intent, and alternative means including the runner; and
• keep communication secure and disciplined, understanding what an enemy learns from a careless net and how a signals log supports accountability.

How the course works

The course is self-paced and studied online, lesson by lesson, with a reflection at the end of each. The knowledge, the formats, the prowords, the report structures, the orders sequence, is learned here; the skill is built by practising it aloud and on the net, and certified in person, above all on the airsoft military-simulation field where a patrol's communication is tested under mild, safe pressure. Read each lesson with the intention of using it: say the prowords, draft the reports, and learn the hand signals by doing them.

A note on what "communication" means here

This course is about communication as a military discipline, not about the technology of any particular radio. Equipment changes; the discipline does not. Whether a message goes by a modern handset, a field telephone, a runner, or a hand signal passed down a patrol, the same rules apply: be brief, be clear, be secure, and confirm understanding. The course therefore teaches the enduring craft, voice procedure, message and report formats, the orders process, signal discipline, and treats any specific device as a tool the soldier applies that craft through.

Structure

How it fits with the other courses

This course is the connective tissue of the curriculum. It holds together the drills of Patrolling and Tactical Movement, which depend on silent signals and clear contact reports; it carries the orders that Foundations of Military Leadership teaches a leader to give; it sends the casualty report that Combat First Aid has prepared; it passes the lawful direction bounded by the Law of Armed Conflict and the Rules for the Use of Force; and on home operations it is how a cordon, a search, or a relief task is coordinated. Wherever soldiers must act together, this course is at work.

A note on sources

This is the College's own course. It is built on the Army's own Basic Training Manual and on the British and Commonwealth signals and staff tradition, written fresh in Kaharagian terms and adapted to a small force, rather than reproduced. Where conventions such as the phonetic alphabet and standard prowords are international, they are taught as the common standard they are.

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