Employing the signal company in a Unit of Action

Army Communicator,  Summer, 2005  by Brian Jacobson

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The Army is transforming and that is how the signal company supports the Brigade Combat Team or Unit of Action. Right now commanders in transition are experiencing friction between the Brigade Troops Battalion, the brigade S6, and the brigade commander. In order to alleviate this friction, all parties must know their role in the UA or BCT and stay in their respective lanes.

The doctrine written to cover the signal company is identified in Field Manual 3-90.61.

While serving as an observer controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center and also being a part of the transition myself as a commander in the 3rd Infantry Division, I wrote this article to highlight some observations and provide recommendations for current and future commanders.

The UA signal company's purpose has not changed from the day it was task organized as a separate company to a BCT to its assignment under the Brigade Troops Battalion within that same brigade. The makeup of the company changed to better support independence in a non-contiguous operating environment, but the mission remained the same; provide the brigade commander voice and data communications.

Prior to the transition the company would provide a platoon's worth of Mobile Subscriber Equipment to support the brigade. The other half of the company would replicate support of division command posts when operating at any of the National Training Centers. The division would lend a hand with a small team of experts from the signal battalion operations staff and division signal staff to aid in network and data management. The company commander would be the signal battalion liaison officer on the ground with the BCT. She, or he, would provide information to the signal task force on future network changes based on brigade operations, then the small signal staff would advise that commander on feasibility of support based on the mission planning tools they organically had.

Knowing this, why is it so hard to figure out how to operate as a UA signal company? The mission has not changed with the exception of being tagged the additional responsibility of providing frequency modulation range extension for the brigade with retransmission teams and automation security support.

We now have our own signal network operations staff, information assurance/ server management personnel, communications-security custodian, frequency manager, and electronic maintenance personnel. We lost in the process, our extension teams that are now directly under control of the battalions they support placing an extra burden on us to ensure they are properly trained and maintained even though they belong to somebody else. Through the process of reorganization a lot seems to have changed, but the mission of a company commander fundamentally remains the same.

Command for a signal officer doesn't take place in a little tent with a digital non-secure voice terminal and a laptop anymore. Command is conducted from a Network Operations and Security Center co-located with the brigade signal officer in the Brigade Tactical Operations Center. The modified table of organization and equipment was designed to where the brigade signal officer owns all the senior signal leadership, but the company has the muscle.

They plan, commanders execute, and we as a team provide the brigade with means to command and control more effectively in the 21st Century. The brigade builds the servers and we maintain them. The brigade gives us the requirement to extend FM and we execute. This is what we have done in the past and will continue to do. Command is conducted from the NOSC where we can make informed and timely decisions based on continuous situational awareness.

Hate it or love it, the company commander is the assistant brigade signal officer. Commanders who just want to sit in the JNN/FES/Node Center operations tent and wait for something to break are not contributing to the fight. Commanders who task organize their company giving up most, if not all, of his or her assets to the brigade signal officer don't want to be and shouldn't be in command.

Newly published FM 3-90.61 discusses the responsibilities of the signal company. According to paragraph 2-43 from the same FM the signal company commander is charged us the following tasks:

2-43. The network control center provides 24-hour connectivity and NETOPS support for the HBCT information network, as an extension of the GIG. This element provides operational elements designed to engineer, install, operate, maintain, and defend the HBCT information network supporting operations as an integral part of the HBCT. The NSC extends LandWarNet services to the HBCT operating in a joint operational area and subordinate elements, and provides network management capabilities.

The NSC, in coordination with the HBCT S6:

* Provides reach back connectivity, both inter- and intra- UEy, through organic TACSAT assets.

* Provides range extension of the HBCT voice/data communications.

* Provides WAN network management capabilities. Establishes primary TOC voice/video/data and Defense Information Systems Network services.