Tactical communications are military communications in which information of any kind, especially orders and military intelligence, are conveyed from one command, person, or place to another upon a battlefield, particularly during the conduct of combat. It includes any kind of delivery of information, whether verbal, written, visual or auditory, and can be sent in a variety of ways. In modern times, this is usually done by electronic means. Tactical communications do not include communications provided to tactical forces by the Defense Communications System to non-tactical military commands, to tactical forces by civil organizations, nor does it include strategic communication.
Lithuanian signal corps soldiers, 1930
Historical reenactment of Roman legionary with cornu
Military communications or military signals involve all aspects of communications, or conveyance of information, by armed forces. Examples from Jane's Military Communications include text, audio, facsimile, tactical ground-based communications, naval signalling, terrestrial microwave, tropospheric scatter, satellite communications systems and equipment, surveillance and signal analysis, security, direction finding and jamming. The most urgent purposes are to communicate information to commanders and orders from them.
United States Army Signal Corps switchboard operators in the 1940s
A Japanese courier pursued by Cossacks during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904
WRNS signalwomen training naval signalling, 1943
A Luftwaffe officer using a radio kit on a Panzer III, 1940