My Postings: Making the Military's Job Harder?

The following was recently left as a comment to one of my Weekly MilCom Recap posts. Originally I wasn't going to respond, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt the need to. I appreciate this comment and I see where he is coming from, but I just can't agree with it. I work in communications and understand the need for communications security and operational security. Everyday when I go to work, I have men and women on the other end of the radio from me whose lives depend on what I do. I also have family and friends in the military. Even if I haven't served in the military myself, I do have some perspective to look at a communications issue such as this from.

"A funny thing happens when the enemy can id your type of aircraft by recognizing
your callsign. It lets him know the a/c he can shoot at and the a/c he doesn't
want to shoot at. In combat we try and use some strategery on the enemy by using
other a/c's callsigns from time to time. Please don't make our job any harder.

An Apache Pilot at Hunter"

First, I hope that our military is not using their static callsigns in a combat zone, I hope they are using some sort of tactical callsign system. Most static callsigns seem to be based off of the unit's nickname, so it naturally makes them easier to determine. Using static callsigns would be a communications security and an operational security mistake. Audio and video from news reports and transcripts and descriptions in books indicate that the USAF and USMC are using tactical callsigns different from their static callsigns. I also hear the USMC in particular doing this during training and I haven't posted those tactical callsigns on this blog.

Second, I hope that the enemy is having a hard time hearing callsigns. Certainly the frequency hopping and encryption gear that combat aircraft are equipped with is being used for tactical traffic. I know that the Army has been using SINGCARS nets and that other services have been using encryption that my radios can't track or decode. If enemy intelligence depends on me for their information, then they aren't getting very good intelligence.

Third, if one of the techniques is to use another type's callsign, isn't it just as bad to post that on a public blog? On the other hand, if that technique is used, wouldn't callsign ID lists be a useful way to increase the effect of the misinformation?


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net