 The latest weapons, coupled with the fighting skill of the American soldier, stand ready on the alert all over the world to defend this country. View the American people against aggression. This is the Big Picture, an official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Sergeant Stuart Queen. Our story today on the Big Picture is the United States Army Signal Corps. The world we live in today is shaped by a potential for destruction and by concepts of speed undreamed in the mature memory of living men. Under these urgent conditions, the challenging mission of providing communication from the United States Army rests with a signal corps headed by Major General George I. Bach, Chief Signal Officer of the United States Army. The American Army has two major characteristics which contribute greatly to its superiority. One of these is firepower, the capability of inflicting tremendous destruction on any enemy. The second is mobility, the capability of rapidly concentrating or dispersing this destructive force to gain a strategic or tactical advantage. To be most effective, these two, fire and mobility, must work together. They must be completely coordinated. This coordination in turn can be achieved only through the medium of a comprehensive, flexible and reliable communication system. Communications are frequently referred to as the heart and soul of the control of combat operations. The truth of this statement can easily be seen. For maximum effectiveness, an army or any element of an army is completely dependent upon the integrity of its command facilities. The signal corps's responsibility for army communications is twofold. First, as a technical service, we develop, produce, store and issue the equipment which will give the best possible communications capability to the combat forces. As an integral part of the combat team, we operate the complex communications network at army, corps and division levels, so necessary for the effective control of the field army. The signal corps has a proud history. A history that has spanned virtually the entire century of electronic development. Today, in cooperation with our vast American electronics industry, we are working on projects which will perfect the techniques and systems and individual equipments already in existence. Projects which will indeed add new dimensions to the concept of communications itself. Despite scientific advances, however, it is the human being who, in the last analysis, decides the issue. It is the combat soldier whom we serve. And we in the signal corps are proud of our close association with the infantry, artillery, armor, combat engineers and our sister technical services as well. I invite you now to take a look at some of the operations of the signal corps, the nerves of the army. The Pentagon building in Washington, D.C. is the nerve center of the army. From here, the army commander, working under the Joint Chiefs of Staff, heads a chain of command which has spread throughout the entire free world. For American troops today are stationed in defense of peace around the globe. Uniting this widely scattered body into a vital alert force which can act with immediacy is a communications network so strong that it knows no impediments of time and distance. The basic lines of this network, connecting the army's top echelon with its subordinate headquarters, is provided by the electronic wonder of teletype tape. The primary paths along which radio teletype messages flow with the speed of light form a pattern around the states. Pattern expands. Electrical impulses transmitting messages of intelligence and instruction connect the army top command with its global units and provide the basic framework of the nerve system which sensitizes the army, keeping it alert and unified across the world. Stationary communications facilities preserve the chain of command down to each of the army's field armies and then a flexible and integrated system of teletype, telephone and radio ties together the succeeding echelons of the field command from army to corps, from corps to division, from division to regiment, from regiment to battalion, from battalion to company, from company to platoon, down to the squad itself, basic army unit. The battleground is the final testing place of every army doctrine. To forge victory on this field, this is the basic reason for the importance of the chain of command and this is the severest test of the communications which keep the chain of command intact. Communications here must be mobile, for battle is a fluid situation and still they must be powerful enough to operate efficiently over great distances. They must be rugged enough to withstand the stress and shock of combat but still sufficiently light to travel with the fighting man. In the Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, the development of smaller, more powerful combat signal equipment goes on without let up. The transistor. To replace the vacuum tube, the heart of electronic equipment is one revolutionary development as are a miniaturized toggle switch, transformer, condenser and batteries. A miniaturized radio which can be worn on the wrist is in the experimental stage. A miniaturized frequency meter and a miniaturized walkie-talkie or other examples. Here, miniature tubes are prepared for assembly automatically in a matter of minutes by a machine which does the work that once took many hours. For miniaturization of the component parts of equipment makes it feasible to assemble the parts automatically. A considerably more efficient, productive and economical process than the manual operation involved with larger items. The end result of the automatic assembly process is a small packaged unit. These are some recently developed items now in the hands of the troops. A new and lighter field telephone. A smaller switchboard with more lines for regimental combat use. A teletype machine which can handle 65% more traffic. The new handy talkie radio set. Integrated combat radio equipment commonly used by infantry, artillery and armor. This new equipment represents a big step forward in communications for the field army tripling its telephone and teletype circuits. This new radio and wire equipment provides the infantry regiment for the first time with simultaneous radio and teletype communications over one radio circuit. Training in the operation of this equipment is given combat signal corpsman at the Signal Corps School at Fort Monmouth. These men are a vital part of the combat team. Operating signal equipment from the army commander's level down to the divisions and forward they are to be found wherever combat troops are found. Operating as fighting men as well as experts in every phase of communications. In this school they learn to use the equipment they will be handling in the future including the most recent items developed at the laboratories. At the Army Electronic Proving Ground at Fort Wachuk Arizona the signal corps is working to adapt electronic advances to practical field needs. Here equipments and concepts undergo constant development to meet the demands of the army of the future. Let us look now at a simulated battlefield of the future and see how some signal equipment and how communication systems developed at this proving ground would be employed. Our forces are going to attack the enemy's position and along the echelons of command the messages of information and instruction pass swiftly. Along the wires and over the radio circuits that make up the network of battlefield communications the word goes out. The command which standing alone would be worthless and to be effective must be communicated with haste and efficiency over the intervening miles and at every level received and implemented. Everything is ready. The attack begins. The television cameraman a technician new to the battlefield sends to the commander's screen an instant record of the invasion start. Press toward their objective the commander at his command post is able to follow the action as closely as if he were with them. The television officer selects the most important action from the monitor screens to be shown on the master screen. The electronic wonder of television becomes an invaluable weapon for the commander with sight, a new medium of battlefield communications being tested now by the signal corps. Once the beachhead is established signal men lose no time in erecting radio relay masks to enable radio messages to travel on high frequency beams. Other signal troops set up the mobile installations which provide radio teletype communications for divisions in the field. These vans made history in Korea. With army troops at Incheon without ever having been field tested they provided the first radio teletype link between the army and Tokyo headquarters. Development of equipment adapted to army aircraft makes possible the use of wire for telephone communications over impassable terrain. Mortar fire is one of the infantryman's greatest enemies but now because of electronic advances radar can be used as a counter measure against it. A compact radar mortar locating set emits electrical radio waves which detect the presence of the enemy mortar shell. Using this information its crewmen lock on the path of the shell track its trajectory and from this obtain the data which reveals the enemy position. This information is relayed to an artillery fire direction center. Artillery fire now can eliminate the enemy's mortar position in a matter of seconds. A signal core cameraman in an army plane makes a reconnaissance of the enemy's position. Signal core's new 100 inch camera with its infrared lens capable of penetrating 26 miles through haze is brought up for further reconnaissance. The area to be photographed is determined and the camera swings into position. The small rectangle in the center of this picture with a standard camera is the enemy's strong point. The plate is inserted and the camera made ready. The shutter is cocked and the view in the rectangle is magnified 20 times by the 100 inch camera. This is the result. The reconnaissance indicates that our forces could effectively employ an atomic missile. Even if the enemy retaliates with a similar weapon our communications will not be disrupted or this communication system is designed to operate under atomic conditions. It provides telephone and teletype radio facilities for divisions and lower units. Connected by cable the vans housing this mobile system would be able to disperse communications facilities on an atomic battlefield over a wide area. Further reconnaissance of the area is requested and a new remotely controlled television tank is put into action. The control officer sitting in a control van supervises the tank's operation. A technician at the controls pulls the switch and the tank moves out equipped with a television camera in its turret. The control van is equipped with new type TV and radio equipment to receive the pictures taken by the tank's TV camera. The technician controlling the operation of the camera sees on his television screen exactly what the camera atop the tank sees as it moves toward its objective. The turret slowly turns as the camera searches the area it moves through. Responding instantly to the instructions of the man in the control van the electronic eye of this vehicle permits the commander to take a close-up look at the situation. Reconnaissance under atomic or non-atomic conditions is only one of the many means of employment for this weapon in future combat. Its potentialities are unlimited. The commander passes along the communications net to move out and moves up for the assault. Combat single-core cameraman record the movement providing a source of valuable tactical information as well as a lasting record of the Army's performance. Just as this battlefield contains equipment and weapons which have not been used on any battlefield of the past a war of the future would employ weapons not shown here but on any battlefield communications will still be the lifeline up and down the chain of command from the man who fights the war to the man who commands. It is a single-core's compelling task to provide communications facilities rugged enough, powerful enough, mobile enough to enable command to function under any condition. This is the unceasing mission. Fields of the future may not be restricted to the foreign terrain over which American troops have fought before. The American city, the industrial giant of the West is no longer isolated by distances that can't be spanned. Even the small community is vulnerable and a potential enemy is only a few hours away along the polar air routes across the top of the world. Seattle can be reached in eight hours flying time. Traveling at speeds in excess of 400 miles an hour an enemy turboprop bomber could reach Denver in just half a day. Moscow is closer to Chicago than to Russia's eastern border. With vastly increased range, today's Soviet planes are capable of making the round trip from Central Europe to New York City with frightening ease. Sobering facts like these call for an anti-aircraft defense system to afford the greatest protection possible for American cities. Working with radar, which was developed as an anti-aircraft weapon in World War II, the signal core is in the process of developing and testing the framework of such a system. In an operation center outside a major city, technicians receive early warning of approaching aircraft from Air Force channels. As the aircraft comes within range, the searching radar sets of this defense system take over. There is set in motion an electronic chain of events in which the aircraft's approach is followed and plotted and studied with precision and accuracy every mile of its course. The aircraft is identified as enemy. From its protected vault inside the earth in a location on the rim of the city, the lethal rocket Nike, developed by the Ordinance Corps, rises and points its deadly warhead skyward. Sentinels of the New Age, guardians of the nation's skies. In the operation of the defense system, a ring of batteries either of Nike's or conventional anti-aircraft weapons will circle the city. Inside the operation center, the routine of gathering and processing the vital information continues. Every detail of the operation is known to the technicians in the room. The identification and the position of the aircraft and the status of the firing battery. Not at all. No more than as a remotely controlled tank or battlefield television or the miniaturized communications equipment that a soldier in World War II would not have dreamed of. The growth of the electronic era has only begun. Who can say but what our next communications challenge will be to establish contact with space? For this is an age when fantasy becomes reality. This age of vehicles that travel beyond the earth and the atmosphere that surrounds it. This is an age when with the aid of cameras installed in these rockets, we have even seen our earth as men in an age before could not conceive it. In this technical triumph, symbolic of the new frontiers we have carved, we have even seen the rim of earth. It is truly an age of the realization of man's scientific genius. But in this golden day of discovery, we have watched our shrinking world divided into two parts. One free and one slave. The preservation of the free world is the greatest challenge that faces free men today. And the United States Army shares heavily in the responsibility for that defense. To help keep that army intact and ready for the future is a mission of the Signal Corps. For in the words of the Chief Signal Officer, General Bach, The Signal Corps is known as the nerves of the Army. For the communications network of the Signal Corps extends like a vast sensory system to every part of the military body, unifying it, keeping it alert, and alive. Today, we are involved in experiments and developments which, from a technical viewpoint, will far surpass the combined magnitude of technical achievements during the past 100 years. This is Sergeant Stuart Queen inviting you to be with us next week for another look at the United States Army in action on The Big Picture. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the Army at home and overseas, produced by the Signal Corps Pictorial Center, presented by the U.S. Army in cooperation with this station. You can be an important part of The Big Picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.