CDF intelligence
The Intelligence Branch of the Community Defence Forces of Sober Thought pushes up to the margins of reconnaissance when it is concerned with tactical battlefield information and up to the margins of espionage when it is concerned with strategic battlefield information.
However, by splitting itself into three discrete sub-branches, it hopes to keep its focus on military intelligence where it belongs, and not spearheading attacks in a "reconnaissance in force" (an oxymoronic term Winston Churchill applied to the disastrous Dieppe raid of 19 August 1942) or discovering what brand of bloomers a foreign official wears. The three groups talk among themselves, acting as a sounding board or reality check for one another which spooks desperately need to keep themselves grounded.
Land Intelligence Sub-Branch
Of all the sub-branches, it is both the largest, most important and the one with the greatest links to other branches. It maintains close cooperation with, but a separate identity from, both the tri-service Military Police Branch and the Land Reconnaissance Sub-Branch. Most frontline divisions in the CDF Land Service include a composite security battalion, which includes a company from each of these three organisations. Similar but slightly less strong links are maintained with the Armoured Reconnaissance Sub-Branch of the Armour Branch.
The basic unit for battlefield intelligence at the division, corps and army level is the Intelligence Company consisting of 100 all ranks -- 5 officers, 7 warrant officers and 88 others. They are armed with personal small arms only, pistols for the officers, warrant officers, most of the leads and some of the masters, submachineguns or carbines for the rest. Every Intel Coy, regardless of the level of the headquarters it reports to, is part of the same ordinal number sequence. All of its members are permitted to wear the owl device on their shoulders, but for personal, professional and security reasons, many retain the shoulderboards of their unit or branch of origin.
A Headquarters Squad -- containing a Lieutenant as commanding officer, a Vice Lieutenant as executive officer, a Warrant Officer as company sergeant, a Leading Soldier, a Master Soldier and five Soldiers -- provides the command, communications and clerical staff for the company as a whole. If the latter squad comprises the administrative brains of the unit, the Analysis Squad comprises the operational brains. Its Vice Lieutenant, Vice Warrant Officer, three Leads, three Masters and two Soldiers crunch the numbers, words and data the rest of the company collects and spits out the best answer possible in the time available and under the conditions extant.
The 35-strong Signals Intelligence Platoon does not provide communications, but rather it provides the technical expertise to locate and intercept radio waves used by the enemy. Twenty-four of the platoon are Soldiers doing grunt work -- setting up radio dishes, tapping land lines, locating through triangulation and moving equipment -- supervised by six Master Soldiers. The intellectual labour of the platoon is performed by the Vice Lieutenant, Vice Warrant Officer and three Leading Soldier who compose statistical analyses on the metadata -- how much traffic was there, during what periods and using what equipment -- without knowing the content of their intercepts. They also do first-tier assessments of the raw intelligence, identifying which leads seem most promising, predicting which methods will bring the highest quality intelligence and passing their findings on for the next level of sorting.
Although small, the Cryptography Squad's ten soldiers are mainly intellectual workers. The VWO oversees three each of Leading Soldiers, Master Soldiers and Soldiers, all of whom are dedicated to cracking codes and cyphers. They work with the raw data that sigs int has deemed most promising, using known codebooks and cypher keys, then moving on to their own second-tier attempts at identifying which messages with unknown content seem the most important or the easiest to break. Their data gets passed above the field commands and back to the sub-branch headquarters itself where these weighty matters can be discussed out of earshot of falling artillery shells.
The Photo Intelligence Squad, also of ten members, in some ways is a hybrid of sigs int and crypto because they both collect and collate mechanical and digital photographic images. Thus, the rank composition resembles a conventional infantry squad more than a pure intelligence squad with a VWO, a Leading Soldier, three Master Soldiers and five Soldiers.
The following two squads are separate, but work in tandem more often than not. The Human Intelligence Squad and the trained interrogators among its fifteen members are probably what most people think of when they hear the phrase "military intelligence." It is headed by a Vice Lieutenant assisted by a VWO, who oversee three Leads, five Masters and five Soldiers. The self-explanatory Translation Squad, with its choice of linguists selected according to the Intelligence Company's area of operation, consists of a VWO and three each of Leads, Masters and Soldiers.
This sub-branch has the least contact with other units, and relies heavily on its CDF Air Service counterpart. Sub-branch staff are also the least well armed, since they are afloat, and require only pistols for officers and warrant officers. Should it become necessary, ship armouries could issue more effective small arms and the troops could augment the shipboard marine light infantry.
There is a need for fleet- and flotilla-level intelligence which the Naval Intelligence Sections on the larger CDF Naval Service vessels try to meet. And although physically NISes are located on ships, they bear only the generic name and take their identity from their formation, e.g., "Naval Intelligence Section, X Grand Fleet," "NIS, X Mine Clearance Flotilla," "NIS, X Anti-Submarine Task Force."
The section command staff are a Lieutenant, a Vice Lieutenant and a Warrant Officer acting as Section Petty Officer. The Analysis Sub-Section is responsible for converting the raw data into meaningful outputs the marshal afloat can use to plan raids, ship positions or aircraft scrambles. It has a Vice Lieutenant, a Vice Warrant Officer, three Leading Sailors, three Master Sailors and two Sailors.
The Signals Intelligence Sub-Section is slightly smaller at 22 all ranks -- a Vice Lieutenant, three Leads, three Masters and fifteen Sailors -- than its Land Service counterpart, but they both perform the same function. Because they are at sea, however, they have to be more self-reliant and can only pass information up one tier rather than two or more like their land equivalents.
There aren't any prisoners to interrogate, so the Translation Sub-Section is much smaller with only a Lead, two Masters and two Soldiers. They are, however, available to translate sigs int intercepts or help the Cryptography Sub-Section as it puzzles over foreign language recordings. A VWO, oversees three each of Leads, Masters and Sailors.
NISes always exist on aircraft carriers and flagship cruisers, and sometimes on flagship destroyers. The latter two vessels do not have a Photo Intel Squad because they do not have fixed wing organic aircraft with which to conduct a proper photo recce. Where they exist, the Photo Intelligence Sub-Sections consist of a VWO, a Lead, three Masters and five Sailors.
Air Intelligence Sub-Branch
Like its CDF Land Service counterpart, this sub-branch maintains close relations with the reconnaissance units of its service. Every reconnaissance wing includes an Air Intelligence Squadron of 125 all ranks (6 officers, 6 warrant officers and113 others). The few squadrons raised in each population wave of one hundred million bear an ordinal number in a single sequence. Customarily, the only people armed are officers, warrant officers and Leading Fliers, and then only with 9 mm pistols.
Its HQ and Analysis Detachments of ten each are identical to that of the HQ Squad of an Intel Coy in both personnel and role (except its Warrant Officer is called a Squadron Sergeant). However, the Signals Intelligence Flight is slightly larger with a full Lieutenant as commanding officer and an extra Master Fliers and three Fliers to account for the greater probability of intercepting enemy aircraft's internal and air-to-ground communications. Because most of the latter intercepts will be en clair or very simple code, there are no extra staff in the Crypto Detachment.
Naturally, the Photographic Intelligence Flight is much larger at 40 all ranks because tactical and perhaps strategic reconnaissance aircraft in the wing will be collecting large numbers of analogue and digital images. The command staff consists of a Lieutenant, Vice Lieutenant and a Vice Warrant Officer who oversee a staff of four Leading Fliers, nine Master Fliers and twenty-four Fliers. Larger numbers of better trained photo intel technicians keeps the turnaround time short, a vital consideration when aircraft can travel at the speed of sound.
The remaining two detachments are small in absolute and percentage terms. The few enemy fliers captured will be interrogated by the Human Intelligence Detachment consisting of a Vice Lieutenant, a Lead, two Masters and a Flier-clerk. Similarly, the Translation Detachment keeps the same composition and size (10 all ranks) as before, but the larger size of the squadron over the land company and naval section mean that its relative importance is diluted.
Independent Reconnaissance Squadrons or a Carrier Air Group have a similar need for intelligence units, but not at the same level. Instead, they have scaled down Air Intelligence Flights of 45 all ranks (1 Lieutenant, 2 Vice Lieutenants, 2 Vice Warrant Officers, 5 Leading Fliers, 12 Master Fliers, 23 Fliers). The bear the generic name only and take their identity from the squadron to which they belong, e.g., "Air Intelligence Flight, 3rd Reconnaissance Squadron," "AIF, 1st AWACS Squadron," "AIF, 4th Carrier Headquarters Squadron."
