I'll jump in here with my 2 cents for what it's worth. Agree with Petard that there may be some OPSEC issues here, and when you're not sure the best rule is to assume there are so i'll keep this generic without including actual C/S.
Also agree that the deployed Batteries (including the one I was with one in 2007) have not used the C/S in the Artillery pub. Sometimes it was because they didn't want to or didn't know them (not the best reasons) but I think the biggest reason was that the Batteries are organized for operations overseas in a way different then that outlined in our doctrine. They are an an "independant" Battery in the sense that they do not report to an Arty Regt, so the Battery FSCC becomes the de-facto "control station" of the Battery net. Some folks think that as a result, the Bty FSCC should become C/S 1, 2 etc to reflect this. Personally I don't think this is a good idea because it leads to other problems (what C/S do you give to the Btys Gun Tps when they are deployed as one then?) Other reasons for not following thye C/S doctrine overseas:
- they are organized into three independantly deployable gun troops that sometimes work seperately, sometimes together. Each of these three Tps have their own TC, TL, TSM, CP, maybe Recce party, Met etc all of which need their own C/S on Bty net which isn't reflected in our doctrine.
- the Bty had other elements attached to it that are not outlined in 371-004 which needed C/S as well.
All of this meant that there had to be a certain amount of changes made on the fly to give all the units in a Bty that needed them a C/S. That's just the way it is when you fight in ways that doctrine didn't envision. The bad part of this is we have been doing this for over three years now and the doctrine, even in an unnofficial way like a LL pub or CIG Directive, have not as far as I'm aware changed to reflect this. My tow censt from the sideline.