Naval flag signalling in the context of "Mainmast"

The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected vertically or near-vertically on the median line of a ship or boat. A mast may carry sails, spars, and derricks. It may also give necessary height to a navigation light, look-out position, signal yard, control position, radio aerial, or signal lamp. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship. Nearly all sailing masts are guyed.

Until the mid-19th century, all vessels' masts were made of wood, formed from one or several pieces of timber. This was typically the trunk of a single conifer tree; however, from the 16th century, vessels were often built too large for that. Larger vessels needed taller and thicker masts, which could not be made from single tree trunks. To achieve the required height, these masts were built from up to four sections (also called masts). From lowest to highest, these were called "lower", "top", "topgallant", and "royal" masts. For the lower sections to be thick enough, they needed to be built up from multiple pieces of wood. Such a section was known as a made mast, while a section formed from a single piece of timber was known as a pole mast.

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.

Military communications span from pre-history to the present. The earliest military communications were delivered by runners. Later, communications progressed to visual signals. For example, Naval ships would use flag signaling to communicate from ship to ship. These flags are a uniform set of easily identifiable nautical codes that would convey visual messages and codes between ships and from ship to shore. Then militaries discovered methods to use audible signaling to communicate with each other. This way of communicating was possible because of telegraphs. They are an electronic device that is used by a sender and when the sender presses on the telegraph key, they interrupt the current creating an audible pulse that is heard at the receiving station. The receiver then decodes the pulses to decode the messages. Since then, military communication has evolved and advanced much further. Today, there are many perspectives used to examine how troops around the world communicate. Anthony King states how Military sociologists have attempted to explain how military institutions develop and maintain high levels of social cohesion. Communication plays a crucial role in fostering social cohesion in the military, as it allows soldiers to build relationships, establish trust, and work together towards common objectives.