Most of Rommel's awesomeness in North Africa was due to his superior radio directing finding units. No need to necessarily translate enemy communications if you know where they are and when they're sending.

The premier tier-1/special mission unit in the US military (Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), aka "the Activity", Gray Fox, Torn Victor, Cemetery Wind, Centra Spike, ... they have a lot of code names) was basically the key piece in killing Pablo Escobar (the book "Killing Pablo" is a pretty good account). They're obviously extensively involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the major reasons the military was more effective in 2005-now in Iraq, vs. 2003-2004, is that cellphones spread out to cover the whole country, and insurgents and their friends used cellphones (although this is more "strategic" vs. tactical/field gathering like this system).

I'm just waiting for the first fully autonomous weapon which combines signals intelligence and killing -- flies around listening for a specific IMSI, then drops down on the target and blows up.