A longwall support control for controlling the movements of longwall support units in the longwall of a mine that includes a central control system and a plurality of control units, of which a separate control unit (mining shield control device) is locally and operationally associated to each longwall support unit. Each mining shield control device comprises a switching element, which permits separating the bus line or lines in the mining shield control device. The mining control devices may also include signal amplifiers. An identical second bus line (parallel bus) permits retransmitting to the adjacent mining shield control device, incoming signals that do not store a code word assigned to the respectively addressed mining shield control device.