Talk:Units of the British Army

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Former featured article candidateUnits of the British Army is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
April 20, 2005Featured article candidateNot promoted

old comments[edit]

I'm preparing to split away much of the discussion of active divisions, brigades etc into a Land Command article, leaving this page with 'what a corps is, what a division is' etc.. Thoughts? Buckshot06 03:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]


If the regiment is the largest permanent structure, does that mean that regiments are periodically moved between brigades, and brigades between divisions, and divisions between corps? Do regiments ever stand "free" of being part of a "temporary" brigade, or are they always part of one or another? This page would be improved by further clarification here.

The King's Own Fusiliers[edit]

Given the large list of regiments on the page, not to mention the large number of historical regiments, should we really be mentioning a fictional regiment from a television show? I removed it once but it has reappeared. Cjrother 20:22, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We have a problem here[edit]

I'm not a big expert on military structure, but I do know that in the British Army some regiments consist of several battalions. For example the Parachute Regiment as several battalions - during World War II it had many more. A quick search reveals many references to "the 6th Battallion of the Queen's Regiment" and such like.

Also I think you will find that a regiment is commanded by a full Colonel, at least if it has more than one battalion. For example you will find that "Lt. Colonel H Jones" was in command of the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment when he was awarded his VC. It is unlikely that he had the same rank as the regimental commander. DJ Clayworth 15:55, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The infantry regiment is purely an administrative and ceremonial formation. It has no commander. Every battalion is an independent tactical unit commanded by a lieutenant-colonel (always known within the battalion as "the Colonel"). A full colonel is usually a staff officer and rarely holds any command of his own. All British Army infantry regiments are composed of battalions. Even in single-battalion regiments (currently most of them) you will have, for instance, 1st Battalion, The Black Watch. Regiments in the cavalry and other corps are battalion-sized units and are likewise commanded by lieutenant-colonels. The article is correct. -- Necrothesp 00:39, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Right of the line - with guns[edit]

I've heard it said that if the whole British Army were to parade at one go ( presumably on the M1, if that were long enough ) that if all artillery units have their guns on parade ( and other units do not have their colours on parade ) then artillery units take precedence as parading on the "right of the line" - i.e. to the right of all other units on parade. Is this correct does anyone know ? Perhaps something to this effect could be written under the "precedence" section.JRL 05:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

That is correct. The Royal Artillery Regiment is the oldest and most senior of all British Regiments and there for has the honor of being at the far right of the line. Marc 11 Aug. 2005

Actually, it is the Royal Horse Artillery that parades at the Right of the Line with its guns, otherwise it comes after the Household Cavalry. Hammersfan 30 Aug 2005, 11:35

To make it even clearer its Chestnut Troop RHA , who are the right of the line JS1 (talk) 17:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To make it even even clearer it's actually King's Troop, Royal Horse ArtilleryBlackshod (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery and Chestnut Troop both here on WP claim this honour. Can anyone clear this up ? JS1 (talk) 20:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Minor units[edit]

Where's all the stuff about companies and platoons and sections? --Khendon 18:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC) Look at military unit...Buckshot06 03:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tidy up[edit]

For a start this article is ******* huge and needs some serious work to bring it up to scratch. I've done what I can do the regulars and pulled training out, it was incongruous suddenly appearing half way down a list of units. I think some of the corps could do with fleshing out a little.

Before I go on I'm not convinced that the regular/ TA split is appropriate. Given the deployment cycle at the moment we have reservists full time, indeed I've worked with a couple of reservists who've spent more time in uniform than me. I'd recommend just listing the units under the parent and identifying them as TA in sequence. We also don't need the rant about restructuring at the bottom, we can reflect the realities of restructuring within the main body, to that end I'm about to weed the cr*p from that section.

I've also gone some way to redressing the rather obsessive use of bolding, bulleting and italicising that had gone on.

ALR 20:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a TA soldier serving in Iraq I agree with you about the regular/TA split: TA units are often completely forgotten in he tally of a particular formation due to the way they are considered separate.
They are, however, certainly different and I'm not sure how this could be shown. For example listing 101 (Northumbrian) Regiment RA(V) alongside 39 Regiment RA as a General Support (MLRS) regt would be quite misleading. This is because 39 Regt has an RHQ, workshops, etc and is structured to deploy as a formed regiment. 101 Regt, on the other hand, has no RHQ and its workshops are being reduced to a LAD due to its role in providing individual reservists or detachments for service in 5 Regt or 39 Regt in the STA and MLRS roles respectively. 100 and 106 Regts are structured similarly for the same war establishment reserve role with paired regular regiments. I can't speak for the other TA regts. Yorkshire Phoenix United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland God's own county 14:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that could be reflected by an overview paragraph about the TA, highlighting that some units deploy as formed and others provide personnel to a formed unit then after each one, where we have the information available, identify which it is.
ALR 14:43, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Graphic of the Army Structure  Done[edit]

I'm currently working on a project to create graphics of the structure of the most important Armies. i.e. French Army; German Army; Italian Army I also began to make a graphic of the structure of the British Army, but I’m stopping this work now as the available information is contradicting, chaotic and in no way sufficient: i.e. Both: the 7th Armoured Brigade and the 1st Mechanised Brigade declare on their official Homepage, that the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment is part of their Brigade.
And there are dozens of like cases all over the chaotic and conflicting official homepages of the Corps, the Regiments, Brigades and Divisions, and as I’m fed up with the British Army now (after having done 24 Army graphics now, the British Army gets to share the title “Worst Homepage” with the Belgian Armies Homepage) I will go on work on the Spanish Army in the meantime until someone updates the Wikipedia articles with up to date information on which regiments/battalions belong to which Division/Brigade and where the units are actually based. noclador

I've created a graphic now based on the information I could find and about which I'm 95% sure that it is correct. Anyone with more info- have a look at the graphic and let me know what is to change and so we will finish the graphic one day. (The 3. divison is missing, as I'm not sure what the directly subordinated units are) --noclador 15:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
finished graphic of the British Army structure: click to enlarge

The current media viewer employed by Wikipedia leaves this image unreadable, and practically worthless — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:E:8280:1FB:5CEE:E00:163E:7CC2 (talk) 18:31, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]


If you don't mind me asking, how do you make the graphics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.142.131 (talk) 01:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Time for update?[edit]

It is perhaps time to update some sections, particularly on the Infantry, as the Restructuring listed has now taken place. HLGallon (talk) 01:12, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Copyright Violation[edit]

The image showing the structure of army brigades by Hammersfan appears to be simply a scan taken from one of the "Armed Forces of the United Kingdom" books edited by Charles Hayman. The big givaway is the numbers after some of the units, these refer to footnotes in the aforementioned book. Victory Is Mine (talk) 14:32, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New updated Orbat[edit]

http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/20130703-A2020_Update.pdf

Phd8511 (talk) 18:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

References to Army Reserve[edit]

A lot of the units at the foot of the entry have "(Army Reserve)" after them. Correctly, the former offical suffix of "(V)" - which stood for "Volunteers" - has been removed, as "(V)" is no longer part of the title. But it has been REPLACED in this Wiki page with "(Army Reserve)". The dilemma is ... "(Army Reserve)" is NOT part of the unit's title, although "(V)" was. So should it now be there, or not?

One argument would be that it should be removed - but the alternative argument, to aid understanding, is that it should stay as an informative note. BUT if that is the case, then my view is that "(Regular)" should be placed after other units, to aid understanding.

My view is that we can either have "(Army Reserve)" AND "(Regular)" in there - which in this circumstance is preferable ... or neither, for consistency. I will leave any changes here to a Wiki Editor, as it is a matter of opinion. [Employee of MOD]

External links modified[edit]

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Split the article[edit]

This article was way too long and it contained two totally different topics. First came a long listing of all the existing units by corps, precedence, etc. and then followed a detailed list of the operational structure of the British Army. The second part I copied to the new and correctly named article: Operational Structure of the British Army. noclador (talk) 07:51, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia:Splitting and Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia why have you not followed the policy?
"To conform with Wikipedia's licensing requirements, which require that content contributors receive attribution, the page receiving the split material must have an edit summary noting "split content from article name". (Do not omit this step or omit the page name.) A note should also be made in the edit summary of the source article, "split content to article name". It is a requirement of Wikipedia's licensing that attribution be given to the main content author(s). The {{Copied}} template can be placed on the talk page of both articles for this purpose. For further information, refer to the main Copying within Wikipedia guideline."
Gavbadger (talk) 10:50, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This structure[edit]

is the most recent and relevant

https://www.army.mod.uk/media/2400/armystructure_landscape_v4-01.png

Sammartinlai (talk) 12:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 18 August 2019[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Units of the British Army. (non-admin closure)​ — Newslinger talk 09:31, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Structure of the British Army → Administrative structure of the British Army – Structure of the British Army-including Field Army, Home Command and sub-commands like Regional Command is better listed in this article Administrative structure of the field forces of the British Army which itself should be renamed. This article/page should be renamed as either 1) Administrative structure of the British Army or 2) Structure of the British Army over time since it include changes due to defence reforms like Army 2020. Open to other alternative better names. BlueD954 (talk) 09:00, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Dormskirk:, @Noclador:, @Nick-D:.

BlueD954 (talk) 09:00, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support move. Dormskirk (talk) 09:05, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Other possible titles : Commands and Regiments of the British Army, Units of the British Army. So as not to conflict with the renaming of Administrative structure of the field forces of the British Army renaming. BlueD954 (talk) 13:05, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The Italian Army has two sub-articles: Structure of the Italian Army and List of units of the Italian Army. The first one presents the operational structure of the Italian Army, while the second one lists the units by their corps. I support to rename this article Units of the British Army, and to take out the Army 2020 stuff, which has its own convoluted overlong article at Future of the British Army (Army 2020 Refine). noclador (talk) 18:29, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Agree. I will, if there are no other objections, move and redit the lead paragraph to new name of Units of the British Army later today. Please help remove the Army 2020 stuff but add it as a Main article: or See Also section.BlueD954 (talk) 08:11, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Noclador: Can you close the discussion and move the page accordingly? Not sure how to. BlueD954 (talk) 09:19, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Army 2020 section[edit]

Moved to here for housekeeping

Army 2020[edit]

Main articles: Future of the British Army (Army 2020) and Operational Structure of the British Army

In 2010, the incoming government conducted a defence review. Those elements affecting the army were released as part of the Future British Army Structure (Next Steps) publication,[1] which was superseded by the "Army 2020" concept announced in 2012. Under Army 2020 the army will be divided into:

  • Reaction forces comprising a modified 16 Air Assault Brigade and an armoured division (3rd (UK) Division) of three armoured infantry brigades. These will be the 1st, 12th and 20th Armoured Infantry Brigades.[2][3]
  • Adaptive forces comprising a division (1st (UK) Division) of seven infantry brigades, three of which (the 4th, 7th, and 51st) will be deployable. This will be assisted by another 2-star command, Support Command (United Kingdom)[4][5][6]
  • Force troops and logistics support comprising eight brigades.

All units from Germany will gradually move back to the UK. The basing plan was released on 5 March 2013. This positions 3rd (UK) Division as the head of the Reaction Force. 1st (UK) Division is the division in charge of the Adaptable Force being based in York. This basing plan locates all three Reaction Force Brigades, along with the three Armoured Regiments and the six Armoured Infantry Battalions, in the Salisbury Plain training area.[7][8]

Refinements to the plans following the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review became known as "Army 2020 Refine".[9]

Force Troops Command was re-designated as 6th (United Kingdom) Division in August 2019.

References

  1. ^ Briefing Paper SN06038 Defence Basing Review: Headline Decisions House of Commons Library
  2. ^ "Famed Desert Rats to lose their tanks under Army cuts". Telegraph. 2013-03-05. Retrieved 2013-03-09.
  3. ^ Army Basing Plan: The basing plan table labels them as "Armoured Infantry Brigades"
  4. ^ Army Basing Plan: The basing plan table labels them in order
  5. ^ Transforming the British Army Annex A Archived 2013-03-10 at WebCite
  6. ^ Transforming the British Army Annex C[permanent dead link]
  7. ^ "Regular army basing plan" (PDF). 5 March 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-09.
  8. ^ Major Army sites - basing
  9. ^ "Army Information Sub-Strategy (2015 – 2018)" (PDF). British Army. November 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 April 2016. Retrieved 27 December 2016.

Move discussion in progress[edit]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of units and formations of the British Army 2020 which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:51, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PRIMARYSOURCES[edit]

I appreciate the great amount of historical work that has been put in by Aodhdubh over the last couple of weeks. However, this user is seriously looking like he or she is running afoul of WP:PRIMARYSOURCES, like another departed user who got thoroughly tangled in the ins and outs of the Royal Navy by working almost exclusively from the Navy List and suchlike.

"Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.[d] Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source.
  • Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.
  • Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."

We go off WP:SECONDARY sources here as the most trusted sources, peer-reviewed academic articles most of all. I would really like the contention that the "British armed forces .. were divided into Forces" properly referenced by a reference that actually says that, instead of trying to assume off the titles of part of the Army List.

Comments welcome. Dormskirk SmartyPants22 Hawkeye7 Nick-D Buckshot06 (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References[edit]

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