Military Question

[cgannon64]

After reading another thread after Germany's military numbering, I got to wondering: exactly how does the order of rankings of military units go? In my head, Division, Unit, Army are all meaningless terms...

CG

[MadScot]

In order of increasing size...

Squad or section
Platoon
Company I
Battalion II
Regiment III
Brigade X
Division XX
Corps XXX
Army XXXX
Army Group or Front XXXXX

For artillery and cavalry units it can be different. And sometimes certain armies 'skip' some terms. So, for example, the Soviet Army was equivalent to a Western Corps, and they didn't have Corps in the 'standard' sense.

The I and X next to the name are the normal map designations for the corresponding units with NATO symbology.

[cgannon64]

Thanks. I have to write those down somewhere. I've always been confused when reading history books/memoirs and hearing the mentions of those...

CG

[Case]

I'd add that the meanings of the various unit names differs between nations. For example, an American 'Regiment' is/was a formation consisting of three battalions of similar units, while a British pattern 'regiment' is a battalion.

[Luk]

I was learned that regiment=brigade

[MadScot]

Case

I'm afraid it's rather more complicated than that. Different branches of service in different armies all use their own version of the unit hierarchy, to the extent that the standard has so many exceptions, it's like the English language.

To be precise, a British Regiment is NOT a Battalion; this misconception has come into being due to the fact that as the British Army has reduced the number of 'line' infantry battalions it has sought to maintain as many of the independent regimental names as possible, for a variety of reasons. Consequently there are a number of what appear to be battalion sized regiments, but in fact these are normally styled
nth Battalion, name of regiment. The fact that there is only one regular battalion in each regiment (in many cases) does not make the two identical; in the British Army a regiment is a recruiting and administrative device (although today regiments from geographically close areas are grouped in administrative divisions also, again nothing to do with the operational divisions) whereas a battalion is an operational formation. There are at least theoretical reserve formations making up the 2nd etc. battalions in many cases.

(All that applies to infantry units only; as I said, armour/cavalry and artillery units do their own things)

A practical example: there exists an infantry battalion titled:

1st Battalion, Prince of Wales' Own Regiment of Yorkshire (1st Bn, PWO, or 1 PWO when abbreviated).

This is the only regular battalion in the regiment. However in wartime a second battalion, called not surprisingly:
2nd Bn, PWO
would be formed from reserves and training cadres.

Furthermore, there are two "territorial" (~ NG for US readers) battalions which are considered part of the same regiment; these formations are 3 PWO and 4 PWO.

A long winded explanation, but one that I hope enables you to see the way operational and administrative terms get confused.

[Richard III]

:ggodjob: Madscot.

Case, at full wartime strength in periods like 1790-1815, or 1941-1945, many british regiments could have as many as nine battalions.

If for gaming or scenario purposes you're trying to find an analogy, a typical UK (or Canadian) regiment tends to be more analogous to a US Brigade, e.g. 2,500 to 5,000 men.

R.III

[Lefty Scaevola]

In britain, and many other places, regiment is an administrative and training organiztion, that recruits personnel from a geographic area and trains them, into one or more battalions. For operational purposes the battalions are asigned to brigades.

[MadScot]

Just FYI, looking through the index to the first volume of the 1916 Official History, which probably covers about the largest manpower (infantry) strength ever for the UK, the largest battalion number I can find for a UK unit is:

27th Bn Northumberland Fusileers (4th Tyneside Irish)

However this is rather small compared to:

60th Bn Princess Patricia's Canadian Light infantry

While it is by no means certain that all the numbers are being taken up below these, the evidence of the index indicates that most if not all of the lower numbered battalions had been raised.

At 3Bns per Bde and 3 Bdes per Div (roughly the 1916 establishments for British units) that makes the Northumberland Fusileers 'regiment' equal in size to 3 Divisions, or one corps

'Colonial' divisions stayed on the 4Bn per Bde establishment - that still would allow the PPCLI to form five full divisions

I would not be surprised to find that one of the Manchester or London Regiments raised an even higher total in WWI; those are simply the highest numbered units I can find without much effort.

[cgannon64]

I think I'll just stick with American terms, thank you. I really only want to know this if I'm getting crazy in games, and feel like naming/numbering all my units. Even if I'm England, I'll just pretend I'm not British.



CG

[Richard III]

Point taken on the recruiting structure, guys, although I was speaking in averages on the numbers. On at least two occasions when making scenarios I found that the lack of a decent order of battle forced me to come up with an approximation, and ON AVERAGE four or five battalions was a norm at the points I was working on. It's like trying to explain schillings and guineas to people who've never heard of them, you cut a corner or two...
And while the general rule is that people stick with the regiment they were recruited into, the rule does get broken; my grandfather was recruited by the RAR, and then moved into a territorial battalion of the Welsh Borderers for redeployment into Burma with an Indian division, IIRC, and he was a lifelong Londoner!

However, MadScot, you have intrigued me with this PPCLI reference. As you know, we Canadians didn't exactly put an army group into Europe in 1914, however strong our contribution, so why so many PPCLI battalions?

Let me look into this. A quiet day at work, I'm sure no one will notice if I hop over to the Metro library in an hour or so...

R.III

[MadScot]

R3

Just to let you know, and perhaps avoid some dead ends later:

Specific PPCLI Bns referenced in the index are:
1,2,3,4,5,7,8,10,13,14,15,16,18,19,20,21,22,24,25, 26,27,28,29,31,42,43,49,52,58 and 60
- a total of 30 bns.
Since 8 of the 9 Canadian Brigades (2 through 9) and all 3 divisions are also referenced, it is distinctly possible that the regiment numbered closer to 30 than 60 battalions. That would be more consistent with the three divisions then in the field.

From what I can see, though, the general practice seems to have been truly consecutive numbering, at least with the UK-raised regiments.

(And the full title of the book is:
"The Official History of the Great War: Military Operations : France and Belgium : December 1915 - July 1 1916")

[Richard III]

Thanks; I knew which "official history" you were referring to, but even then, 30 sounds a bit silly, don't you think?

I'm laughing as I'm saying this: it's silly to have numbered 30, not to report it so (as you're doing). How bizarre.

[Case]

Originally posted by MadScot
Case

I'm afraid it's rather more complicated than that
<snip>
To be precise, a British Regiment is NOT a Battalion

Yeah, I know. However, I was refering to battalion sized units being commonly called a 'regiment' - I've seen this trick non Commonwealth types before. For example, in some wargames I've seen Americans represent units with names like the '4th Tank Regiment' as an American style 3 Battalion unit.

Other tricks of British pattern units are that the WW1 era 'Artillery Brigades' were only battalion sized, and that unlike American cavalry designations a British squadron is equivalent to a company and a troop is equivalent to a platoon (and not a Battalion and company as is the case in the US).

BTW, from what I understand, American style regiments differ from Brigades in that the Regiments only ever consisted of 3 battalions of a similar unit, while Brigades contain 3 battalions (which may or may not be of the same type) along with some support troops. In WW2 a 'Regimental Combat Team' was essentially a brigade as they contained 3 battallions along with support troops.

[MadScot]

Regarding my posting discussing bn/rgt numbering which had an example in it: I have now learned that the army has disbanded/merged a large number of territorial battalions, along with renaming them (again!) and there is no longer a 3 PWO or 4 PWO, these having become "The East and West Riding Regiment" - still an infantry unit, a "riding" being an area not referring to "riding" anything. So the specific example is not correct any more 9although the principle is the same)

RIII: actually thinking about it (over the New Year) I realised that the incredibly high battalion numbers of Great War regiments is rather poignant and saddening; after all, it rather reflects the very large numbers of men engaged (and consequently injured or killed) during the war.

Case - it's not surprising that people get this all confused; having taken a peek at the Army's own web site they use regiment to mean battalion in a number of places, even for infantry units.

In the case of other branches of the service, regiments are indeed battalion sized manoeuvre units - Engineering 'battalions' all being numbered regiments, despite all wearing engineering badges, not individual regimental badges.

[nixon]

And Gannon, now that you've had it all explained by the experts, here's something that might help you.
Quite useful, if you ever stumble across books featuring troops movements and the like.

[TheStinger]

In the UK a battlegroup is formed from infantry battalions and armoured regiments this could correspond to a regiment in the US

[Chairman Yang]

But how many men are there in every group, and how many groups of one kind fit into a greater group? For instance, how many battalions are there in a regiment, and how many men in each? Maybe they vary, but perhaps theres a usual amount?

[MadScot]

Originally posted by TheStinger
In the UK a battlegroup is formed from infantry battalions and armoured regiments this could correspond to a regiment in the US

I would tend to disagree; British forces are grouped in Brigades, consisting of a number of infantry battalions and armoured regiments, plus supporting arms. Within the brigade the battalion-level headquarters will 'cross-attach' subordinate units to create combined arms battlegroups of approximately battalion (in US terms) strength. (Swapping, for example an infantry company for an armoured squadron, to give some armoured support to the PBI and some infantry support to the tankies)

NATO doctrime is generally consistent in this regard; the primary manoeuvre formation is the battalion-level unit. All NATO forces, to my knowledge, refer to the controlling unit of these formations as a brigade, and its superior unit is the division.

Old Soviet doctrime and organisation was (is?) very different. Their primary manoeuvre unit was the regiment, which controlled typically three like battalions, and one 'unlike' battalion. A division controlled 3 regiments. Regiments do not cross attach, nor are battalions cross attached; rather the tank battalion in a motor rifle regiment would be split between the three infantry battalions as needed.

[MadScot]

Originally posted by Chairman Yang
But how many men are there in every group, and how many groups of one kind fit into a greater group? For instance, how many battalions are there in a regiment, and how many men in each? Maybe they vary, but perhaps theres a usual amount?

Maybe they vary....

That has to be the understatement of the day!

Firstly, always distinguish between the official strength of a unit - often referred to as the TO&E for "Table of Organisation and Equipment". That's how many men (tanks, spears, whatever) there are meant to be in the unit. The chances of any unit being 'to' its TO&E on any given day is vanishingly small.

Wartime losses obviously affect unit strengths. So do peacetime recruitment failings, attrition, treasury penny-pinching (lets leave one company in each battalion understrength, that way we save money and keep the same number of units, no-one will notice).

More bizarrely, units can end up over their TO&E, especially in wartime. Units have a habit of 'acquiring' extra assets - "truck, what truck sargeant, I don't see a truck". Some US units in France in 1944 were waaaay over their TO&E, by the expedient of recovering damaged or unserviceable vehicles and 'forgetting' to report when they were made fit for use; you can never have enough trucks, for example, so everyone tended to accumulate them when they could.

All that being said, some typical organisational numbers.

It's generally held that a commander should not deal with fewwer than 3 or more than 5 or 6 sub units. Fewer and all he does is duplicate his subordinates' role; more and he will fail to follow each unit adequately. Almost all military organisations therefore have a 'management ratio' of approximately 4.

Therefore a Corps will command between 3 and 5 divisions, typically.

Each Division will have perhaps 3 or 4 Brigades.

A Brigade will have 3 to 5 battalions.

A battalion will have 3 to 5 companies.

A company will have 3 to 5 platoons

And a platoon will have 3 to 5 squads, each of about 8 men.

A ha, you say, they break the rules at squad level; the most junios commander - squad leader - and he has 8 men to lead. Well, not quite. Many armies consider squads to consist of 2, or even 3, 'fire-teams', each of, you guessed it, 3 to 5 men.

So, building the unit strengths back from the bottom, and ignoring supporting services (supply, engineering, artillery, etc.) we get:

Squad : 8 men + commander

Platoon : 30 men (3 squads plus commander + 'extras', there are always a few 'extras' at any command level)

Company : 110 men (3 platoons, plus rather more extras)

Battalion : 500 men (4 companies, plus a LOT of extras; often there will be a dedicated recce platoon, for example)

Brigade : 2000-2500 men (4 battalions, say)

Division : 10,000 men (3 Brigades, plus a LOT of extras here too)

Like I said, that's a HYPOTHETICAL organisation; any decent military history on a given unit or campaign will give specifics for units relevant to the book.