British Army
From Military
The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces, including over 100,000 regular personnel and 40,000 Territorial Army members.
When the UK was created by unifing the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, the British Army was created out of existing regiments from the two countries, and was originally administered by the War Office in London. Since 1963 it has been managed by the the Ministry of Defence, alongside the Naval Service and Royal Air Force.
Contents |
[edit] Structure
The British Army is divided into two top-level Commands, responsible for providing forces at operational readiness, for employment by the Permanent Joint Headquarters.
The Adjutant-Generals organisation is responsible for most of the recruitment and personal and professional training of personnel; whilst Land Command is responsible for resources, planning and ensuring the formations are ready for deployment.
The command structure is hierarchical with divisions and brigades controlling groupings of units from an administrative perspective. Major units are Regiment or Battalion-sized, with minor units being smaller, either Company sized sub-units or Platoons. All units within the service are either Regular (full-time) or Territorial Army (part-time), or a combination with sub-units of each type.
[edit] Divisions
A division is a formation of three or four brigades, around twenty thousand personnel, commanded by a Major General.
The British Army has two deployable divisions, capable of fully deploying immediately to operations:
The remaining divisional headquarters, London District and HQ Northern Ireland, act as regional commands in the UK. They train formations and units under their command for operations in the UK and overseas. This task leads to them being described as Regenerative Divisions. These divisions would only be required to generate field formations in the event of a general war.
- 2nd Division - (Scotland and the North of England)
- 4th Division - (East Midlands and South East England)
- 5th Division - (Wales, West Midlands and South West England)
- Headquarters Northern Ireland (also covering Royal Air Force and Royal Navy)
- London District (also covering ceremonial duties in London)
Several infantry regiments are organised into five administrative divisions based on the type of infantry unit or traditional recruiting areas:
[edit] Brigades
A brigade contains three or four battalion-sized units, around 5000 personnel and is commanded by a one star officer, Brigadier. The brigade will contain a wide range of military disciplines allowing the conduct of a spectrum of military tasks.
The brigade would be required to deploy up to three separate battlegroups, the primary tactical formation employed in British doctrine. The battlegroup is a mixed formation around the core of one unit, an armoured regiment or infantry battalion, with sub-units providing artillery, engineers, logistics, aviation, etc., as required.
