American here. I'm trying to figure out how the fuck British

>>32621291
They also had pals battalions in ww1 where friends could jiin up in one group

Also each regiment was based on an area like the summer set group so an entire village of town would lose all there men after the war funny isnt it

>>32621444
Regional names did not necessarily mean that the regiment was regional. Many older regiments got given regional names in 1782 in order to drum up support for the 4 simultaneous wars Britain was fighting. However pretty soon after that it was abandoned but the names stayed.

The Somerset Light Infantry OP mentioned, for instance, never had any Pals Battalions raised in WW1.

I joined in 1961, but having had two sons and a grandson go through the process since and three brothers, a father, grandfather and great grandfather around to tell me drunken (and possibly fictitious tales) I'm fairly well versed.

British Army Infantry Regiments are split, for recruiting purposes, into national and local. The Gurkhas and other Commonwealth (or, in my time, Empire) are exempt from this for obvious purposes, but the rest of my post will also apply to them. "National" are the Foot Guards, who despite being split into Grenadier, Coldstream (English, mainly), Irish, Welsh and Scottish have recruits from all over the UK. I joined the Grenadier Guards, who mainly recruited from Southern England. It was not exclusive, however, just the majority. Parachute Regiment were also nationally recruited, aside from in the WW2 and immediate aftermath where they were mostly drawn from County Regiments and Guards.

Local, or County, Regiments are self explanatory. I am reliably informed that you could join a County Regiment with no connection to the county, but you would be in the absolute minority so no one really did unless they were Officers - who came from mainly Southern England. My eldest brother was in the Dorset Regiment, because we're from the county of Dorset and he was conscripted as such. After WW2, this was eased somewhat as Regiments were amalgamated (usually into the neighbouring county, so Dorset and Devon joined together) or scrapped.

In your example, the 6th Somersets was the battalion - the deploy-able and physical unit. 13th of Foot was their historic designation, not in use by the Great War but still on the books. 43 Infantry Brigade would have different units rotating in and out of it all the time, it's not a particularly important designation.

>>32621444
>>32621555
That is to say the vast majority of battalions in WW1 were made through random sorting of recruits (even the volunteers).

>>32621568

Jesus, I had no idea that we had British posters this old on /k/. But thank you, that's quite informative.

>>32621555
Pals Battalions were mainly a thing in the industrial towns and cities, where large groups of men would know each other from work. Somewhat more difficult if you are recruiting from North Yorkshire or the West Country, where even today there are mainly farms and sparse villages.

>>32621568
cont.

>The other battalions in the 13th were in completely different places.
This was made even more complex in WW2, where lots of new technology was adopted. Certain battalions would be trusted with airborne duties, or equipped with armour. In the case of the Foot Guards, we had friends in high places so managed to muster an SAS Squadron, our own tanks and tank destroyers, parachute assets and some other interesting bits along with the light infantry role. After the war we retained the parachute capability in the form of Guards Independent Parachute Battalion, which was later revised down to a Company but not before it formed the pathfinding capability for 16th Para Brigade. It is now a platoon, and going strong. The SAS Squadron - G, for Guards, was reformed in 1966 and continues to this day.

Just think of battalion as the largest unit given a designated role, and everything above that being mainly administrative.

>>32621568
I believe you're mostly correct except that brigades were much less fluid in WW1. Every battalion that started in the 43rd, to go with OP's example, stayed in it from 1916 to 1918. The Division was by far the most important strategic unit of WW1 though.

Also in WW1 they stopped allowing local regiments after the first day of the Somme.

I have a fun fact about the 6th Somerset! In one day, 16th of September 1916, every field officer they had died! All in less than 12 hours!

Type !unsubscribe to unsubscribe from "incredibly grim facts!"

>>32621677

That's pretty dire.

>>32621686
You have not unsubscribed from "incredibly grim facts!"

Did you know WW1 created the deadliest single day in the history of at least 4 militaries!? It's true! Britain, France, Australia and South Africa all experienced their deadliest single day of fighting at various points during WW1. Britain lost almost as many men on July 1st 1916 as it had the previous 100 years combined! They averaged two dead soldiers per yard gained!

>>32621778
Jesus Christ.

!unsubscribe

>>32621778
Tell me more

>>32621933
World War 1 is one of the first wars lasting years where the majority (2/3) of deaths were due to combat, rather than disease! This is doubly impressive given that the majority of the war was spent sitting in a muddy trench in the rain!

>>32622017
Also keep in mind that this was the era of Spanish Flu!

>>32621291
(Very roughly, changes dependent on unit and time period)
> 4 Sections to a platoon (including support weapons section)
> 3 Platoons to a company (non including HQ platoon/section)
> 5-9 companies to a battalion
> 3-6 battalions to a regiment
> 2-4 regiments to a brigade
> 2+ brigades to a division (in terms of what constitutes a WW2 division)

>>32622047
I get that but it seems like in WW1 they didn't seem to respect regiments in the sense of keeping them a cohesive unit. The 14th division is divided into 3 brigades, each having 5+ battalions in them from different regiments.

For example the 43rd brigade had:

6th Battalion, The Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert's)
6th Battalion, The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
6th Battalion, The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
10th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry
9th Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
7th Battalion, The King's Royal Rifle Corps

>>32622232
Yeah not at all, and even moreso in later wars, because you might have a certain battalion or regiment attached to another battlegroup or in support of another battalion/regiment, thus they would still be part of their brigade but would receive orders from the leading battalion/regimental HQ dependent on who was the lead element of that operation. Pretty messy, even more when you had infantry attached to mechanised or armoured units in support or vice versa.