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This is a current list of regiments and corps of the British Army. [1]
When a regiment is given as n + n battalions, the first number is regular army battalions, and the second is Army Reserve battalions.
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The Royal Armoured Corps is the armoured arm of the British Army, that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as the Challenger 2 Tank and the Warrior tracked armoured vehicle. It includes most of the Army's armoured regiments, both the Royal Tank Regiment and those converted from old horse cavalry regiments. Today it comprises twelve regiments, eight regular and four reserve. Although the Household Cavalry Regiment provide an armoured regiment, they are not part of the RAC.
Options for Change was a restructuring of the British Armed Forces in summer 1990 after the end of the Cold War.
The Royal Yeomanry (RY) is the senior reserve cavalry regiment of the British Army. Equipped with Supacat Jackal variants, their role is to conduct mounted and dismounted formation reconnaissance. The Regimental Headquarters is located in Leicester, with squadrons in Fulham, Nottingham, Dudley, Croydon, Telford, and Leicester. The regiment is part of the Royal Armoured Corps and is only reserve cavalry regiment to resubordinate into regular brigade as part of the Future Soldier Programme, which in turn arose from the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy published in March 2021.
London District (LONDIST) is the name given by the British Army to the area of operations encompassing the Greater London area. It was established in 1870 as Home District.
The British Army is listed according to an order of precedence for the purposes of parading. This is the order in which the various corps of the army parade, from right to left, with the unit at the extreme right being highest. Under ordinary circumstances, the Household Cavalry parades at the extreme right of the line. Militia and Army Reserve units take precedence after Regular units with the exception of The Honourable Artillery Company and The Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers.
The uniforms of the British Army currently exist in twelve categories ranging from ceremonial uniforms to combat dress. Uniforms in the British Army are specific to the regiment to which a soldier belongs. Full dress presents the most differentiation between units, and there are fewer regimental distinctions between ceremonial dress, service dress, barrack dress and combat dress, though a level of regimental distinction runs throughout.
Colchester Garrison is a major garrison located in Colchester in the county of Essex, eastern England. It has been an important military base since the Roman era. The first permanent military garrison in Colchester was established by Legio XX Valeria Victrix in AD 43, following the Roman conquest of Britain. Colchester was an important garrison town during the Napoleonic Wars and throughout the Victorian era. During the First World War, several battalions of Kitchener's Army were trained there.
The 10th Armoured Division was an armoured formation of division-size of the British Army, raised during the Second World War and was active from 1941–1944 and after the war from 1956–1957. It was formed from the 1st Cavalry Division, a 1st Line Yeomanry unit of the Territorial Army (TA) which had previously been serving in Palestine. The division was converted from cavalry to armour and redesignated from 1 August 1941.
The Leicestershire Yeomanry (Prince Albert's Own) was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army, first raised in 1794 and again in 1803, which provided cavalry and mounted infantry in the Second Boer War and the First World War and provided two field artillery regiments of the Royal Artillery in the Second World War, before being amalgamated with the Derbyshire Yeomanry to form the Leicestershire and Derbyshire (Prince Albert's Own) Yeomanry in 1957. The regiment's lineage is currently perpetuated by E (Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry) Squadron of the Royal Yeomanry.
There are 13 cavalry Regiments of the British Army each with its own unique cap badge, regimental traditions, and history. Of the currently nine regular cavalry regiments, two serve as armoured regiments, three as armoured cavalry regiments, three as light cavalry, and one as a mounted ceremonial regiment. There are also four yeomanry regiments of the Army Reserve, of these, three serve as light cavalry and one as an armoured regiment. Each yeomanry light cavalry unit has been paired with a regular unit of the same role, the armoured yeomanry unit is paired with the two regular armoured units. All except the Household Cavalry are part of the British Army's Royal Armoured Corps.
In countries whose armies are organised on a regimental basis, such as the army of the United Kingdom, a regimental museum is a military museum dedicated to the history of a specific army regiment.
The North Somerset Yeomanry was a part-time cavalry regiment of the British Army from 1798 to 1967. It maintained order in Somerset in the days before organised police forces, and supplied volunteers to fight in the Second Boer War. It served on the Western Front in the First World War. At the outbreak of the Second World War, it continued to operate in the mounted role and then as a specialist signals unit. Postwar it joined the Royal Armoured Corps and later became infantry. Its lineage today is maintained by 93 Squadron 39 (Skinners) Signal Regiment.
The Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1794 to 1956. It was formed as a volunteer cavalry force in 1794 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Its volunteer companies played an active role with the Imperial Yeomanry in the Second Boer War, but opportunities for mounted action were much more restricted during the First World War and it was temporarily converted into a cycle unit. It remained a cavalry regiment throughout the interwar years, and was the last horsed unit of the British Army to see action, in the Syria–Lebanon Campaign of 1941, finally mechanising the following year. It served as motorised infantry in the North African and Italian campaigns of the Second World War. In 1956, it merged with the Yorkshire Hussars and the East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry to form the Queen's Own Yorkshire Yeomanry. Its lineage is continued today by A Squadron, the Queen's Own Yeomanry.
The East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry was a unit of the British Army formed in 1902. Units of Yeomanry Cavalry were raised in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the 18th and early 19th centuries at times of national emergency: the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. These were stood down once each emergency was over. The East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry, was established in 1902, and this saw action during the First World War both in the mounted role and as machine gunners.
During the First World War the British Armed Forces was enlarged to many times its peacetime strength. This was done mainly by adding new battalions to existing regiments. Although sometimes identified by shoulder titles, generally the new battalions could not be identified from appearance. Consequently, the units in this list have been assembled considering only those as having a uniquely different cap badge.
The page contains the current structure of the British Army. The British Army is currently being reorganised to the Future Soldier structure.
Future Soldier is a reform of the British Army resulting from the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy published in March 2021. The aim of the reform is to create a more lethal, agile and expeditionary force, able to fight and win wars and to operate in the grey-zone between peace and war. Future Soldier was published on 25 November 2021 and deals with the organizational changes of the British Army, with changes to personnel and equipment were set out in the Defence in a Competitive Age paper published on 22 March 2021.
