User blog:Jeremiah Garland/British Military Structure & Ranks

After seeing this blog by Lord Chancellor Mallace, I took it upon my self, as Keeper of the Rolls and Records for the Chancery, to go ahead and set up a preliminary listing of ranks for the army and navy. This is all based upon my own knowledge as well as a little historical research, and is subject to edit by the main HCOs (I think they're all pretty much admins anyway, so they can edit this blog). Furthermore, should this listing be approved and made official, it will be turned over to a page of the wiki.

Overall Organisation of the Military
Firstly, before going into the actual ranks, it is important to understand how the military of the Kingdom of Great Britain functions and is organised. The British Armed Forces (officially named His Majesty's Armed Forces) are divided into two separate branches: the Royal Army and the Royal Navy (later the Royal Air Force would get their own branch, but I'm not aware if whether or not Ishamel has developed our aircrafts yet). The Royal Navy also includes a smaller contingent of amphibious troops known as the Royal Marines, which receive their own ranks, commanding officers, etc. The so-called "commander-in-chief" of all the armed forces is the King himself, though most of these duties and responsibilities are bequethed to an appointed First Lord of the Admiralty or Secretary at War (in the case of this wiki, the latter). Therefore the top commander of all forces of His Majesty is Sven Daggersteel.

Army
Making up roughly 90% of the Royal Army is what is called the British Regular Army; the remainder is made up of various provincial forces, militias, mercenaries, etc. In turn, the British Regular Army is subdivided into three branches: the infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Each specialise in a certain function of battle, and I have no doubt that everyone reading this is perfectly aware as to how the three work, so I won't get into that.

Each of the three branches of the army are further divided into large units known as regiments (the concept of divisions, which would later be made up of several regiments, has not been invented). Contrary to popular belief, there are no set sizes for the number of soldiers there may be in a regiment; some, like the Royal Scots, had as many as 8,000 soldiers, whereas others, like the 82nd Regiment of Foot, had as few as 30.

Regardless of size, each regiment is led by a colonel, and depending on the situation, several regiments will be under command of a staff of major generals, lieutenant generals, and/or full generals (there's little to no set organisation for the appointment/assignment of generals, however they are promoted to such ranks by the King and/or Secretary at War). Field Marshals, though eventually becoming a completely honourary rank, do hold a certain degree of prestige in this time period. Though not an official "rank" on the same scale as general is, usually only one Field Marshal is ever appointed at a time, and their duty is to oversee all regiments in a given area during conflict (think Cornwallis, Wellington, or even Montgomery). The field marshal is usually hand selected by the King and/or Secretary at War among the highest-ranked senior generals.

Now, working in retrospect, a regiment is broken down into various battalions, each commanded by a lieutenant colonel. The sizing is again quite tricky; whilst a typical battalion might consist of roughly 650 soldiers, smaller regiments therefore had smaller battalions, and larger regiments meant larger battalions. A typical regiment, however, would house roughly 1-3 battalions. Breaking it down further, within a battalion there were generally five or six companies, which were each commanded by a major with a captain serving as second-in-command. After that, each company is again broken down into three to six platoons, which were commanded by a lieutenant and his staff of second lieutenants, making it the smallest military unit overseen by an officer.

Finally, a word on naming conventions. All regiments of the infantry branch of the army (or "Line Infantry") were named in accordance to their order of being raised. For example, the first and oldest infantry regiment is officially called the First Regiment of Foot, the second to be raised is the Second Regiment of Foot, and so on. A similarly yet more convoluted pattern occurs in the cavalry branch, with a wider array of naming options, such as the 1st Queen's Royal Dragoons, the 4th Queen's Lancers, the 17th King's Royal Hussars, et cetera. All artillery regiments are grouped into a single body known as the Royal Artillery and are not numbered. Regiments of the army, especially those of the infantry, may also receive alternate names (such as the "Royal Scots" for the 1st Regiment of Foot) or a special honour of denotation (such as the "Royal Welsh Fusiliers" for the 23rd Regiment of Foot), to add on to the confusion.

Navy
Fortunately, the naval conventions for structure are not as vast as the army's; but unfortunately, they are just as convoluted.

Basically, the Royal Navy was broken up into a handful of flotillas, or fleets of warships that could number anywhere from 5 to 200. They were strategically placed around the world; for example, there would have been a Caribbean Flotilla, Indian Flotilla, Mediterranean Flotilla (at Gibraltar), and the largest central flotilla in Britain proper. Each flotilla was commanded by a standing admiral, vice admiral, rear admiral, or commodore (depending on the flotilla's size and importance).

Independent of flotillas' structures, and also independent of location or situation, the British navy, at this point, was divided into three squadrons: the Red Squadron, the White Squadron, and the Blue Squadron (so named for the colour of the ensign each squadron's admiral wore). The Red Squadron was by far the largest and most prestigious, so its admiral (the Admiral of the Red) was also called the Admiral of the Fleet and thus seen as the overall commander of the British Navy. Second to him is the Admiral of the White, followed by the Admiral of the Blue, Vice Admiral of the Red, Vice Admiral of the White, and so on until Rear Admiral of the Blue, which is the lowest rank of admiralty achievable. Each of these nine admirals were strategically assigned to various flotillas or to posts within the office of admiralty, and during war time, the Admiral of the Red was called upon to act as commander of the navy in its entirety.

In each flotilla are a varying number of ships-of-the-line, frigates, gunboats, etc. Each ship-of-the-line was commanded by an officer with the rank of commodore, whilst all other warships were directed by captains, or, rarely, commanders.

The Royal Marines, being the hybrid of the Royal navy and army, nonetheless fell under the jurisdiction of the former. The marines were organised in a style similar to the army (though instead of forming dozens of regiments, they had only a handful of corps) but took on a mixture of naval and army ranks. Up until the 1770s, the highest rank a marine could achieve was lieutenant commander, which, on the naval spectrum, fell right under commander. Thus, marines could not captain warships but nevertheless had their own hierarchy; lieutenant commanders managed the corps as a whole, whilst lieutenants and ensigns led the smaller platoons.

Ranks
The following ranks are those which were in use in the British military in this time period, and thus do not match up exactly to today's standards. It should be noted that the paramount ranks for both the army and the navy (field marshal and admiral of the fleet, respectively) are not in themselves achievable ranks per se, but rather appointed positions in time of war, as mentioned above.

It should also be noted that every rank with an asterisk (*) next to it denotes a rank of a commissioned officer; all others are enlisted grades.

Army

 * 1) Field Marshal / Full General*
 * 2) General*
 * 3) Lieutenant General*
 * 4) Major General*
 * 5) Colonel*
 * 6) Lieutenant Colonel*
 * 7) Major*
 * 8) Captain*
 * 9) Lieutenant*
 * 10) Second Lieutenant / Cornet*
 * 11) Sergeant Major
 * 12) Sergeant
 * 13) Corporal
 * 14) Private

Navy

 * 1) Fleet Admiral*
 * 2) Admiral*
 * 3) Vice Admiral*
 * 4) Rear Admiral*
 * 5) Commodore*
 * 6) Captain*
 * 7) Commander*
 * 8) Lieutenant Commander*
 * 9) Lieutenant*
 * 10) Ensign*
 * 11) Midshipman
 * 12) Chief Petty Office
 * 13) Petty Officer
 * 14) Seaman