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British Rank System


Subdeacon Joe

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https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/05/untangling-british-army-ranks/?fbclid=IwAR0b5vrTVXBafu2SiQyFlp-hhAJDMl15s5eCURTIJczhst7tWzwZUcLKC5g

 

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The British army that served in American during the Revolution was composed primarily of infantry regiments. The full, or established, strength of infantry regiments varied during the course of the war, and actual strength was almost invariably different from the established strength, but a good rule of thumb is to think of a regiment as consisting of about 500 soldiers. There were exceptions, but this is a good overall guideline. Regiments were typically divided into ten companies of equal size. In most regiments, each company had three officers, and the regiment also had five staff officers; this sounds simple enough, but there were a number of nuances.

In general, each company was commanded by a captain. Three of the company commanders, however, also held higher ranks in the regiment: the colonel, the lieutenant-colonel, and the major. These three officers were collectively called field officers. So a regiment of ten companies had three field officers and seven captains, each commanding one company. On regimental muster rolls we sometimes see the field officers referred to as, for example, “Major and Captain,” but in common parlance only the senior of the two ranks was used. Companies were generally referred to by the name of the commanding officer, for example, “Captain Handfield’s company” or “Lt. Col. Campbell’s company”, but the field officers’ companies might be referred to only by the rank since there was only one of each field officer, for example, the major’s company.

The next company officer was the lieutenant. This was true in all companies but one. The colonel’s company had a specialized rank called captain-lieutenant. Although the colonel was the commander of the regiment, he usually also held other roles (more on that later), so he was seldom present with the regiment. This meant that the next officer of this company, normally a lieutenant, was almost invariably in sole charge of the company. To acknowledge this, his rank was called captain-lieutenant. For a long time this rank had the authority of a captain but the pay of a lieutenant, but in the early 1770s it had been declared equal to captain. It nonetheless retained the title of captain-lieutenant, and there was only one officer of this rank in a regiment. The colonel’s company was always referred to by the name of the colonel, rather than of the captain-lieutenant.

 

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10 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/05/untangling-british-army-ranks/?fbclid=IwAR0b5vrTVXBafu2SiQyFlp-hhAJDMl15s5eCURTIJczhst7tWzwZUcLKC5g

Kind of confusing.  Some people wonder why a Lieutenant General is a higher rank than a Major General.  Historically, it was originally called Sergeant Major General and over time the word Sergeant was dropped off.  A lieutenant Colonel was known originally as the Colonel's Lieutenant which was higher than a Major and it eventually evolved into Lieutenant Colonel.  Lieutenant Colonel is sometimes referred to as Light Colonels or, Half Colonels.

In Canada our generals wear a silver maple leaf as opposed to a star, but we refer to them as  a one star or two star general, obviously an American influence.

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On 5/24/2019 at 8:40 AM, Buffalo Creek Law Dog said:

In Canada our generals wear a silver maple leaf as opposed to a star, but we refer to them as  a one star or two star general, obviously an American influence.

Well, a one maple general would sound silly.

Tasty though.

:lol:

We don’t officially call them by their stars though. Brigadier, Major, Lieutenant, and General.

 

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4 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

Well, a one maple general would sound silly.

Tasty though.

:lol:

We don’t officially call them by their stars though. Brigadier, Major, Lieutenant, and General.

 

That's interesting, we will, at base level say something like, "A two star is coming in today." Rather than a Major General.  Our Chief of Defence Staff, a general, is always referred to as the CDS.  Our army and air force officer ranks are the same as yours, however, our navy officer ranks are slightly different.  Our navy first level officer rank is an Acting Sub Lieutenant (Army/Airforce  2nd Lt), Sub- Lieutenant (Army/Airforce 1st Lieutenant) Lieutenant (Army/Airforce Captain).  Flag Officers, Commodore (Army/Airforce BGen) the rest are the same as the USN.

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