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Remembered Today:

Composition of a Brigade Headquarters


Arthur Adamson

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16 hours ago, Muerrisch said:

Frogsmile: were my insertions from the Times and Hansard similarly clogging?

I can easily remove them.

 

Every one of the articles relates to the tracking down of the precise dates, concerning the changes, that you committed yourself to finding, so they were entirely relevant to what you set out to do.  As that is self evident I don't really understand the point of your question and can only conclude that it was posed out of an impish sense of mischief.  The two cases are manifestly entirely different.

Edited by FROGSMILE
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3 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

 

Every one of the articles related to the tracking down of the precise dates, concerning the changes that you committed yourself to, so they were entirely relevant to what you set out to do.  As that is self evident I don't really understand the point of your question and can only conclude that it was posed out of an impish sense of mischief.  The two cases are manifestly entirely different.

Thank you very much.

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1 hour ago, Ron Clifton said:

Please don't!!

 

I was aware of the site but not quite how comprehensive it is, and it will enable me to fill in some gaps in my own databases.

 

Ron

 

Thanks Ron. Tell you what I will do. It's obviously very useful to many. I have posted this before but the link is dead. I found the new location of these files and think some have been added. So, will add a link here to the old thread (to which I will add the new link), then will delete the long list. Am all for an easy life and life's hard enough.

 

Mike

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OK, hopefully this will take you to the original thread and the relevant post which should contain all the information. Any problems give me a shout.

 

CLICK

 

Cheers Mike

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THIS ONE DRAWS NO BLOOD, I HOPE OTHERS ARE BETTER

 

918BQAH War Establishment British Infantry Battalion 31 October 1918

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8 minutes ago, Muerrisch said:

THIS ONE DRAWS NO BLOOD, I HOPE OTHERS ARE BETTER

 

918BQAH War Establishment British Infantry Battalion 31 October 1918

 

I see what you mean. Will have a look and and swer (if there is one) in the other thread, if that's ok.

 

Cheers Mike

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Thanks Mike!

 

I have now downloaded the full list, as well as all the .pdfs. I need the list as an index, but I now have it saved as a Word document.

 

Ron

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1 Jan 1921, and retained for brigadier.

I used to sit behind two, with prominent stars and crown, in St Boniface Church, JHQ Rheindahlen until I became Churchwarden and thus trumped them by sitting front and centre aisle, with a reserved seat back and centre aisle.

[the logic being i/c front of house, during arrivals, and i/c departures. Very military.]

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13 hours ago, PhilB said:

Although in post #35 it says the new rank of brigadier comes in 1928?

The badge came in with the creation of colonel(s) commandants in 1920/21, who were renamed brigadiers in 1928. It was pre-empted in Blackadder Goes Forth where Bill Wallis's character wore the new insignia.

 

Ron

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On 26/06/2020 at 08:47, FROGSMILE said:


At brigade level the BC of the supporting battery worked direct to the HQ just as the infantry battalions did, and when required a forward observer was sent forward from the battery.  It was at Division and Corps that greater liaison was exercised.  It should be borne in mind that brigades rarely worked independently of divisions (when they did special arrangement was made) and were just an integral part of the divisional effort.  As the war went on the artillery support was coordinated at an increasingly higher level in order to exploit mass effect.

Not sure about that.  By and large a battery supported a battalion. The Brigade CO - a Lieutenant Colonel would support an Infantry brigade. The Divisional artillery establishment was reduced to two Field Brigades in 1917, this recognised that Infantry divisions would normally man trenches with or two brigades in the line. It released a Field Brigade per division to be concentrated at the point of main effort.

Planning and commanding artillery fire was a complicated business. The idea was to centralise command at the highest level while delegating control to the lowest level. This was not easy to achieve with the communications equipment available 1914-1918 

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1 hour ago, sheldrake said:

Not sure about that.  By and large a battery supported a battalion. The Brigade CO - a Lieutenant Colonel would support an Infantry brigade. The Divisional artillery establishment was reduced to two Field Brigades in 1917, this recognised that Infantry divisions would normally man trenches with or two brigades in the line. It released a Field Brigade per division to be concentrated at the point of main effort.

Planning and commanding artillery fire was a complicated business. The idea was to centralise command at the highest level while delegating control to the lowest level. This was not easy to achieve with the communications equipment available 1914-1918 


I am aware of those aspects that developed during the war.  The OP asked specifically about the situation as at 1914 and my reply was intended to reflect that.  My understanding too, is that the Artillery Bde CO worked to the infantry Brigade that he supported, with each of his batteries supporting one of the infantry battalions.  
The query had been related to surprise that there was no artillery adviser in the infantry brigade HQ and my response was meant to be that the Artillery Bde CO worked to the infantry Bde HQ, but I mistakenly typed BC.  Thank you for pointing that out, it was an unintended error on my part and I wouldn’t have wanted for it to sit without correction.  My apologies to the original poster, Arthur Adamson.

The battery of guns in direct support to an Infantry battalion was in some ways not unlike the modern situation where a medium mortar platoon supports its battalion, and there were cases during the retreat from Mons where a section of guns from the battery supported individual infantry companies at dug-in positions, paying heavily when the time came to extract their guns from positions in direct view of the enemy.

Edited by FROGSMILE
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As the thread wandered on to Brigadiers, and Brigadier Generals, it might be appropriate to note that the rank titles flip-flopped more than once historically.

I have been reading a Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research number 190 and see that the changes before the ones we discussed were as recently as 1902: Brigadier General commanding brigades, 1905 : Brigadier in War Establishments, also Brigadier i/c Administration, 1906 Brigadier General, General Staff.

 

These may just be unintentional, perhaps even typos, but they might illustrate the enduring tensions of having a rank/ appointment which was often temporary, and perched uneasily between substantive colonels and substantive major generals.

 

The final change to Brigadier in 1928 was driven in part by the unfortunate position of senior Military Attachees to Embassy and High Commission staff, who, as Colonels of one sort or another were perceived as junior to the representatives of other nations. No less a figure that Earl Curzon urged the reinstatement of "Brigadier".

 

Only in 1946 did the rank become substantive, bringing the army in line with Commodore RN and Air Commodore RAF.

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On 07/07/2020 at 15:22, Muerrisch said:

As the thread wandered on to Brigadiers, and Brigadier Generals, it might be appropriate to note that the rank titles flip-flopped more than once historically.

I have been reading a Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research number 190 and see that the changes before the ones we discussed were as recently as 1902: Brigadier General commanding brigades, 1905 : Brigadier in War Establishments, also Brigadier i/c Administration, 1906 Brigadier General, General Staff.

 

These may just be unintentional, perhaps even typos, but they might illustrate the enduring tensions of having a rank/ appointment which was often temporary, and perched uneasily between substantive colonels and substantive major generals.

 

The final change to Brigadier in 1928 was driven in part by the unfortunate position of senior Military Attachees to Embassy and High Commission staff, who, as Colonels of one sort or another were perceived as junior to the representatives of other nations. No less a figure that Earl Curzon urged the reinstatement of "Brigadier".

 

Only in 1946 did the rank become substantive, bringing the army in line with Commodore RN and Air Commodore RAF.

 

The earlier designations are very interesting and seem to relate to the difference at the same level between an officer on the staff in a formation HQ and the officer actually commanding a brigade in field operations, just as these matters of pecking order had to be addressed with the Colonel Commandant/Colonel on the Staff..

 

The Commodore RN was originally, just like Brigadier General, a non-substantive, temporary appointment.  It would be interesting to know when that changed, although perhaps as a separate thread.  Horatio2 will probably be able to advise.

Edited by FROGSMILE
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If Wiki is correct, startlingly, Commodore RN substantive as recent as 1997.

 

That would suggest that the RAF Air Commodore was the earliest to a substantive rank at the [modernism] one star level.

 

A new thread would be good. One of the best Horatio Hornblower fictitional novels has him as commodore of a very mixed bag of ships in the Baltic.

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Yes the Royal Navy was behind the curve on this. I think it was around the 1994 Pay Review that Commodore became a paid rank. Before that a Captain RN with 6 years seniority was on the same rate of pay as a Brigadier.  I remember working in Main Building in the 1980s when Directors in Naval Staff branches were Captains RN, Directors in Army Staff branches were Brigadiers and those in Air Staff branches were Air Commodores.  Captains RN appointed to Central Staff branches were appointed as Commodores, presumably to avoid confusing the Colonels and Group Captains working for them about the status of their Director.

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21 hours ago, Muerrisch said:

If Wiki is correct, startlingly, Commodore RN substantive as recent as 1997.

 

That would suggest that the RAF Air Commodore was the earliest to a substantive rank at the [modernism] one star level.

 

A new thread would be good. One of the best Horatio Hornblower fictitional novels has him as commodore of a very mixed bag of ships in the Baltic.

Commodore always used to be rank that gave command of a 'fleet' to someone who was not of admiral rank. Leave the job and revert to being Captain RN.

I always found it bizarre that there was a Commodore in command at Faslane - with responsibility for the nuclear deterrent, and other nuclear subs plus conventional, and all on operations, not refit, where as it was an Admiral in command of a dockyard with few operational responsibilities.

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