Talk:Battalion

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

C

This article has been rated as C-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military science, technology, and theory task force

The strategy game

Battalion is also an online turn-based strategy game. But when I tried to edit the page accordingly, it was rejected. Why?

Well, actually it wasn't rejected, but now you've drawn my attention to it it has been removed. Why? Because it read like an advert and was unencyclopaedic (e.g. it referred to players in the 2nd person) and because it was in completely the wrong place. This is not a noticeboard for game fans. -- Necrothesp 03:32, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Misc editorial questions

I am not an expert but why does the symbol refer to the AUSTRIAN 14th battalion? I can see nothing to indicate its nationality. 82.212.19.84 15:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the picture in the top right corner of a platoon when the article is about a battalion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:4901:8930:30F8:2AD4:91A5:8D47 (talk) 04:25, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

US Section

Whoever wrote the sentence below needs to check their source. Old English alphabets DID have the letter Jj. It was originally the letter Ii with a swash attached to it. The letter's history goes back to ancient Rome. The reason there was no company J (back in the day) is because the letters I and J looked too similar to make any distinction with some handwriting. NOW, the omission of Co. J is by tradition.

"There was no J company or troop: the letter J was traditionally not used because in 18th and 19th centuries the old English alphabet did not have the letter "J" and was never added because of tradition."

If the author does not wish to make this correction, I will gladly do it. Best wishes. Jaaches (talk) 13:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)JAACHES[reply]

I changed it back to the way I posted it on 14 June 07, before it was erroneously changed on 3 Dec 14. Yes, the letter existed, but it was not commonly found in most printer's type face blocks, so as a matter of practicality, as 'J' was not commonly used in print, the custom was then (now having become tradition) to not use 'J' in either printed/typed or written form to designate a military unit.CobraDragoon (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the US section needs a lot of work. It reads quite poorly with the parts for the Marine Corps inserted with parentheses after every point. I think we should make two sections, one for the Army, one for the Marines, describing the structure of a battalion in both. In the Army, at Battalion is commanded by a Major, sometimes at Lt. Col. A brigade is commanded by a Colonel.

Agreed, it very wordy and needs condensing perhaps using the British entry as an example? Also the tactical elements are similar if not essentially the same for both entries and should perhaps reflect that rather than as sub sections of a particular nation.Twobells (talk) 09:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted the wholw 'tactical communications' section, it's not relevant here. If I have time I will give the whole US section a very heavy edit. 12:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.147.186 (talk)

It should probably be explicitly stated what the difference is between organic and separate battalions. Mad2Physicist (talk) 06:18, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Communications

I think the material on tactical communications in the US Army is interesting, but misplaced. Pete Fenelon 21:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose of article

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The lead paragraph is nothing but a definition. Most of the rest of the article is unrelated to Battalions, and is general background information on military organizations. The article doesn't cite a single source... what is encyclopedic about this topic?StreamingRadioGuide 06:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting point, but does not battalion have meaning distinct from other orgs? MadZarkoff (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

HQ Companies

Does anyone know, in the British Army is the Commanding Officer of a Battalion also the Officer Commanding the Headquarters Company? Or does the HQ Company have its own commander (presumably a Major) as the other companies do? 86.158.11.109 (talk) 04:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Officer Commanding the HQ company (or Support Company as they are often now known) are indeed commanded by a Major. This is a separate appointment to Regimental 2ic also.--Mlongcake (talk) 09:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HQ Company (HQ Coy.) and Support Company (Sp.Coy) are NOT different terms for the same company. They are separate entities each with their own Officer Commanding (OC).

Fire Services Battalions

I'm not comfortable making the change yet as a newbie, but battalion is also in common usage in the American fire service to denote a subdivision of a fire department. Inclusion might be considered 1) limited in scope and as such not a world view on the subject 2) jargon 3) too broad within the scope of the present article. Any thoughts on how to best work this additional definition into the article? Random memo (talk) 03:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some fire departments, such as the FDNY use the term battalion in their organizational levels. Can someone put this in? Mazeau (talk) 01:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

-Actually, I'd say 99% of fire departments in the US use battalion in the organizational levels. I was surprised not to even find any mention of fire departments. I wouldn't be surprised if South America and Canada follow the battalion organizational leveling too. Usually it can be worded differently, like "district chief" instead of battalion chief, but they are still the same exact thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.170.39.28 (talk) 11:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RSO

Can anyone confirm that the RSO is actually an officer from the Royal Corps of Signals? I have never heard of this before!--Mlongcake (talk) 09:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I served in the Signal Platoon of a UK Infantry Battalion and the RSO was always from my cap badge.Demobbed (talk) 00:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Correct. The Royal Corps of Signals do not operate Battalion level.

Theatre of War

What is "Theatre of War II" other than a game? Should this be "World War II"? I can't find any reference to "Theatre of War II" as a conflict in WikiPedia or Google. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barwise1 (talk • contribs) 13:06, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Historical meaning

The term "battalion" appears in Manuals of Arms from the early 18th Century, but the battalion they refer to is not the modern battalion. The 1740 French Manual of Arms prescribes that except in the most unusual circumstances, His Majesty's infantry regiments will deploy and fight in a single battalion including all seventeen companies.

The British system was different, as the regiment did not deploy as such, but raised, equipped, and trained one or more battalions which did deploy to the theatre of operations. Many, if not most, regiments of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars fielded a single battalion.Cybersharque (talk) 22:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unit numbers in the US military

I'm not sure if this is the place, but I can't find anything about it anywhere. How do US unit designation numbers work these days? Why are the unit numbers so high? Is each battalion (or other sized unit) given it's own unique number, regardless of what unit it is part of? To make sure they never confuse one "13th Battalion" with another "13th Battalion"? I'd always assumed that a unit was numbered within it's parent unit, i.e. "5th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment" and "5th Battalion, 7th Infantry", etc. But I see that the numbers go so high, up into the hundreds, even the thousands...there is no way one unit has that many battalions, or companies. So do they give them all a unique number, regardless of parent unit? Like, the 3rd Infantry doesn't have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, it might have 403rd, 211th and 109th, while the 7th Infantry has the 312th, 573rd and 200th? Is that how it works these days? Because I don't see why else the numbers would go so high. 400 battalions is like the size of an army, about 300,000 men. So there is no division with 1st through 400th Battalions, is there? The other possibility I thought of is that units are given two, three or four digit numbers depending on what area they specialize in? That's how you get weird numbers like "6941st Guard Battalion" (although it's not from the US, I've seen similar ones here, I believe. http://de.wiki.x.io/wiki/6941st_Guard_Battalion AnnaGoFast (talk) 23:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

AnnaGoFast, I believe you have a misunderstanding of the battalion designations to which you refer. If you are saying that the 3rd Infantry Regiment has battalions numbered with three-digits; you are incorrect – the 3rd Infantry Regiment has battalions numbered one through four, although the 3rd battalion is currently inactive. In the same manner, the 7th Infantry Regiment currently has only one battalion, the 2nd on active duty.

If by 3rd and 7th Infantry you meant divisions, then presently the 3rd Infantry Division contains battalions from the 7th Infantry Regiment (2-7, and 3-7), the 15th Infantry Regiment (3-15), the 28th Infantry Regiment (1-28), and the 30th Infantry (1-30). The numbers in parentheses indicate the battalion number and the regimental number, the – (dash) indicates that the regimental headquarters does not exist and that the battalion(s) report directly to a brigade or higher headquarters. If the regimental headquarters of the battalion existed as the next level of command, then the notation would be 2/7, indicating that the regiment was commanding its own battalions. (Currently, in the US Army, only the 75th Ranger Regiment still has this battalion/regiment hierarchy.) The 7th Infantry Division oversees several infantry battalions including: 2-1, 2-3, 1-17, 5-20, 1-23, & 4-23.

The first battalion of the 109th Infantry Regiment (1-109) currently serves in the 55th Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) and the first battalion of the 200th Infantry Regiment (1-200) serves in the New Mexico National Guard. The 211th and 312th Infantry Regiments are both inactive and I do not believe that the US Army has ever had infantry regiments numbered 403rd or 573rd, so I do not understand where you saw these.

The US Army does use discrete, and apparently most often random, two, three, and four digit numbers for special purpose battalions, such as the 6941st Guard Battalion, which served with US Army Berlin during the Cold War. (These numbers are usually very obscure with no apparent reason for their selection; could be random digits or a sort of Rube Goldbergian code or inside joke for their selection.) However, combat arms (currently classified as maneuver, fires, and effects) battalions are always identified as a battalion/squadron of a parent regiment for purposes of lineage and heraldry and the highest infantry battalion number I am aware of is the 5th battalion of the 20th Infantry Regiment (5-20).

I hope all of the above helps clear this up for you. See the following articles for more information re designation of US Army battalions: US Army Combat Arms Regimental System, US Army Regimental System, Company (military unit)#Modern use, and Structure of the United States Army. CobraDragoon (talk) 04:01, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Size

It is said in this page that battalions consists of 300-1000 men, does that mean the 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas is a battalion? RA9Markus (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs to be globalised

Currently the article focuses on the term "battalion" as it is used in Western countries. As a result, the lead generalises specific uses of the term as universal fact. For example, the only parts of the article which state that a battalion usually consists of 300 to 1,000 soldiers are in the U.S. and Canada sections. There is no reliable source given that says this is universally true. CentreLeftRight ✉ 07:37, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]