Unit Organization and Nomenclature

**ainamacil** · 07-19-2007, 21:28

So I was having a debate with a friend about this the other day (though it involved both M2:TW and the American Civil War, for context), and thought I might see what other Medieval players have to say about it.

When you refer to units, what do you call them?

To clarify:

I generally call one unit of troops a company. Three to four units are a battalion, two or more battalions are a division. A full stack is a corps, and three or more stacks are an army. But these are only my terms and specifications, based partly on the unit organization of the American Civil War.

I was just wondering if anybody else views their units in a breakdown like this, and what terminology/sizes you use. Of course, it's very possible that this is already established within the community, in which case I'll look like an idiot.

Wouldn't be the first time.

**TeutonicKnight** · 07-19-2007, 21:31

To me it's all an army. I guess I do think of the units in terms of companies, but I tend to look at it as a bulk item. For example, my spears are just "my spears", not "nine companies of spears".

I'll try thinking of it like that tonight though. Wonder if it'll change anything.

**Midnight** · 07-19-2007, 21:44

Unit. Army.

Perhaps multiple artillery pieces would be a 'Battery'.

It's simple, but it works.

Then again, I'm only loosely part of the community.

**Kadagar_AV** · 07-19-2007, 22:12

what midnight said:)

**Gorm** · 07-20-2007, 07:56

It is quite variable and it depends on the nationality of the army. Try this article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batallion

**ainamacil** · 07-20-2007, 16:15

Thanks for the link, Gorm, but I've done the reading.

I was mainly looking to see if anybody else was as big a nerd about their units as I was, really.

**gingergenius** · 07-20-2007, 18:51

erm basically its not really important.

but still to me, any stack no matter how big is an army.

a unit is a unit.

**John_Longarrow** · 07-20-2007, 21:32

I'm more guilty of thinking in terms of "Left, Center, Right, Reserves, Ranged, arty, etc..." than what a collection of any given unit would be.

**Didz** · 07-20-2007, 22:13

I just use Army and Unit. If I group several units together I just think of them as a group.

The whole concept is wrong in terms of medieval warfare and starting to use modern terminology just compounds the problem.

**Ciaran** · 07-21-2007, 10:04

I second Didz, though I would substitute "army" with "stack". An Army (ideally) would consist of more than one stack. I´d really love to see more multi-stack battles, like you get when fighting the Horde factions in BI.

**Didz** · 07-21-2007, 11:43

Historically, I imagine that unit nomenclature varied over time and culture. We know that the Romans actually numbered their legions, but not their auxilaries. I've seen medieval formations referred to as Battles and viking formations referred to as Boats. I beleive in India troops were organised into Cushoons. It would also seem logical that somewhere in this variety of systems we will probably find the orginal concept of the Battalion and Regiment that eventually became the more or less standard system for modern armies.

In England the nomenclature system was focussed on the captain who commanded the unit. (that's captain with a small 'c', being a leader of a group rather than a rank) A captain might be a nobleman or knight who was leading a mixed force of men-at-arms, archers and knights, or a mercenary leader who controlled a group of mercenaries. So one gets mentions of Sir Stanley's battle or Tobys Archers.

This system remained in use until the late 17th Century and so during the English Civil War companies were named after their captains and regiments (being a collection of companies) were named after their Colonels. Therefore, you get 'Newcastles White Coats', 'Hazelrigg's Lobsters', 'Prince Ruperts Horse' etc, and later during the Marlborough Wars 'Durrels Regiment'.

The battle order of the British Army at Culloden begins to show the first signs of a transition from commander focussed nomenclature to numbering though it is doubtful that the numbers were actually used by Cumberland at the time.

Battle order of the British Army at Culloden
Cobham’s (10th) and Kerr’s (11th) dragoons, Kingston’s Light Dragoons, the Royals (1st), Howard’s Old Buffs (3rd), Barrel’s King’s Own (4th) Wolfe’s (8th), Pulteney’s (13th), Price’s (14th), Bligh’s (20th), Campbell’s Royal Scots Fusiliers (21st), Sempill’s (25th), Blakeney’s (27th), Cholmondeley’s (34th), Fleming’s (36th), Munro’s (37th), Ligonier’s (48th) and Battereau’s (62nd) Foot

The problem with this system was that everytime the captain of a unit changed its name changed. It was George II who began to take an interest in regulating the dress and nomenclature of the British army, with the desired intention of standardising both the uniforms, the organisation and the naming of regiments to make them appear 'more like Royal forces than private armies bearing the distinctions of their colonels.' The first of these regulations was published in 1727 and further warrants and regulations were added to refine the transition over the next century. By 1742 we begin to see lists of uniform distinctions ordered by Regimental number rather than by Colonels name, and by 1830 we begin to see the numbers routinely suffixed with a Regimental Name (e.g. 16th (Bedfordshire)).

Nevertheless, higher level organisations such as Corps, Brigades and Divisions continued to be named after their commanders even though they nominally had numbers allocated. Thus at Waterloo in 1815, Maitland's Brigade was part of Cooke's Division, and it was Ponsonby's Brigade which was ordered to charge D'Erlons Corps, even though all these units actually had numbers.