Portal:British Army
The British Army.svg) The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of British Armed Forces. As of 2018, the British Army comprises just over 81,500 trained regular (full-time) personnel and just over 27,000 trained reserve (part-time) personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with an antecedent in the English Army that was created during the Restoration in 1660. The term British Army was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Although all members of the British Army are expected to swear (or affirm) allegiance to Elizabeth II as their commander-in-chief, the Bill of Rights of 1689 requires parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army; hence the reason it is not called the "Royal Army". Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The British Army has seen action in major wars between the world's great powers, including the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War and the First and Second World Wars. Britain's victories in these decisive wars allowed it to influence world events and establish itself as one of the world's leading military and economic powers. Since the end of the Cold War, the British Army has been deployed to a number of conflict zones, often as part of an expeditionary force, a coalition force or part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation. Read more... Selected article
Territorial soldiers, or Territorials, are volunteers who undergo military training in their spare time either as part of a formed local unit or as specialists in a professional field. TA members have a minimum commitment to serve 27 training days per annum, with specialists only required to serve 19 days, which normally includes a two-week annual camp. As a volunteer military reserve raised from local civilians, the TA may be considered a militia and several units bear the title "militia", although historically, the British official term Militia designated a specific force, distinct from the Volunteers and the Yeomanry. Territorials normally have a full-time job or career, which in some cases provides skills and expertise that are directly transferable to a specialist military role, such as NHS employees serving in TA Royal Army Medical Corps units. All Territorial personnel have their civilian jobs protected by employment law should they be compulsorily mobilised. There are currently approximately 34,000 serving members in the TA, although it has a target established strength of 42,000.
Selected biography
At the outbreak of World War I Lawrence was a university post-graduate researcher who had for years travelled extensively within the Ottoman Empire provinces of the Levant (Transjordan and Palestine) and Mesopotamia (Syria and Iraq) under his own name. As such he became known to the Turkish Interior Ministry authorities and their German technical advisors. Lawrence came into contact with the Ottoman-German technical advisers, travelling over the German-designed, -built and -financed railways during the course of his researches. Thus on the eve of World War I, the Ottoman authorities would have already regarded Lawrence as a foreigner who was known to have detailed knowledge of Ottoman frontier territories bordering on the British sphere of influence at Suez and in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Once the Ottoman Empire joined the war as a German ally, the Ottoman Interior Ministry would have regarded Lawrence and men like him as suspect enemy aliens who might be spies working for their governments.
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From its formation, the regiment served in the armoured role with first Challenger 1, then Challenger 2. However, in 2005, as part of the re-organisation of the army, the regiment started converting to the formation reconnaissance role, re-equipping with the FV107 Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicle. The regiment is organised into a total of four squadrons, each of which perpetuates one of the antecedent regiments:
Selected equipmentThe SA80 (Small Arms for the 1980s) is a family of 5.56 mm small arms designed and produced (until 1988) by the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock. In 1988 production of the rifle was transferred to the Royal Ordnance’s Nottingham Small Arms Facility (later British Aerospace, Royal Ordnance; now BAE Systems Land Systems Munitions & Ordnance). In 2000, Heckler & Koch, at that time owned by Royal Ordnance, were contracted to upgrade the SA80 family of weapons. Two hundred thousand SA80s were re-manufactured at a cost of £400 each, producing the L85A2 variant. Changes focused primarily on improving reliability and include: a redesigned cocking handle, modified bolt, extractor and a redesigned hammer assembly that produces a slight delay in the hammer’s operation in continuous fire mode, improving reliability and stability. The L85A2 can also mount the HK AG36 40 mm grenade launcher in a configuration similar to the M203 grenade launcher. The addition of the grenade launcher adds another 3.30 lb (1.49 kg) to the L85A2's weight. From 2007 an upgrade including the provision of ACOG Sights, a new handguard incorporating Picatinny Rails (with optional hand grip/bi-pod). Rifle and a new vortex style flash hider is being introduced for use by selected units }} Related portalsSelected image
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