Talk:Officers' Training Corps

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Is the Officer Training Corps the British equivalent of U.S. ROTC? Rws1

Sort of, although I believe the ROTC is more integrated into the university programme. The OTC is entirely unconnected with the university itself and is run by the Army. Also, OTC cadets do not get commissions in the British Army - the experience a cadet gains may help his application for a commission, but it doesn't give him preferential treatment and you certainly don't have to have been in the OTC (or even be a university graduate) to get a British Army commission. The OTC is, however, part of the Territorial Army and cadets can get commissions in that. -- Necrothesp 16:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No it was created separately, but their used to be a joint yearly exercise for the last 15 years in the USA and UK(UOTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.197.114.42 (talk) 13:32, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They cant get regular commissions in the British army, but the TA is part of the British army, thus a TA commission is a "British Army commission". It is all one army... Bensonby 11:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The OTC is the UK equivalent of ROTC, officer cadets are allowed to apply for the royal commissioning board in their third year after passing MTQ1 (A Coy military training qualification 1) and MTQ2 (B Coy Military Training Qualification 2) officer commissioning isn't obligatory and neither is it handed out, instead OTC offers an alternate route to officer commissioning. Officer commissioning is for TA officer commissioning, a 'fast-track' route to gaining the Queens commission with a 1 month (I believe) training period at Sandhurst, this TA status merely refers to the candidates profile as a member of the armed forces, they are a part time soldier, other than that, the commission, pay and profile are pretty much the same.Kcheung123 (talk) 21:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also remember that the US ROTC was actually based upon the British OTC. Redd12 02:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do other UK Services have officer Training Corps, like the USAF and USN in the states?

Yes, they do. The Royal Navy have several units spread around the country, with a small patrol boat assigned to each. I can't remember the name right now, however! Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry 00:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

URNU - University Royal Navy UnitsBlackshod —Preceding comment was added at 15:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And the RAF have University Air Squadrons. 81.187.153.189 (talk) 13:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to support move at this time, with no prejudice for any future move if further evidence is found/presented. JPG-GR (talk) 20:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Officer Training Corps is the correct name for the OTC. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk | Sign 17:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not according to http://www.ulotc.co.uk/ which calls itself the University of London Officers Training Corps (my emphasis). Suggest you present some evidence that Officer Training Corps is correct in terms of WP:NC. Andrewa (talk) 08:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[1] This is a link to the official British army page on the OTC. It shows that OTC stands for Officer Training Corps —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaia Octavia Agrippa (talk • contribs)
Agreed. So, some people use one title, some the other. So...? Please read Wikipedia:Naming conventions, as it is the primary guide as to what is correct here. You might find Wikipedia:official names useful too although it's just a proposal at this stage. Andrewa (talk) 06:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Surely the fact that in the first line of this article it clearly states note not Officers, Officer's or Officers', means we the page should be moved to that title. Most people know this organisation as the Officer Training Corps, and that is what it is called officially. Therefore by WP:NC that it what it should be called. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk | Sign 21:02, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Peculiar, is it not? Yes, if that were to be a well-researched and important point, appropriate to the first sentence of the article, it certainly would mean this. But it's nothing of the sort.
Check the reference given supporting this claim and you'll see that it's just an article in which the OTC is mentioned in passing, and ...Officer... is used in the name without the s. This is not good support for the claim made, maybe some people use one name and others the other and nobody minds much - I don't think that's likely, but there's nothing in the citation that would suggest otherwise. If there's a genuine concern about getting the name right, then we should be able to find a quote that's specifically about this. If not then it doesn't belong in the lead sentence.
Please note I'm not convinced what the title should be, either way. But I am concerned that we make our decision wisely. If it's true that most people know this organisation as the Officer Training Corps, then that's a good argument. What's the evidence of this? If it's true that is what it is called officially, then that's not nearly so good an argument, and would only carry weight if we're unable to decide on the common usage... which often happens. But even then we'd need more than one passing reference to support this claim of official usage in view of the fact that there's also a seemingly official home page of one of the units that does use the s in its title. Andrewa (talk) 01:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a list of websites that use Officer Training Corps as the name of the OTC:

and there are many more out there. Does this qualify for most people know this organisation as the Officer Training Corps ? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk | Sign 16:36, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly an improvement. But I also get 156,000 ghits (your results may differ depending on your location) for officers training corps and many of them seem to be similarly official. So it's not as simple a question as one might think.
I wonder why the difference? Is there some pattern to which sites use which name? Perhaps there's been a renaming, sometime in history, and older units use one name, newer units the other, for example. This is the British Army, remember, and few institutions are as aware of their history.
And here's an interesting page: http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0265%2FCUOTC%2010%2F20%2F4 uses both forms of the name. It's just one of 184 ghits I get when I search on both strings. Hmmm.... and so does http://www2.army.mod.uk/uotc/index.htm which is less scholarly perhaps but more current. Both seem to have some authority. Hmmm.
Or, let's assume for the moment that http://www2.army.mod.uk/uotc/index.htm isn't just being careless when under the heading of University Officer Training Course it speaks of a University Officers Training Course. Is it possible that the whole program goes by one name, and the units by another? That would support your proposed move, but would make the current lead sentence look very silly and misleading indeed.
I've sent them an email to ask. Andrewa (talk) 17:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That will settle things. :) Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk | Sign 18:40, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It will hopefully add some pieces to the puzzle; Whether it will settle everything... we'll see. Andrewa (talk) 00:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have you had an email back Andrewa? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk | Sign 21:03, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not a word. Andrewa (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Article lead vs naming[edit]

Removed text:

(note not Officers, Officer's or Officers'<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/HistoryAndHonour/TaCentenaryStartsWithABang.htm|title=TA Centenary starts with a bang|publisher=Ministry of Defence|quote=The TA has around 36,000 soldiers throughout the UK and Gibraltar (31,000 are officers and soldiers; 5,000 are Officer Training Corps (OTC) at university; OTCs cannot be deployed)}}</ref>)

Replaced by a more informative paragraph, which I will provide with citations in the next few minutes.

Still waiting on an official response. Andrewa (talk) 20:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any response? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk | Sign 19:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

The article was moved to University Officer Training Corps without discussion. I served in it. It is officially called the Officers' Training Corps (OTC), whatever incorrect names may have spread around the internet. Despite the claims above, I have never heard it referred to as the Officer Training Corps by anyone who actually knew what they were talking about. I have therefore moved it back. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In support of this, see the London Gazette, the official British government publication, here, here and here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 20:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above, some MOD webpages do use "Officer Training Corps". Sadly, there are many such errors on MOD webpages. I suspect this is because the webmasters are generally not in the forces and know little about the forces. They therefore perpetuate the errors seen above and give them an unwarranted veneer of credibility. I have even seen an historical article which I wrote for Wikipedia lifted in toto and transplanted (uncredited) to an MOD webpage, presumably because the webmaster knew nothing about the subject and couldn't be bothered to do his own research (ironically, the original Wikipedia article was then tagged as a copyvio!). In these circumstances it's hardly surprising that errors creep in and the only really reliable online source is the London Gazette (although not even that is entirely error-free). -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bias/less than neutral point of view?[edit]

To me this article reads more like a advertising leaflet that an informative article. Using phrases like "With access to the Territorial Army's resources for adventurous training,[10] students are enabled to pursue their other hobbies alongside their degrees" gives me the feeling that it lacks a neutral point of view.

I also feel that some of the sources are not reliable. For example the statement, which appears a number of times in the article with slightly different wording, "...90% of those serving with an OTC do not go on to either the Regular or Territorial Army" which is sourced as coming from this quotation "Members of CUOTC leave Cambridge to benefit strongly in civilian careers (90%) or as high-achieving officers mainly in the Regular Army (8%) but also the Territorial Army (2%)." is misleading, there are two main problems I see with this. One being the fact that the figures are not representative of the whole OTC, since it's only looking at one unit of 18 - or, depending how you read it, as only one university in one unit of 18, since it is not clear if it's just talking about Cambridge University or the whole of CUOTC. The other issue I see it it is that if you look at the statement in context of two of the three universities being in the top 20 universities of 2010. Admittedly I'm making an assumption here but I think that this may skew the figures of the amount of leavers going to the Army/TR compaired to another one which may have a higher proportion of less prestigious universities - again leading to the assumption made being unreliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.219.171.183 (talk) 04:02, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Southampton UOTC under individual UOTC's[edit]

I seem to remember this archived page: https://web.archive.org/web/20041010073505/http://www.soton.ac.uk/~suotc/history.html from my OTC days, but lack the skill required to add it to the main article or even create a separate SUOTC page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.21.120.74 (talk) 20:25, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other Commonwealth OTC equivalents?[edit]

I seem to remember India once having having UOTC's which have now been replaced by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cadet_Corps_%28India%29

Should this be added to the see also links?

How many other Commonwealth nations had a OTC or UOTC? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.21.120.74 (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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