View Single Post
  #2  
Old 02-03-2015, 02:06 AM
Nyles Nyles is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 921
Default

This is my (about 1/3 complete set) of British infantry badges. The British had a completely different way of organising, being a much larger army with constant Colonial commitments. Each regiment had two regular battalions and two reserve (Territorial) battalions - at any given time, one regular battalion would be at home and the other deployed to India or elsewhere. A few of the reserve battalions maintained separate identities for various traditional reasons, and there were a few "orphan" Territorial units from areas to small to have a regular battalion based there. Interestingly pretty much all of the British regiments of that era no longer exist, with only the 5 Guards regiments and the Parachute Regiment surviving - the rest of the old line infantry regiments have been amalgamated together into large regiments to save money over the years. Again the big badges on the bottom are from Scottish regiments (only have one at the moment). Of particular interest for you guys would probably be the Parachute Regiment badge in the middle of the third row - they were first formed in 1941 and wear the same badge today, only with the Queen's instead of King's crown.



These are the British armored regiments - the armoured corps was organised totally differently - each regular (formerly cavalry but all converted to armor over the 20s and 30s) Armoured regiment was singular, and the reserve (Yeomanry) regiments all had distinct identities. Because of that, their numbers were smaller, and they're consequently rarer and more valuable (especially the Yeomanry) - hence why I have fewer as yet! Because of the reductions in cavalry in the 20s, many of the regular regiments were amalgamated, and many of the Yeomanry converted to artillery units. The one on top is the basic Royal Armored Corps badge, the ones below a mixture of regular and Yeomanry. Of particular interest would be the 17th / 21st Lancers badge, the death's head very similar to the one worn by the SS Totenkopf - awkward at the time, but they'd been wearing it since 1759.


Last edited by Nyles; 02-03-2015 at 02:23 AM.
Reply With Quote