Hi all, My first question, I've sort of answered for myself. It was whether platoon numbers were regular, but I guess the answer would be "it varies" the same as I've seen with letters of anti-tank companies. I've been looking at the war diary of 1st Glasgow Highlanders and there are references to the companies (A-D, of course), and I've determined that 16, 17, and 18 Platoons were in D. And I think A included 7 and 8. How many platoons were there in a company - I expect it was four? Or was it only three?
As far as I know it was always three platoons to a rifle company in the British and CW armies. HQ Company could have up 6 or 7 platoons: antitank, mortar, AA (or MG), carrier, pioneer, signals, and admin. In the last year or so of the war these various platoons were divided between HQ and Support companies. I don't know how the platoon numbers ran, but check the bayonetstrength site and the Trux pages here.
The Brigade of Guards had to be different from more chippy line regiments and had numbered companies.
In some cases, as with the London Irish Rifles when there were two battalions, the rifle companies in 1st Bn were A-D, and 2nd Bn were E to H. In Italy, during the winter of 1944/45 for a time, there was a reduction to 3 rifle companies.
The naming of Plts & Coys were and still are largely left up to the Regt and Btn, so whilst there are trends towards some uniformity, you will get a lot of those outliers
"Chippy" is Guards speak for "Fish and chip mob" - well below the standards of the Brigade of Guards.
Yes, I had to look up the Scots Guards Company designations a while ago, most neatly laid out here of course; Orbats: Scots Guards I think the Irish and Welsh Guards used the numbering system. Looks like my explanation from Bayonetstrength excerpted above, giving the standard format. I know I've seen some references to units numbering just their Rifle Platoons but I can't recall if that was in standard Infantry Battalions (it was done by at least one Air Landing Battalion, which type units were constantly changing their set-up). Gary
Without looking it up, I think this is the same for 2NZEF Infantry battalions too....which makes sense given the NZ and Canadian structures are based on the British.
Platoons were numbered consecutively within the Infantry Battalion 1944-45 Infantry Battalion HQ: Command, Intelligence, Office, Medical, Sniper Section HQ Company: Company HQ, No1 Signals Platoon, No2 Administrative Platoon Support Company: Company HQ, No3 3" Mortar Platoon, No4 Carrier Platoon, No5 Anti-tank Platoon (6-pdr), No6 Pioneer Platoon A Rifle Coy: Coy HQ, Nos 7,8,9 Rifle Platoons B Rifle Coy: Coy HQ, Nos 10,11,12 Rifle Platoons C Rifle Coy: Coy HQ, Nos 13,14,15 Rifle Platoons D Rifle Coy: Coy HQ, Nos 16,17,18 Rifle Platoons