Military organization is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer military capability required by the national defence policy. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nation's armed forces. Armed forces that are not a part of the military or paramilitary organizations, such as insurgent forces, often mimic military organizations, or use ad hoc structures. Military organization is hierarchical. The use of formalized ranks in a hierarchical structure came into widespread use with the Roman Army. In modern times, executive control, management and administration of military organizations is typically undertaken by the government through a government department within the structure of public administration, often known as a Department of Defense, Department of War, or Ministry of Defence. These in turn manage Armed Services that themselves command combat, combat support and service support formations and units. (wiki) It is common, at least in the European and North American militaries, to refer to the building blocks of a military as commands, formations and units. In a military context, a command is a collection of units and formations under the control of a single officer. In general it is an administrative and executive strategic headquarters which is responsible to the national government or the national military headquarters. It is not uncommon for a nation's services to each consist of their own command (such as Land Force Command, Air Command, and Maritime Command in the Canadian Forces), but this does not preclude the existence of commands which are not service-based. A formation is a composite military organization that includes a mixture of integrated and operationally attached sub-units, and is usually combat-capable. A formation is defined by the US Department of Defense as 'two or more aircraft, ships, or units proceeding together under a commander.'[wiki] The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes a formation as an 'arrangement or disposition of troops.' Formations include brigades, divisions, wings, etc. A typical unit is a homogeneous military organization, either combat, combat support or non-combat in capability, that includes service personnel predominantly from a single Arm of Service, or a Branch of Service, and its administrative and command functions are integrated (self-contained). Anything smaller than a unit is considered a "sub-unit" or "minor unit". Please note that for simplicity purpose we included descriptions only of the infantry units and we did not include support aviation and strategic weaponry units.
Example: fire-team in action. Example: Russian / Soviet platoon near barracks (circa 1988) |
Military Ranks >