Armed Forces

Equivalent Ranks

Commissioned Officers

	Navy		Army		Air Force
	Admiral of the Fleet		Field Marshal		Marshal of the RAF
	Admiral		General		Air Chief Marshal
	Vice Admiral		Lieutenant General		Air Marshal
	Rear Admiral		Major General		Air Vice Marshal
	Commodore		Brigadier		Air Commodore
	Captain		Colonel		Group Captain
	Commander		Lieutenant–Colonel		Wing Commander
	Lieutenant Commander		Major		Squadron Leader
	Lieutenant		Captain		Flight Lieutenant
	Sub–Lieutenant		Lieutenant		Flying Officer
	Midshipman		Second Lieutenant		Pilot Officer
	Officer Cadet		Officer Cadet		Flight Cadet

Non–Commissioned Officers

	Navy		Army		Air Force
	Warrant Officer		Sergeant Major		Warrant Officer
	Petty Officer		Sergeant		Sergeant

Enlisted Ranks

	Leading Seaman		Corporal		Corporal
	Seaman		Private		Aircraftman

Ranks

Highest non–commissioned rank in the British army		Regimental Sgt–Major
Lowest commissioned rank in the British army		2nd or Sub–Lieutenant
Highest rank in the Royal Marines		Lieutenant–General
First used in the British Army in the reign of James II, but used as a temporary rank only from 1740, and abolished in 1921; also used in the Royal Marines from 1913 to 1921, and in the RAF for its first 16 months (April 1918 to July 1919, when it was replaced by Air Commodore)		Brigadier–General
Between Ordinary and Leading Seaman		Able–bodied Seaman

Conscription in the UK

World War I

Military Service Act comes into force, making single men aged 18 to 41 liable to be called up

2 March 1916

World War II and After

Military Training Act makes single men aged 20 to 22 liable to be called up as "militiamen"		27 April 1939
National Service (Armed Forces) Act makes all males aged between 18 and 41 liable for conscription into the armed forces		3 September 1939
National Service Act extends conscription into peace–time		December 1948
Conscription formally ends		31 December 1960

Individual Servicemen

First person to be awarded the VC (1856, for action in 1854)			Lt. C. D. Lucas
The two youngest recipients of the VC	Aged 15 yrs 3 months 8 days, 15 yrs 100 days		Andrew Fitzgibbon
	(Approximately the same age, exact d.o.b. not known)		Thomas Flinn
Awarded a posthumous VC for his action in the Battle of Jutland, 1916 (aged 16, but not the youngest recipient)			Jack Cornwell
Surgeon Captain Arthur Martin–Leake (South African Constabulary), Captain Noel G. Chavasse (Royal Army Medical Corps), and Charles H. Upham (2nd NZ Expeditionary Force – Canterbury Regiment) are the only three men to be awarded			A bar to the VC
VCs in the Falkland Islands campaign, 1982 (both posthumous)			Lt–Col. Hugh "H" Jones
			Sgt. Ian John McKay
Awarded the VC for two incidents in Iraq, 2004 (Grenada–born)			Pte. Johnson Beharry
Awarded a posthumous VC for action in Afghanistan, 2006			Cpl. Bryan Budd

British Army Regiments

Beware of quiz questions that ask "What is the oldest regiment in the British army?"

There is no single answer to this question. Wikipedia appears to contradict itself several times over, and I have fallen into this trap myself on this website, until I discovered that I had listed multiple answers to the question. In the following table I have attempted (among other things) to address this issue by using wording (mainly lifted from Wikipedia) that may be suitable for use as quiz questions.

Familiar name for the 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland – formed in 1881 by the merger of the 42nd (Royal Highland) and 73rd (Perthshire) Regiments of Foot; the name was originally used for the 42nd regiment; formed originally from the the independent companies of militia that were raised from loyalist Highland clans for policing and peacekeeping duties, following the first Jacobite Rebellion (1715); wore kilts as part of its everyday uniform until 1940		Black Watch
Informal name of the Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons – the second most senior regiment in the British Army – formed in 1969 by the amalgamation of the Royal Horse Guards and the Royal Dragoons		Blues & Royals
First recruited on the Tweed by General George Monck in 1650, as part of Cromwell's New Model Army; the oldest regiment in the Regular Army in continuous active service (but not all of it with the Regular Army)		Coldstream Guards
Nickname of the 60th Regiment, Rifle Brigade		Greenjackets
Formed in 1656 as a Royalist regiment in exile; the senior regiment of the Guards Division, and thus of the Infantry (having longer continuous service than the Coldstrream Guards, which was formed earlier)		Grenadier Guards
"Better to die than to live a coward" is the English translation of the motto of the		Royal Gurkha Rifles
Regiment formed in 1992 by the 'union' of the Life Guards and the Blues & Royals		Household Cavalry
"The Queen's Own Buffs" was part of the name of the regiment (which only existed as such from 1961 to 1966) of (English county)		Kent
Grew from the four troops of Horse Guards raised by Charles II in 1660; the senior regiment of the British Army, and now part of the Household Cavalry, along with the Blues and Royals		Life Guards
Formed in 2007 by the merger of the Cheshire, Worcestershire & Sherwood Foresters, Staffordshire and West Midlands (TA) regiments		Mercian Regiment
Regiment that has won most VCs		Royal Artillery
The Sovereign's bodyguard in Scotland: part of the Royal Household in Scotland		Royal Company of Archers
Formed in 2006 by the merger of the Royal Scots and the King's Own Scottish Borderers		Royal Regiment of Scotland
Raised in 1633, for service in France during the Thirty Years War: the oldest infantry regiment in the British army, when amalgamated with the Scottish Borderers in 2006; nicknamed "Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard"		Royal Scots
Founded in 1916: the only regiment whose personnel are allowed to wear black berets		Royal Tank Regiment
Formed in 1941 by Colonel David Stirling; its headquarters are at Credenhill, near Hereford (formerly RAF Hereford)		Special Air Service (SAS)

Other

RAF formed by the merger of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and the Royal Flying Corps (RFC)		1 April 1918
RAF: squadrons in a wing (normally)		3
Headquarters of the French Foreign Legion, until 1962 (when they were moved to Aubagne, near Marseilles)		Algeria
US naval academy		Annapolis
First unit of the British army to be granted the prefix Royal		Army Medical Corps
Name on specimen forms, became a nickname for the British private soldier		Tommy Atkins
Women's branch of the British army during World War II		Auxiliary Territorial Service
Nickname of UN peacekeeping troops		Blue Helmets
Royal Artillery: equivalent of Corporal		Bombardier
Temporary promotion (term mainly used in the 19th century – especially during the US Civil War, but also in Britain)		Brevet
Nickname (attributed to the Native Americans, possibly in reference to the texture of their hair) given to the regiments of African–American men who served in the so–called Indian Wars following the American Civil War		Buffalo Soldiers
Unit of military personnel sent by Hitler to help Franco in the Spanish Civil War		Condor Legion
Common name for the warrior–peasants of Slavonic descent, who lived mainly in Ukraine and served as cavalry under the Russian tsars		Cossacks
RAF College (often described as "the RAF's equivalent of Sandhurst")		Cranwell, Lincolnshire
The Royal Navy's Officer Training School		Dartmouth, Devon
Popular name for the Princess Royal Barracks, near Camberley, Surrey – former HQ of the British Army's Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) – subject of controversy following the suicides of four trainees, 1995–2002; closed in 2020		Deepcut Barracks
First Special Forces Operational Department of the US Army – the USA's prime counter–terrorist unit – modelled on Britain's SAS; established 1977, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (common name used by the public and media)		Delta Force
Nickname for a US soldier in World War I		Doughboy
Type of soldier: originally an infantryman who used a horse for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot; later (from the early 17th century) a conventional cavalryman, trained for combat with swords and firearms from horseback; in modern times, the term is used for armoured or ceremonial cavalry regiments		Dragoon
Commander of Britain's only private army		Duke of Atholl
Founded in 1831 by Louis Philippe, with headquarters at Sidi Bel Abbès in Algeria, to protect French colonies (foreigners being forbidden to enlist in the French army after the 1830 revolution); moved to Aubagne, near Marseilles, in 1962; one of its nine regiments is based at Calvi, Corsica		Foreign Legion
Withdrew from NATO's integrated military structure in 1966 (while remaining committed to the organisation's aims, contributing resources to its campaigns, and remaining part of its political arm); rejoined in 2009		France
Popular name for the US Army Special Forces – an elite force formed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1957		Green Berets
The USA's oldest military establishment outside US territory, and the only one on Communist soil		Guantanamo Bay
RAF Museum (North London)		Hendon
Name for a light cavalryman, originating in Central Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries – originally from the cavalry of late medieval Hungary, under Matthias Corvinus (King of Hungary and Croatia, 1458–90), with mainly Serb warriors		Hussar
Infantry units that formed the sultan's bodyguard and household troops in the Ottoman Empire – from the Turkish for "new soldier"		Janissaries
Nickname, probably derived from the wearing of a certain style of collar, used for American soldiers in general, and particularly for members of the US Marine Corps		Leatherneck
Officer in charge of discipline on board ship in the Royal and US navies; also, in the British army, the officer in charge of physical training		Master–at–arms
Identified in the British army by their red berets		Military policemen
Citizens' militia in the American Revolutionary War, pledged to be ready 'at a moment's notice'		Minutemen
England's first professional army, formed by Cromwell 1645		New Model Army
Last navy to issue a tot of rum (1990)		New Zealand
Nickname of the British Expeditionary Force to France, 1914		Old Contemptibles
Lowest commissioned rank in the RAF		Pilot officer
A military unit typically composed of two or more squads, sections or patrols – ranging from nine men to 100, but generally around 50 (depending on country and branch)		Platoon
Only person to be Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal and Marshal of RAF		Prince Philip
Code of conduct for the British armed forces		Queen's Regulations
The Thunderbirds in the USA, the Roulettes in Australia, the Black Knights in Singapore, the Silver Falcons in South Africa, and the Blue Diamonds in the Philippines, are the equivalent of the UK's		Red Arrows
The Fleet Air Arm's Black Cats and the Army Air Corps's Blue Eagles are the equivalent of the RAF's
In 2010, Flight Lieutenant Kirsty Moore became the first female member of the
Civilian–manned fleet owned by the UK Ministry of Defence: provides fuel, ammunition and supplies for Royal Navy ships at sea		Royal Fleet Auxiliary
Popular name for a baton round		Rubber bullet
Long–standing Royal Navy tradition, discontinued in 1970 (31 July 1970 is known in the Navy as Black Tot Day, for that reason)		Rum ration
Japanese warrior class, 12th – 19th centuries		Samurai
Royal Military Academy (Berkshire town)		Sandhurst
Private soldier in the Royal Engineers		Sapper
Local troops in the British Indian Army – derived from a local word for horseman		Sepoy
Acronym of NATO's European command centre, near Mons in Belgium (standing for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe)		SHAPE
The Navy's equivalent of the SAS		Special Boat Squadron (SBS)
Military force in the Vatican City, and bodyguards to the Pope (all members are single, catholic males of Swiss origin)		Swiss Guard
Private soldier in a cavalry regiment		Trooper
Second–largest army in NATO		Turkey
US military academy (on the site of a former fort, overlooking the Hudson River, some 35 miles north of downtown New York)		West Point
Volunteer cavalry force, organised in 1761 for home defence, and merged with the Territorial Army in 1907		Yeomanry

© Haydn Thompson 2017–24