I think Melpo knows a lot of links for that kind of thing, I’ll have to /poke him and see if he’ll share.

Great guide, Bear. :)

In two parts:

While numbers were used earlier, even as late as the start of the US civil war units smaller than division size (infantry regiments and artillery batteries, for example) were more likely to be known within the army by a name than a number. Most often it was the name of the Colonel or other commander (Beall’s Regiment), but sometimes by the name of the place of muster (Sussex Battery, or Louisiana Regiment).

What broke this was basically size. First you’d get more than one unit from a place, thus the first, second, third (etc) Ohio Infantry Regiment. Second, commanders quit being in charge of their units for the duration, and at a certain size it was hard to maintain the command association. Finally, the pay- and log-masters in the respective capitols found it easier to use numbers, especially when it might take days or longer to be notified of changes.

The reason it wasn’t a clean sweeping change in the US was due to the fragmented reality. The US Army officially used numbers much earlier, but when Politician Smith mustered up a militia force it needed an identification even though it hadn’t yet received a US number — thus it might be the BearButt Squadron for a while, and depending on who it joined and where it might retain that monicker even after BBB became the regimental or division commander.

Part two:
The above is a US foible. In some nations the preferred identification is the name. Numbers are used because it’s shorter for morse-coded orders and map graphics. Thus the Black Watch and the Coldstream Guards, for example. In Great Britain numbers tend to be used for division and up, and most units subordinate to the Regiment are also numbered — most, not all, and for pretty much the same reasons as seen in part one above.

I for one have an obsession with this kind of stuff. I have countless notebooks full of backstory stuff, with info on different armies, and knighthood orders, and stuff like that. I can write for hours on one aspect of some army that if I ever got around to writing this story, would barely get a passing mention. And yet I never seem to get to the ‘story’ part. It’s that backstory part I’m really hooked on. The whole military aspect of it really interests me, especially as I’ll (hopefully) be getting into it in the next year or so.

…yeah, I dream big. Can’t help it.

So, accident or no, I appreciate the posting. :)

Sarabian: that sounds insane. And fun. And really draining. And it also sounds like something I’d expect to see from military role players.

Brian: unit number designations started out primarily from pragmatism. If you take a look at unit formation during the American Civil war, as volunteers from the states rolled into their local offices and grouped up, once a regimental sized force was there it was placed under the command of a gentlemanly type or an experienced oficer and marched off to war. Thus you had the “1st Maine Regiment”, the “2nd Maine Regiment”, etc. Frequently the men fought together, lived together and died together, and went home together as a unit.

I mention Maine in particular, because if you want a wonderful living example of such a unit, I recommend you read ‘The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara, paying particular attention to the story of the 20th Maine Regiment, led by then Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlain. It’s well worth the read. Trust me on this one.

Anyway, pragmatism. Units would receive numerical designations and marching orders. As time wore on, some units survived and continued, others withered and died. Some were made permanent and accumulated a growing history, others were retired and their colors cased. So over a hundred years of increasing army size to fight a war, followed by a reduced force size and retired units, the numbers of units are more historical legacy than specific designation.

Umm… geez, I hope that made sense. Kirk? Can you give me a hand here, sir?

Kirk: Yes, I will put up the US Civil War section… AFTER I have heavily modified it, because it’s what I used as the framework for my existing game, when it’s ready.. and hints to manny and James are sterilized.

Chiraa: I also like Mercedes Lackey’s use of magic in her books a lot. And I am personally quite proud of how I’ve woven magic throughout warfare historically in my game setting… and I really don’t want to have to ever do it again. It’s a massive pain in the butt to balance, just as Kirk said. At least, to balance without simply saying “it works that way because I said so”.

For some reason I read it as SF, thus the tenor of my response. One last note in that tenor and I’ll comment on it as fantasy. One of the interesting things I ran across a while back made for a fun logistics for design. Picture jetpacks. Picture that they’re antigravity or such, but still largish and clumsy and all that. Now add the mounted infantry concept, where one in X holds the horses. go nuts

In fantasy armies I’ve always had the most trouble integrating magic. The closest I came to making it work was when I tried just making them a platoon’s heavy weapons element, or maybe the regiment’s grenadier battalion, er, company. If you give magic the range to be artillery it ruins it for small unit engagements – at least in any work I ever did.

One additional question – Is there any significance to things like “332nd blah blah group/wing/etc”? If you are making up one of these units, are there “wrong” choices?