'We are the very models of modern Major-Generals' - all 48 of us!

As I have paraphrased W. S. Gilbert's famous song quite disgracefully here is his first verse in full - altogether now:

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news---
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

However, returning to my title, I am grateful to John Redwood and his diary for unearthing a few facts on the major-generals and their ilk.  In this era of so-called cuts he was curious to know how the armed services were coping as the Treasury sword carved its way through their massed ranks.  Well, if you are actually 'in the ranks' it's pretty uncomfortable with thousands of redundancies and the army now reduced to under 100,000.  But what about the officers' mess, he wondered, with my added emphasis throughout:

I asked how many Majors were needed to command the units of such an army, expecting to hear it was around 800, with each Major commanding about 120 people. I was told the army currently has  4700 Majors, or  six times what you might expect.

A Lieutenant Colonel typically commands a battalion of 650 people.  You would expect 150 of them in our slimmed down forces. Instead I was told we currently employ  1780, or 12 times the number you might expect. Indeed, you could form three battalions just of Lieutenant Colonels.

An army does need some senior staff officers. You might have thought we needed around 15, given the number of brigades. Instead, I discover we employ 580 Colonels, or 38  times what one might expect.

Still, I expect at the higher level there has been some really hard pruning - wrong!

We are a bit shorter of Generals. There are 6 full General officers, 9 Lieutenant Generals , 43 Major Generals and 170 Brigadiers. If a brigade is around 200o people, you might expect 50 Brigadiers. There is one senior officer for each battle tank, and around 8  Lieutenant Colonels for each tank.

I don't object to the Help for Heroes campaign but keeping superannuated Top Brass in the style to which they have grown accustomed is not something I wish to support.  And anyway, in recent years it's not as though they have proved themselves to be particularly good at what they are supposed to do.

Comments

[A K Haart]

So brass baffles brains too.

[David Duff]

Spot on, AK.

[Andrew Duffin]

As I said at Redwood's site, this is old news.

Parkinson's Law, dear boy, Parkinson's Law.

I believe it goes back to the early 1950's.

Clearly nothing has changed.

[David Duff]

Also spot on, Andrew, you and 'AK' should join the Royal Artillery!