Organization

The Canadian Army has always been a complex organization, with heirarchies existing within heirarchies. Generally speaking, there are two main categories of organization; organization of units within Canada, and outside of Canada, whether in peace or war.

Organization of the Army within Canada is a complex subject, made moreso by the several complete reorganizations and changes of designations over the years. A reserve unit in Canada was variously known as belonging to the Non Permanent Active Militia, the Canadian Army (Reserve), Canadian Army Reserve Force, Canadian Army (Militia) and simply "The Militia" at different times during the 20th Century, and the headquarters that unit belonged and reported to was variously known as either a Brigade Headquarters, Military District Headquarters, Militia District Headquarters, or Brigade Group Headquarters, which in turn reported to either a Division/Corps Headquarters, Militia Group Headquarters, Militia Area Headquarters, or Land Force Area Headquarters.

Overseas combatant formations remained more stable, with sections, platoons, companies, battalions generally retaining those designations (and associated traditional designations in artillery, cavalry, engineer, etc. units), as did higher formations to which the units belonged (brigades, divisions, corps, armies, army groups).

Types of units also organized within corps/services/branches (again, depending on era) according to their function (ie medical units in a formation also belonged to the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps). While these corps/services/branches remained fairly stable (and can be divided into pre-Unification and post-Unification categories), the individual units within them usually underwent significant changes in designation and sometimes function.

© canadiansoldiers.com 1999-2008      

 Last site update 20 April 2008