Current British Military Map Symbols?

Hi. Can someone point out a site that I can go to that will give me current British military (army) map symbols. What I mean is like the rectangle with the X inside it with Roman numerals over it. Something like that. I am interested in division , brigade, regiment, battery etc with what the symbols and the different numbers mean, with particular reference to Royal Artillery. Also, if someone knows the answer to this: for a Scottish vehicle at the battery level in the TA, would it be more likely to sport the St. James cross or possibly its division crest, or the Scottish brigade lions crest or the battery crest on the front of its wing on the RH side? Thanks, Bil

You mean like this?

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y240/45HG52/Misc/mso2f1mod768x576.jpg[/img]

:whistle:

Unfortunately I only have it as a program on my PC and you need the manual to understand them

Nige

I've got some from the Tactics Wing at Bovington, I'll dig them out for you.

Baz.

That is exactly what I mean!!!. Can someone tell me how to show 212 Battery which was the third battery of 102 Reg RA. Then if the symbol needs to show further it would be of 51 Highland Brigade 2 Division. MANY Thanks, Bil

You can download the map symbols from Tom Mouat's site (he's our Hon El Presidente, webmaster and all round Loggie Tech genius)

http://www.mapsymbs.com/

Pedrfect. Thank you guys so much. This really helps. Cheers, Bil

That is exactly what I mean!!!. Can someone tell me how to show 212 Battery which was the third battery of 102 Reg RA. Then if the symbol needs to show further it would be of 51 Highland Brigade 2 Division. MANY Thanks, Bil

 

It's been a long time, but I was a control signaller, so map marking was a primary task and I ought to remember. Bear in mind that the symbols date back ISTR to before the Great War and were IIRC German in origin, so details will vary with time and by country, so that whereas what I recall ought to be NATO standard, it might be muddled with stuff from WW2, which was my specialist subject before joining and I claim the right to have a senior moment and simply forget.

A rectangle indicates a unit. A vertical (if possible) line from the centre bottom of the rectangle points to the unit's location unless it is spread over an area in which case its area is marked accordingly. If the HQ is located separately, the vertical line is moved to the bottom left corner of the rectangle so that it looks like a flag. You might for instance find a Battery Commander and his HQ attached to battlegroup HQ (or brigade HQ in pre-battlegroup days) so that he had direct contact with the troops requiring artillery support and could call down fire from the guns, further back. The level of the Arty sp would depend on the OrBat.

A black dot (cannon ball) inside the rectangle indicates that it it artillery. If it was wheeled artillery, ISTR it would have a pair of circles (wheels) underneath. If it was tracked (self-propelled) artillery, ISTR it would have an oval around the cannon ball indicating tracked.

Infantry would be represented by crossed webbing straps - an x from corner to corner of the rectangle. Wheeled or tracked infantry would be similarly qualified to the arty described above.

ISTR that recce, being essentially an extension of the cavalry tradition, carried a single diagonal in the style of a Sam Browne. Because our battlegroup was independent and reported direct to Div, we never bothered marking our own units thus because we didn't need to - we knew.

Armour carried the oval already mentioned.

Unit size? Indicated by symbols above the rectangle. Hmmm. Struggling here. something like:

o section

ooo troop / platoon etc

' squadron / company / battery etc

" regiment (infantry battalion)

x brigade

xx division

xxx corps

xxxx army

xxxxx army group

If a unit or formation were significantly under / overstrength, this would be qualified by + or - after the symbol.

So 212 Battery would be a rectangle containing a cannon ball with ' above it. The number 212 to the right would identify it and the rest is taken from the symbols.

Higher formations would cover an area of the map marked by their boundaries at peer level. Army Group would cover a huge area. Boundaries between army groups would be drawn as a single solid blue (as in blue on blue) line broken occasionally to insert the Army Group symbol (hands up? Correct xxxxx) to indicate whose boundary. Lower formations would have their own areas within the army group, with peer boundaries indicated likewise.

Starting at the Forward Leading-edge of Own Troops (FLOT) where the elite recce troops are out doing their thing, (in my day) the medium recce element of the Recce Regt would cover the entire Divisional frontage with two squadrons, one per Task Force / Brigade (Task Force was a mid-70s attempt to increase the proportion of combat troops by reducing the REMFs - it proved unworkable and within a handful of years BAOR reverted to brigades). Medium Recce would cover the area between the FLOT and the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA) where the rest of the army started. (There might be other troops attached to the medium recce battlegroups including armour, infantry, engineers to undertake demolition tasks and an artillery FOO.)

HTH and is understandable (it has taken all morning in between meetings, phone calls, questions from the industrial trainee and now Wor Lass on MSN as I type, who made me order two tickets for the Tutankhamen exhibition at the O2 arena, but ticket availability was disappearing from the website faster than I could check them. Then there was accommodation and to book two days' leave ...).