Your country's oldest regiment?

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Indeed. How the merging and downsizing of all these famous old county regiments can maintain their history and traditions I don't know. The Glosters first merged with the Berkshires and Wiltshires shortly after the tercentenary. They then merged with the Royal Green Jackets and the Devons and Dorsets to form a Light Infantry battalion in The Rifles.

In my opinion all those famous regiments (and I forgot the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment involved in the first merge) have been diluted out of existence. This is not a good thing. If British soldiers fight for one thing it's the regiment.

Cheers

Steve
 
True mate!
Same as up here, if I remember correctly, they merged all the Scottish Regiments into one single regiment, no more Black Watch, Royal Scots etc., etc..
 
The 'Hessians' of course refers to the soldiers of many German states within and without Hesse. They were termed ' foreign troops in British pay' as they remained in the armies of their home countries. Regiments within the British army were raised from foreign volunteers, such as the Royal Corsican Rangers, Sicilian Regiment or the Chasseurs Brittaniques. In all these cases they were not mercenaries in the sense of being a private army rented out to the highest bidder but merely composed of non British volunteers.

The most famous is probably the Kings German Legion who were, arguably, the best troops in the British Army in the Napoleonic Wars. Or at least comparable to the best.

Indeed a list of British Regiments recruited from foreigners would be quite long The Portugese Army in the Peninsula War was so well integrated into working with the British Army that they, effectively, became part of one force and their return to Portugal when Spain was liberated was a sore loss when the fighting moved into France. I gather no such sentiment was felt for the Spanish forces.

The Royal Navy was even blinder to nationality and it's seamen came from wherever they could get them (not usually pressed men despite the myth). Some of the sailors of Nelson at Trafalgar were French or Spanish and black sailors were common enough not to need comment.
 
A quick look at the Army's rugby team will usually reveal men from the Commonwealth, particularly nations like Fiji. We've still got the Nepalese (Gurkhas) too.
Cheers
Steve
 
Some of the US National Guard regiments claim histories that are longer than the 3rd Regiments (Old Guard), but they are not really active. Wikipedia claims the oldest is the 182nd Infantry Regiment (182nd Infantry Regiment (United States) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Wikipedia also claims the [Connecticut] Governor's Foot Guard traces back to 1771 (Governor's Foot Guard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). I think that calling the latter a "military" unit is now very shaky, as I do think it no longer undergoes any military training.
 
Dave, Swampy beat me to it, but to my knowledge the 182 Infantry was organized on Oct. 7, 1636. The regiment served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, with Union forces in the American Civil War, and as a federalized Massachusetts National Guard regiment with the U.S. Army during World War I and World War II. That's some 378 years
 

I was a member of the 2nd Company GFG for many years. There is a 1st Company GFG and one company of Horse Guard (there were two in the 80s/early 90s).

Military training is sketchy at best, although they do "March" in parades. They do one week of summer camp although attendance is not mandatory. You can get "orders" excusing you from your job though

Weapons, last I knew, were 1903 Springfields and Brown Bess muskets. 2nd Company also has some Krags owned by the "command" as are the Brown Besses. The 1903s are owned by the state of Connecticut. There are a few .45 1911s around.

You cannot belong to the any of the Governor's Guards and the National Guard at the same time as your name shows up on two different "payroll" lists (not the Governor's Guard ever actually gets paid) and if the Governor goes completely crazy he can activate the Guards.

Governor's Guard units have provided small details to cover Military funerals (firing squads and Buglers) and occasionally security details for crowd control (read line/queue control) during times of high personnel demand for regular National Guard units in the last 10/15 years.

These have been requests for manpower vs "activating" the unit/s.
 
I remember reading there's a Spanish regiment which claims to have been continually serving since something like 1248.
 
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