Cavalry regiments of the British Army

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There are 13 cavalry regiments of the British Army each with its own unique cap badge, regimental traditions, and history. Of the currently nine regular cavalry regiments, two serve as

By the start of the eighteenth century, the cavalry establishment had been divided into household and line units. The household establishment consisted of four troops of Horse Guards and two of Horse Grenadier Guards, while the regular establishment was composed of nine regiments of Horse and eight of Dragoons.^[2] The "horse" regiments would in theory fight mounted as cavalry, while dragoons were originally mounted infantry - they would fight dismounted, but were provided with horses for swift movement. By the middle of the century, the term had come simply to mean light cavalry.

Regiments were, at this time, known by semi-permanent nicknames or by the names of their colonels; in 1751, in an attempt to reduce confusion, regiments were assigned numbers in order of their seniority. The cavalry regiments of the line were numbered in three separate sequences; 1st through 4th Horse, then 1st through 3rd Dragoon Guards, then 1st through 14th Dragoons. "Dragoon Guards" was a new title, and did not denote a Guards' role; it was adopted by the three senior horse regiments in 1746, when George II reduced them to the status of dragoons in order to save money.

The first "light horse" regiment was raised in 1745, for service in the

By the turn of the century, in 1801, the Household Cavalry establishment consisted of three regiments of guards, while the line cavalry had some twenty-seven regiments of dragoons and dragoon guards. The heavy cavalry consisted of twelve regiments, the 1st to 7th Dragoon Guards and the 1st to 6th Dragoons—the missing regiment was the 5th Dragoons, disbanded for mutiny in 1799 without renumbering younger regiments—while the light cavalry consisted of the 7th through 29th Light Dragoons and two regiments of German cavalry on the British establishment.^[4] Many of the light cavalry regiments were disbanded after the Napoleonic Wars; at their peak in 1794, there had been some 33 regiments of light dragoons, but by 1822 the most junior regiment was the 17th Light Dragoons.

In 1806, the 10th Light Dragoons became the

The outbreak of the

All Imperial Yeomanry battalions were equipped as mounted infantry, using infantry organisation and terminology (note "battalion" and "company", rather than "regiment" and "squadron"); this proved highly useful in South Africa, where fast-moving infantry was invaluable for a fluid war spread over enormous areas. As the first contingent of volunteers returned, and the lessons of the war were absorbed by the Army, it was decided to convert the Yeomanry into mounted infantry along the same lines.

The new Yeomanry regiments, appropriately retitled as "Imperial Yeomanry", comprised four companies of mounted infantry with carbines, and a machine-gun section; by 1903, an additional nineteen regiments of Imperial Yeomanry had been raised, with several perpetuating the lineages of volunteer units in South Africa or of previously disbanded Yeomanry regiments. In 1908, the reserve forces underwent significant reforms; the Yeomanry and the infantry Volunteers were consolidated into the

The last major use of conventional cavalry by the Army was in the

While it generally appears that no new regiments of cavalry were raised during the War, this is not entirely accurate. All of the yeomanry units raised second- and third-line regiments from new recruits, and on the outbreak of war some seventeen Cavalry Reserve Regiments were formed. Few of these units saw active service, instead serving to train and equip men for the front-line regiments, or as reserve units for home defence. The Tank Corps—the forerunner of the Royal Tank Regiment—was formed in 1917, but was not considered as "cavalry" until the 1940s.

Following the War, and the subsequent reduction in the strength of the Army, it was apparent that future warfare would involve much less of a role for cavalry. As such, the regular force was reduced from 31 regiments of cavalry to 22. Unlike previous reductions, however, this was carried out by the amalgamation of regiments rather than the disbanding of junior regiments; this allowed the traditions and honours of both "parents" to be perpetuated.

Before the

After the war, the regular cavalry was quickly reduced to its pre-war establishment, and reduced further by the 1957 Defence White Paper; as a result of this, seven regular cavalry regiments were lost through amalgamation, leaving two household, sixteen line regiments. The subsequent round of cuts, in 1969–71, saw a further three line regiments disappear, and the 1990 Options for Change defence review reduced the establishment by another five line regiments, along with amalgamating the regiments of the Household Cavalry.

The Yeomanry had been reduced even further in the post-war years; most regiments were amalgamated in the 1950s and then reduced to cadres in the late 1960s, with a sizable fraction being converted to infantry, artillery, or support roles. By the end of the Cold War, there were five regiments of "pure" Yeomanry in the Territorial Army, all in the light reconnaissance role, with five regiments of the

The 31 British cavalry regiments created by the Childers Reforms in 1881 were amalgamated into eight regiments by 2015. The table below gives an overview of this process.

There are currently 9 regiments of cavalry in the regular Army, and a further 4 Yeomanry regiments in the

• Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment

Armoured regiments are equipped with Challenger 2 main battle tanks (being replaced by Challenger 3):

Regular:

• Queen's Royal Hussars (The Queen's Own and Royal Irish)
• King's Royal Hussars, which will convert to Ajax under Army 2020 Refine
• 28 Engineer Regiment

Reserve:

• Royal Wessex Yeomanry

Armoured cavalry regiments are equipped with Warrior armoured fighting vehicles (being replaced by Ajax); they have no paired reserve units:

• Household Cavalry Regiment
• Royal Dragoon Guards
• Royal Lancers

Light cavalry regiments are equipped with Jackal vehicles:

Regular:

• 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards ("The Welsh Cavalry")
• Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
• Light Dragoons

Reserve:

• Royal Yeomanry
• Queen's Own Yeomanry
• Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry

• Cavalry Sunday