British Army incremental infantry companies

Military units

The British Army primarily divides its infantry into regiments, which are subdivided into battalions. However, for various reasons, since the end of the Second World War it has also maintained companies that are intended to provide increments and reinforcements.

In 1946, the UK's airborne forces were reorganised, with a number of new units formed that were affiliated to other regiments of the infantry. The newly constituted 1st (Guards) Parachute Battalion was formed using men exclusively drawn from the Household Division. However, after just two years, the battalion was itself reduced in size to a single company, which assumed the title No. 1 (Guards) Independent Parachute Company. Retaining its ethos as a unit manned exclusively by soldiers from the Household Cavalry and Brigade of Guards, the company was quickly tasked as 16 Parachute Brigade's pathfinder unit, as well as being used as a reinforcement rifle company within 16 Brigade. In the 1960s, it also took on an armoured reconnaissance role equipped with the Ferret armoured car. The company was used extensively in a number of operational theatres, including the Suez Canal, Cyprus and West Germany, as well as being deployed to Northern Ireland during the first half of the 1970s, usually attached to a battalion of the Parachute Regiment. Both the role and the history of No. 1 (Guards) Independent Parachute Company were perpetuated by the formation of separate platoons; in 1985, a new Pathfinder Platoon was established as part of the Parachute Regiment within 5 Airborne Brigade, while in the late 1990s a platoon within B Company of 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment was designated as 6 (Guards) Platoon, manned exclusively by men recruited from the Guards Division and Household Cavalry.