the royal regiment of artillery, commonly referred to as the royal artillery (ra) and colloquially known as 'the gunners', is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the british army.the royal regiment of artillery comprises thirteen regular army regiments, the king's troop royal horse artillery and five army reserve regiments.until the early 18th century, the majority of british regiments were raised for specific campaigns and disbanded on completion.an exception were gunners based at the tower of london, portsmouth and other forts around britain, who were controlled by the ordnance office and stored and maintained equipment and provided personnel for field artillery 'traynes' that were organised as needed.these personnel, responsible in peacetime for maintaining the forts with their garrison artillery (or coastal artillery), were the first regular artillerymen, organised in 1540 under the master-general and board of ordnance, but paid directly by the exchequer.aside from the master gunner of england, the detachments in each fort formed a district establishment that included a captain of fort, a master-gunner or chief-gunner, and a number of other ranks, including gunners, gunner's mates, quarter-gunners, and matroses.their numbers were extremely small; as late as 1720, the total establishment for the whole of britain was 41 master gunners and 178 gunner assistants.the regular artillerymen of the district establishments were responsible for upkeep of the fort and maintenance of equipment, and would be brought up to strength in wartime with untrained personnel drafted in from the british army or the militia.the post of captain of fort was replaced (at least in england, if not in its colonies) with that of governor following the restoration.the coastal artillery was not part of the royal artillery as formed in 1716 with its two marching companies.the two coastal artillery companies at gibraltar and menorca were absorbed into the royal artillery in 1722, when the royal artillery assumed responsibility for regular coastal artillery outside of britain.although the royal artillery increasingly involved itself with the coastal artillery in britain, also, the district establishments remained independent until february 1771, when the royal artillery formed eight invalid companies (made up of personnel no longer fit for expeditionary service) into which they were absorbed (although the district establishments would still rely on drafts of sailors, british army soldiers, militia infantrymen, or volunteers to bring the batteries up to wartime strength until the formation of militia artillery and volunteer artillery in the 1850s).during the 18th century, the british regular military forces, including the board of ordnance's military corp (the royal artillery, royal engineers and later the royal sappers and miners) and the british army (composed mostly of infantry and cavalry) became increasingly professional (various reserve, or local, forces also existed, including: the militia, or old constitutional force, normally made up of infantry units; the mounted yeomanry; and volunteer units of various types, normally raised only during wartime), particularly in the fields of artillery and engineering; britain lagged behind others in this area, with vauban establishing the french corps royal des ingénieurs militaires as far back as 1690.when marlborough was restored as master-general of the ordnance in 1714, he initiated a series of reforms, which included splitting the existing ordnance service into artillery and sappers or engineers.this was approved and two permanent companies of field artillery were established in 1716, each 100 men strong; this became the 'royal artillery' in 1720.these were increased to four companies and on 1 april 1722 grouped with independent artillery units at gibraltar and menorca to form the royal regiment of artillery; the first commander was colonel albert borgard, a dane who served in the british army since 1698.
royal artillery | garrison | hohne
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