The Sunday Times 7 December 2003:
Hoon Poised for £2bn Cut in Forces
A number of senior officers, however, see the white paper as a chance to break out of the service’s historic regimental structure.
“Anybody who argues on emotional grounds for cap badges and so on doesn’t understand the needs of the army today,” a senior officer told a private Whitehall audience last week.
The army wants to move from a structure based on battalions of about 600 men to an emphasis on company-sized sub-units of about 120 men that can be more easily deployed.
I hope that bit is true and that someone has seen sense at last. The regimental system belongs in a museum, not in a modern army.