Structure of the Canadian Army

The Canadian Army is not an independent service. Rather it is the component responsible for the training and maintenance of operational readiness of the land forces of Canada's unified defence forces, known as the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Canadian Army is commanded from National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa and has been subdivided into five divisions as of December 2015:[1]

• 1st Canadian Division (part of Joint Operations Command)
• 2nd Canadian Division
• 3rd Canadian Division
• 4th Canadian Division
• 5th Canadian Division

Each division is responsible for the regular army and reserve forces located within its geographical purview – all except the 5th Canadian Division has a regular army mechanised brigade group under its command, together with between two and three militia brigades.

Structure of the Canadian Land Forces

Each mechanised brigade group contains three infantry battalions, an armoured regiment, an artillery regiment, and a combat engineer regiment. Each brigade group also contains a service support battalion, signals squadron and military police platoon.

In addition to the four divisions, the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre, commanded by a major-general and headquartered at McNaughton Barracks, CFB Kingston, Ontario, is responsible for the supervision, integration and delivery of army training and long-range planning for army training and doctrine development, including simulation and digitization. It includes a number of schools and training organizations, such as the Combat Training Centre at CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick, and the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre at CFB Wainwright, Alberta.[2]

A regular light infantry battalion in the regular Royal Canadian Infantry Corps are made of 4 companies, 3 light trained as urban, marine, coastal patrol, mountain, and arctic infantry, plus 1 parachute company (Royal 22nd Regiment has 2 parachute companies and 2 light infantry).

Regular units have no changes, reserve units have the sub-title of (PR). Note on units: Although technically not part of the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Medical Service will be included in the lists below.