Military organization | ||
---|---|---|
Typical units | Typical numbers | Typical commander |
fireteam | 3–4 | corporal |
squad/ section |
8–12 | sergeant |
platoon | 15–30 | lieutenant |
company | 80–150 | captain/major |
battalion/ cohort |
300–800 | lieutenant colonel |
regiment/ brigade |
2,000–4,000 |
colonel/ brigadier general |
division/ legion |
10,000–15,000 | major general |
corps | 20,000–40,000 | lieutenant general |
field army | 80,000+ | general |
army group | 2+ field armies |
field marshal/ five-star general |
region/ theater |
4+ army groups | Six-star rank |
A corps (/ˈkɔər/; plural corps /ˈkɔərz/; via French, from the Latin corpus "body") is a military unit usually consisting of several divisions.
Some military service branches are also called corps, such as the Military Police Corps, Royal Logistic Corps, Quartermaster Corps, or Medical Corps.
A few civilian organizations use the name corps to imply a similar service level, such as the Peace Corps.
In many armies, a corps is a battlefield formation composed of two or more divisions, and typically commanded by a lieutenant general. During World War I and World War II, due to the large scale of combat, multiple corps were combined into armies which then formed into army groups. In Western armies with numbered corps, the number is often indicated in Roman numerals (e.g., VII Corps).
In the later stages of World War I, the five infantry divisions of the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF)—consisting entirely of personnel who had volunteered for service overseas—were united as the Australian Corps, on the Western Front, under Lieutenant General Sir John Monash.