Commander Field Army is a senior British Army officer who has responsibility for generating and preparing forces for current and contingency operations. He reports to the Chief of the General Staff who has overall executive responsibility for the British Army. From 1 April 1995 to 1 April 2008, the last of the British Army's field force commands was Land Command. From 1 April 2008, HQ Land Command, with elements of HQ Adjutant-General, became HQ Land Forces. From 1 November 2011, HQ Land Forces was subsumed within the new Army Headquarters; at the same time the Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces was integrated into the new Army Headquarters command structure as Commander Land Forces. On 23 November 2015, it was announced that the post of Commander Land Forces would be renamed as Commander Field Army as part of the Army Command Review. CFA has a major-general as Chief of Staff, and four brigadiers working under him: Assistant Chief of Staff Commitments, Assistant Chief of Staff Support, Assistant Chief of Staff Warfare and Assistant Chief of Staff Training.
History
On 1 April 2008, HQ Land Command amalgamated with HQ Adjutant General under 'Project Hyperion' and became HQ Land Forces. It moved from Erskine Barracks to the former RAF Andover site now known as Marlborough Lines on 23 June 2010. Headquarters Northern Ireland was reduced in status to 38th Brigade on 1 January 2009. Commander-in-Chief Land Forces also became the Standing Joint Commander , responsible for overall command to Ministry of Defence contributions to national crisis response activities within the United Kingdom. Under another reorganisation effective from 1 November 2011 the Chief of the General Staff took direct command of the Army through a new structure, based at Andover, known as "Army Headquarters". Within this new organisation, the rank of Commander, Land Forces was shifted to that of a three-star instead of the former four-star rank. The post of Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces ceased to exist. Following the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010, the government announced significant changes to the structure of the formations under Land Forces that would be implemented from 2010 - 2020:
Field Army: By 2020, the total withdrawal of British forces stationed in Germany will be complete, and the Army's operational structure will be formed around a total of five multi-role brigades ; these will be taken from the two brigades currently stationed in Germany under 1st Armoured Division, and three of the four in the UK under 3rd Mechanised Division. To ensure costs are kept down, the MOD's proposal will be to station units as close as possible to training areas. In this process, 19 Light Brigade in Northern Ireland was disbanded.
Regional Forces: While the regional forces elements have been retained at brigade level, with all ten regional brigades remaining as they are, the regional divisional HQs were replaced with a single 2-star regional headquarters at Aldershot known as Support Command from Spring 2012.
This has been updated in the future plan commonly known as Army 2020. On 23 November 2015, it was announced that the post of Commander Land Forces would be renamed as Commander Field Army as part of the Army Command Review. CFA will have four brigadiers under their command, namely: Assistant Chief of Staff Commitments, Assistant Chief of Staff Support, Assistant Chief of Staff Warfare and Assistant Chief of Staff Training.
Subordinate formations circa 2020
The current structure is as follows:
Commander Field Army: Lieutenant-General Ivan Jones
