Ducking the crossfire over the slave trade, thank you Teribus for your post.

One clarification for readers; in the British Army an infantry "Regiment" is not actually a fighting unit. It is an administrative body of men with similar hat badges and base depot and usually the same recruiting area. The fighting unit is the battalion. A regiment may have one or more battalions, athough one battalion is usual nowadays. In the field, battalions are organised, along with armoured and artillery regiments (which are fighting units), into Brigades.

The British Army used to have four Gurkha regiments of one or two battalions from 1948 to 1985 ?? when it was reduced to three, each of one battalion. In 1999, this was reorganised into one regiment of three battalions, thus saving a lot of paperwork. On the other hand, it may have introduced complications and internal friction, as the separate Regiments used to recruit from different areas and tribes (and sometimes different castes) within Nepal.

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I recall quite well the debates which went on at the time of the Falklands War. Some people suggested that as Nepal wasn't concerned in the South Atlantic dispute, the Gurkhas should have been left out of the Task Force. However, the view that they were soldiers of the British Army above all else prevailed, and off they went.

There was far more acrimonious debate (in the Army, not the British public in general) over why the Welsh Guards and especially the Scots Guards went south. Both were "public duties" battalions i.e. their role was shouting and stamping and parading to and fro outside Buckingham Palace. The British Army maintains a "spearhead" battalion, highly trained and ready to go at a moment's notice. In 1982, this was the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Greenjackets. They were not sent. [There was also an "ACE Mobile Force" battalion, similarly trained and ready, but this was assigned to NATO duties and could not have been used without much complaint from NATO.]

To be fair, the Welsh Guards had only recently finished a tour of duty as the "spearhead" battalion and an intense training spell in Kenya, and was reasonably fit for role. The Scots Guards were in no such shape. In the event, the Welsh Guards suffered the disaster at Bluff Cove, but this is hardly a reflection on the unit itself, while the Scots Guards won the tough and decisive battle for Mount Tumbledown.