Getting things organized for a group of Wessex soft skins. I'm trying to find out the brigade./ regt. seniority rankings to get the numbers on the AOS emblem. Wikipedia has a table of organization but unknown if they are in order of seniority. (Only other one I found looks like a copy of wikis.) Also, the decal set has numbers for HQ , comms, and Inf. units. What numbers were used by support and arty units?

Timothy,

You've opened a can of worms here - the organisation of the British Army is always fraught when trying to pin such things down!

However the order of seniority was (from 6 Jun 44 to 5 May 45):

Div HQ
129 Infantry Bde
130 Infantry Bde
214 Infantry Bde
43 Recce Regt
Divisional Machine Gun Battalion (64)
Artillery Units (42 - 47)
Royal Engineer Units (48 - 52)
Signals Units (40 - same as Div HQ)
Royal Army Service Corps Units (70 - 73)
Royal Army Medical Corps Units (75, 76, 77, 82, 83, 78)
Royal Army Ordnance Corps Units (92, 52)
Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineer Units (88 - 90)
Provost (ie Royal Military Police) (79)
Field Security Units ie Intelligence Corps)(possibly 40)
Postal Units (Royal Engineers)(80)

Brian

Within the Infantry Brigades, seniority was as follows:

129th Inf Bde ( red square HQ code 81):

4th Battn Somerset Light Infantry (code 55)
4th Battn Wiltshire Regt (code 56)
5th Battn Wiltshire Regt (code 57)

Note: it is unusual but not unknown for battalions from the same regiment to be brigaded together; this is partly as a result of the Pals battalions from the Great War, which concentrated losses on local areas to the detriment of morale both in the field and at home.

130th Inf Bde (green square HQ code 87):

7th Battn Hampshire Regiment (code 60)
4th Battn Dorsetshire Regt (code 61)
5th Battn Dorsetshire Regt (code 62)

214th Inf Bde (brown square HQ code 94):

7th Battn Somerset Light Infantry (code 67)
1st Battn Worcestershire Regt (regular battalion, the others are all war service or Territorial)(code 68)
5th Battn Duke of Cornwalls Light Infantry (DCLI) (code 69)

The idea was that each brigade wore one, two or three red (rifle regiments green) stripes on the upper arm, below the divisional badge to indicate their seniority within the division, but of course once battle was joined many of the more visible badges disappeared from battle dress.