A battalion is a military unit with 300 to 1,200 soldiers that usually consists of two to seven companies and is commanded by either a lieutenant colonel or a colonel, if in the United States Army or the United States Marine Corps. Several battalions form a regiment or brigade.The nomenclature varies by nationality and branch of arms, for instance, some armies organize their infantry into battalions, but call battalion-sized cavalry, reconnaissance, or tank units a squadron or a regiment instead. There may even be subtle distinctions within a nation's branches of arms, such as a distinction between a tank battalion and an armored squadron, depending on how the unit's operational role is perceived to fit into the army's historical organization.A battalion is generally the smallest military organization capable of independent operations (although it must have a source of re-supply to sustain operations for more than several days) because, in addition to comprising sufficient personnel and equipment (usually at least two primary mission companies and one mission support company) to perform significant operations, as well as a limited self-contained administrative and logistics capability, the commander is provided with a full-time staff whose function is to coordinate current operations and plan future operations. A battalion's subordinate units (companies and their organic platoons) are dependent upon the battalion headquarters for command, control, communications, and intelligence and the battalion's organic service and support structure to perform their mission. The battalion is usually part of a regiment, brigade, or group, depending on the organizational model used by that service.The bulk of a battalion's companies will ordinarily be homogeneous with respect to type (e.g., an infantry battalion or a tank battalion), although there are exceptions. A battalion includes a headquarters company and some sort of combat service support, typically organized within a combat support company. The term is Italian in origin, appearing as battaglione. The French changed the spelling to bataillon, whereupon it directly entered into German.
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