Insulting a Regiment

[AndyC]

Comment on this article on the best way to insult entire regiments, by @David Flin

 

[RyanF]

I'm reminded of the RASC: "Run Away, Someone's Coming".

 

[Coiler]

The Perry class frigate was nicknamed the Helen Keller Class because of complaints about both its "eyes" (radar) and "ears" (sonar)

 

[Geordie]

Before being renamed the Home Guard, Mr Deary insists that Dad's Army were the Look, Duck and Vanish.

 

[Coiler]

I remember the Coastal Forces being nicknamed Costly Farces.

 

[Incognitia]

Merely descriptive, but the Royal Logistics Corps is also known as the Really Large Corps.

 

[FriendlyGhost]

Of course, to the other branches of the forces, all soldiers are either pongoes ('cause where they go, that's where the pong goes) and/or grunts (ground reconnaissance units, non-thinking).

 

[Juan Vogel]

Merely descriptive, but the Royal Logistics Corps is also known as the Really Large Corps.

I recall reading an autobiography of somone who got a dig in at the Royal Army Service Corps - RASC, which he said was an acronym for "rob all serving cobbers" after he had various things stolen from him whilst recovering from an injury in WW1

 

[Geordie]

While not a regiment, ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) were, I'm told, also referred to as Every Night, Something Awful.

 

[Bonniecanuck]

Ship nicknames are fodder for these. Australia's last aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne was nicknamed the "Can Opener" after she collided with and sank two destroyers. Battleship USS South Dakota was nicknamed the "Shitty Dick" by the sailors of USS Washington after credit was attributed to the former for the latter sinking a Japanese battleship at Guadalcanal. Sailors tossed into the brig of the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower have taken to calling the ship "Ikeatraz."

But my favourite naval insult isn't even a nickname. During the Second World War, the destroyer USS William D. Porter infamously fired a torpedo at the battleship that was carrying FDR to the Tehran Conference. Afterwards when the Willy D encountered friendly ships they'd hail her with "Don't shoot, we're Republicans!"

 

[RyanF]

While not a regiment, ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) were, I'm told, also referred to as Every Night, Something Awful.

Just when you thought they had finally given up on "We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" we go and invade Europe.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

The Connaught Rangers were commonly known as the "Devil's Own" and were regarded as the most skilled thieves in the Victorian and Edwardian British Army (where they would have faced much competition for the title!)

 

[AndyC]

REME stands for Ruin Everything Mechanical and Electrical.
RLC is the Really Large Company (as alluded to earlier)

 

[IanBertram]

I'd never heard of chocolate soldier in relation to London regiments. My knowledge of the term comes from its use in Arms and the Man.

Chocolate Soldier is an expression referring to a good-looking but useless warrior, popularised by George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play Arms and the Man. The term originates as a derogatory label for a soldier who would not fight but would look good in a uniform, shortened from 'Chocolate Cream Soldier'.

I heard it applied to a soldier in Hussar uniform sometime in the late 60s.