Understanding our wartime experiences...

[JMA]

As an old RSM once said, that system is at one time the strength and the bane of the British Army.

Thats classic British for you. A statement making it possible to be in both camps (for and against) at the same time.

I would be interested to learn more of these supposed negatives but perhaps they are conjured up by those having no regimental system of note as some form of justification for their own position?

Meantime I refer to Sydney Jary from his delightful book '18 Platoon':

Infantry warfare is a wretched business. It makes the physical and the emotional demands on participants that run contrary to all human instinct. The strong minority must quietly help the weak majority. To me that is the essance of good team work and that jewel in the crown of the British Army, the regimental system, is the strong foundation upon which we all, knowingly or unknowingly, relied.

Then of course sage advice from an expected quarter:

Remember tradition does not mean that you never do anything new, but that you will never fall below the standard of courage and conduct handed down to you. Then tradition, far from being handcuffs to cramp your action, will be a handrail to guide and steady you in rough places. - Field Marshal Sir William Slim

...oh yes, and before the academics and those who have never fired a shot in anger start to get involved in this matter:

Only infantry officers are qualified to express opinions on this subject. - Lieut.-Colonel B.E. Ferguson, D.S.O., O.B.E., The Black Watch, "The Case for the Regimental System," Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Vol. XCVI, February to November 1951