Detachment (military)

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A detachment (from the French Détachement) is a military unit. It can either be detached from a larger unit for a specific function or (particularly in United States Army usage) be a permanent unit smaller than a battalion. The term is often used to refer to a unit that is assigned to a different base from the parent unit. An example is the United States Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Airborne) (1st SFOD-D (A)), commonly known as Delta Force by the general public.

Detachment is also the term used as the collective noun for personnel manning an artillery piece (e.g. gun detachment).

A Cadet detachment usually consists of between 10 and 40 cadets. Several detachments make up a company.