An Army Group Royal Artillery was a British Commonwealth military formation type during the Second World War and shortly thereafter, generally assigned to corps. An AGRA was mainly composed of medium artillery regiments but heavy regiments and field regiments were also used. They were moved at need from corps to corps within an army.
They were created during the war as artillery theory evolved. After the British Expeditionary Force was expelled from France in 1940, the need for flexibility in the control of artillery above the division increased. The idea was to group all artillery above the division in formations which could be switched within the field army at will to meet needs for fire concentration on different parts of the front. For the most part each corps in the line was assigned an AGRA but when especially heavy fire support was needed one corps area could be stripped of its AGRA to support another as happened at the battle for Calais in 1944.
AGRAs made their debut in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations and the concept was further used during Operation Overlord and the ensuing campaigns.
Read more about Army Group Royal Artillery: Commonwealth AGRAs, List of AGRAs
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