The Birmingham Rifles was a volunteer unit of the British Army founded in Birmingham in 1859. As the 5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, it served as infantry on the Western Front and in Italy during World War I. Its successor units served in air defence during the early part of World War II, and later as anti-tank gunners in the Burma Campaign.

The 59th (Warwickshire) Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery was an air defence unit of the Territorial Army (TA), part of the British Army, and was raised in Birmingham in 1938 just before the Second World War. It later served as a light anti-aircraft gun unit and continued in the postwar TA.