In the British Army, which had as much experience as any in the colonial sphere, the typical system actually involved regiments having two battalions, one of which was sent overseas while the other was stationed at a home depot. The home battalion could be tapped for replacements for any men lost to combat or disease, but essentially the same complement of personnel would alternate tours of duty at home and in the colonies. Each tour of duty in the Victorian period typically lasted for four years.

This system applied to British regiments but there were also locally raised regiments which remained based permanently in their local environs, unless called on for service in a specific campaign. There was for example a separate Indian Army, officered by British officers, and also two West India Regiments, a Central Africa Regiment, the East African Rifles and so on. In these cases officers would serve in the local area of their regiment for the whole of their careers. There would be opportunities for a "long leave" of several months' duration every few years - long enough for the officer concerned to get back to Britain.

With regard to prestige, the British regiments were much more prestigious, but, as I commented in an earlier response on army pay, they were also much more expensive to belong to (to the extent that an officer without private income could usually not afford to serve in them at all). For this reason, the regiments of the Indian Army and the West Indian and African regiments attracted a very different class of officer, typically one from a poorer or more middle class background who could not afford to serve in a more prestigious regiment.

(The nature of a regiment's rotation policy and recent foreign service could play a part in the choice that officers made as to what regiment to serve in. There is for example some interesting material in the actor David Niven's memoirs about this point - having done well at the officers' training academy at Sandhurst immediately after WW I he requested, and fully expected to get, a commission in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and an attractive overseas posting to Bermuda. Unfortunately for him, he could not resist filling in the form he was given to list his choices by writing, in last place, "Anything but the Highland Light Infantry." In consequence he was immediately posted to the HLI, which aside from wearing slightly ridiculous tartan trews, rather than kilts, had its overseas battalion stationed in the far less glamorous confines of Malta. Were it not for this misfortune, which eventually left Niven miserable enough to resign his commission, we might never have heard of him as an actor at all.)

In time of war officers stationed outside the war zone might well volunteer for active service or attempt to arrange a transfer to the war zone since active service enabled them to demonstrate competence and bravery and brought them rewards - in terms of both medals and cash awards – while also drawing them to the attention of senior officers. This was the most effective way to short-circuit the notoriously slow and clogged system of promotion by seniority that applied to most British army careers.

A broadly similar but less rigid system applied in the Royal Navy whereby long tours of duty at sea (and in the Victorian period these, again, were typically of four years' duration) were alternated with service in a ship stationed at a home port or with a desk job ashore. This system began to come under some pressure in the 19th century with the development of technical specialisms such as gunnery or torpedo work, which typically demanded men to spend more time based in experimental or training stations at home. In order to maintain the combat readiness of officers, the RN did mandate that officers had to complete a minimum period of "sea time" based away from home ports (the key question was whether you served in a ship or boat that typically came into port each evening, or not), irrespective of their specialisms. This became, for example, a problem for the men of the submarine service, since practically the entire submarine force prior to WW I was based in home ports. The system required men who wanted to be eligible for promotion to the higher ranks to leave submarines for two-year tours of duty as officers on surface ships, a problem that created significant pressure on this branch of the service since submarines were an all-volunteer force with special training and so it was not possible to simply draft general service officers into subs as replacements for such men.