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The line of battle or the battle line [1] is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652.
The line formation was very successfully first used with combined arms in the Thirty Years War by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus the Great, at the Battle of Breitenfeld. [2] An infantry battalion would form "in line" by placing troops in several ranks, ranging in number from two to five, with three ranks being the most common arrangement ...
Deployment of a 10-company infantry regiment in line formation. The core of these tactics was organizing soldiers into ranks and files in order to form a regiment into a line of battle or column. [21] The line was the primary formation of combat as it allowed the soldiers to fire a full volley at the enemy.
Line infantry mainly used three formations in its battles: the line, the square, and the column. With the universal adoption of small arms (firearms that could be carried by hand, as opposed to cannon) in infantry units from the mid-17th century, the battlefield was dominated by linear tactics, according to which the infantry was aligned into long thin lines, shoulder to shoulder, and fired ...
Blitzkrieg – A method of warfare where an attacking force, spearheaded by a dense concentration of armoured and motorised or mechanised infantry formations with close air support, breaks through the opponent's line of defence by short, fast, powerful attacks and then dislocates the defenders, using speed and surprise to encircle them with the ...
As the line of battle was adopted, navies began to distinguish between vessels that were fit to form parts of the line in action, and smaller ships that were not. By the time the line of battle was firmly established as the standard tactical formation during the 1660s, merchant ships and lightly-armed warships became less able to sustain their ...
Ancient or medieval formations include shield walls (skjaldborg in Old Norse), phalanxes (lines of battle in close order), testudo formation and skirmish line. Tactical formations include: [2] [3] Forlorn hope; Formation flying; Box; Coil: Similar to the Herringbone formation, the coil formation allows for 360 degree security while at the halt ...
To deploy its weapons effectively, a traditional infantry unit would generally form a line; but the line was vulnerable to more nimble cavalry, which could sweep around the end of the line, or burst through it, and then attack the undefended rear or simply sweep along the line attacking the individual footsoldiers successively. By arranging the ...