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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 ...
French Gendarmes. The line formation was also used by certain types of cavalry. The Sassanid Persians, the Mamluks, and Muslim cavalry in India often used the tactics named "shower shooting". It involved a line of fairly well-armoured cavalrymen (often on armoured horses) standing in a massed static line or advancing in an ordered formation at the walk while loosing their arrows as quickly as ...
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.
When light infantry, that hitherto had been organised in small units like the free battalions (Freibataillone), became part of the line troops, and the Landwehr, national guards and the like became part of the warfighting army, the term "line regiment" was used to distinguish the standing, active, regular units from the rest.
The line formation also fell prey to cavalry charges since the horses could cover the final 50 yards (46 m) while only receiving a single volley of fire from the infantry. The third formation, known as infantry square, used 4–6 ranks in depth with a square or rectangular shape to protect infantry from cavalry charges with the goal of not ...
Infantry could be described as line infantry, guards, grenadiers, light infantry or skirmishers, but the roles and arms employed often overlapped between these. Line infantry Infantry of the line were so named for the dominant line combat formation used to deliver a volume of musket fire. Forming the bulk of the Napoleonic armies it was the ...
Echelon formation: a military formation in which members are arranged diagonally. Encirclement: surrounding enemy forces on all sides, isolating them. Enfilade: a unit (or position) is "enfiladed" when enemy fire can be directed along the long axis of the unit. For instance, a trench is enfiladed if the enemy can fire down the length of the trench.
The word infantry was borrowed into other Romance languages from the Latin infantem, a "foot soldier" who served in groups composed of those soldiers who were too-inexperienced or too low in rank for membership to the cavalry. As a meaning for an organised type of combat troops, the word dates to 1579 in the French infantrie and Spanish ...