AGEOD Forums

What real life organization is represented by light infantry? It seems like what is meant is some sort of mix in characteristics of youths, zouaves, sharpshooters, and infantry. Another forum doesn't have an answer (http://civilwartalk.com/threads/heavy-infantry-vs-light-infantry.25384/). Near as I can tell, at the time of the civil war, all infantry trained as "light infantry", with maybe some variation for zouaves and a lot for sharpshooters. Or at least, Hardee's training manual calls all infantry, "light infantry".

IIRC the Light Infantry encountered in the game were described as being a kind of precursor to skirmishers. I think the Scott's Military Dictionary description from the link you provided pretty much supports this.

[INDENT]Scott's Military Dictionary -- Light Infantry is defined as "a" Company of the active, strong men of a battalion. A regiment employed as "light infantry" is divided into skirmishers, supports and reserve. The supports are in the rear of the skirmishers. The reserve is the point on which both the supports and skirmishers may rally.[/INDENT]

Although the last post in that link tends to describe that all infantry at the time were trained as Light Infantry all the battles I can think of had infantry deployed on a battle line. Some go as far to say that the tactics that solidified during the civil war bore out their consequences in the trench warfare of WWI.

In open fields on the defensive the best tactic was to build a strong defensive position, either using walls and fences and reinforcing these or digging trenches, to build a strong line with no gaps for the enemy to filter through. Every gap could put the enemy on at lease one flank of some formation and be exploited and widened that gap to allow a larger formation to push through the battle line and into the rear of the defenders. In front of the battle line skirmishers were positioned to breakup enemy advancing formations and slow them down.

But even in wooded and heavily wooded areas, The Wilderness is an excellent example (and just 150 years and a couple of days ago), an area where Light Infantry would have supposedly had the opportunity to use the "advantage" of their tactics, battle lines were the rule of the day. This is because it is far easier to control and even assess a battle line as opposed to a skirmish-line spread out in depth, especially in heavy foliage. Also men gain courage from the presence of other men by their sides. Scattered formations are destined to break an fall back.

I've read in the forum somewhere that Light Infantry help protect a withdrawing or retreating force from losses while being perused, but if and how that really works is beyond my knowledge. It would also insinuate a form of hidden ability not designated by an icon as with skirmishers. If this is actually true, maybe Light Infantry should also have an ability icon similar to the skirmisher's icon.

Although the last post in that link tends to describe that all infantry at the time were trained as Light Infantry all the battles I can think of had infantry deployed on a battle line.

All regular civil war infantry could and did deploy as skirmishers although the mass of the formation fought in battleline. I believe your definition is more applicable to the Napoleonic period and as far back as at least the AWI. Then often only certain troops were trained to operate as skirmishers or light troops.

I am not sure if there were any troops trained specifically as "light troops" only except some of the few sharpshooter organizations.

In open fields on the defensive the best tactic was to build a strong defensive position, either using walls and fences and reinforcing these or digging trenches, to build a strong line with no gaps for the enemy to filter through.

Correct, although it was very rare to see real entrenchments used by field armies until around 1864. Sherman's march to Atlanta and Grant vs Lee in 64 faced real entrenchments and small numbers were able to face large numbers. Even at Gettysburg in 63, there were no real entrenchments. I believe at the beginning of the war, Lee used entrenchments before commanding the ANV but was kind of ridiculed for doing so. Maybe McClellan in the Peninsula as well, IIRC. But entrenchments were not widespread until 1864 amongst armies maneuvering in the field.

As a note, Scott's Dictionary doesn't differentiate "light infantry" (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/AEK7340.0001.001/388?rgn=full+text;view=image;q1=light+infantry) and "infantry" (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/aek7340.0001.001/347?page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image;q1=light+infantry). There is no such thing as "heavy infantry" in the book. [And having discovered the book, its now on my reading list]

Jagger2013 wrote:I am not sure if there were any troops trained specifically as "light troops" only except some of the few sharpshooter organizations.

In the game light infantry units seem to have non-historical names. Does anyone have any ideas of a better way to handle light infantry? I'm considering looking for infantry battalions and calling them light infantry. A better option is to look for particular companies which commonly served as rearguard, detached to destroy rail, and performed other non-regular infantry duties.

Looking at the characteristics of light infantry in game (in the models DB), on top of being a bit smaller in terms of number of men/hits, they do seem to have some characteristics more like cavalry, which is why they are described as better at covering retreats. It isn't really a special ability any more than other combat parameter values are.

I had thought that the in game light infantry were supposed to be representing home raised regiments with an odd ball assortment of weapons and no line training. Better than a militia or volunteer unit but not as good as a line infantry. But, i just assumed that.

Maybe, although militias can be trained to line/regular, but light cannot. I like to treat light as a different sort of sharpshooter, distributing one per division as far as they will go, trying to gain the retreat advantage they give across as many divisions as possible (although I'm really not sure if they provide very much and if there abilities are given to entire divisions).

That said, I'd like to give the units proper names, rather than semi-non-historical ones they occasionally currently hold such as "Maryland Rifles", "New York Rifles", or "SC Rifles". South Carolina and other states had Battalions sized infantry groups which seem to fit, and are my current first choice for renaming the light infantry regiments (and the militia regiments in the same brigade can get names from the same type of unit, I guess).