Fri May 02, 2008 12:57 am
In my PBEM mod, I have a very limited number of small 2 or 3 regiment light infantry brigades within the reinforcement pools available for both sides.
The primary advantage of light infantry is they lose cohesion at a slower pace than regular infantry. Which makes them ideal for use in difficult terrain such as mountains, swamps or wilderness. They perform very slightly worse than regular infantry in battle.
The primary disadvantage of light infantry is that they do not have a late war model. Their stats do not improve with upgrade as does regular infantry. They are also 750 man regiments vs the regular 1000 man regiments.
Technically there weren't any "light" infantry brigades during the civil war. Some troops were called "light" infantry simply because of unusual performance or hard marching ability.
I am assuming the light infantry are recruited from hardier troops comfortable with living an outdoor lifestyle and rough travel. Perhaps troops raised from mountainous regions or less settled, more wild parts of the country. Again, the numbers available for recruitment are small.
I also removed the light infantry regiments from the original Union volunteer militia/light infantry brigades. Now those volunteer brigades are pure militia regiments without the light infantry regiment.