Line infantry

Line infantry is a sort of infantry which composed the basis of land armies since the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century.

Line infantry appeared in the 17th century. At the beginning of 17th century the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus equipped his army with new muskets with wheel-locks which were light weight compared to older muskets, making it easier to fire the weapon without the aid of a support. Moreover, the new musket required less iron and it turned out to be cheaper in mass production.

With the massive proliferation of handguns in the infantry units from the middle of 17th century the battlefield was dominated by linear tactics, according to which the infantry was aligned into long thin lines and fired one or more volleys. Line was considered as the fundamental battle formation, and a line break was considered a defeat. The infantry was trained in the manual of arms evolutions, the main objectives of which were fast deployment of a line and maneuvers.

Line tactics required a strict discipline and simple movements, practiced to the point where they became second-nature. During training, the drill and corporal punishments were widely used. This made staffing the rank and file from the nobles impossible. The line infantry was recruited on the basis of forced conscription of peasants (especially the serfs) or the recruitment of mercenaries. Only the officer corps remained aristocratic.

Line infantry quickly became the most common type of infantry in European countries. Musketeers and grenadiers, formerly elite troops, gradually became part of the line infantry, switched to the linear tactics and began to be recruited from commoners.

At the end of the 17th century muskets were replaced by lighter and cheaper infantry fusils with flint locks, weighing 5 kg with a caliber of 17.5 mm, first in France and then in other states. In many countries, the new fusils retained the name "musket". Both muskets and fusils were smooth-bore which lessened their accuracy and range. Bayonets were attached to the muzzle of muskets and were used when line troops entered melee combat.

The bulk of the line infantry had no protective equipment. Only the former elite troops could keep by tradition some elements of protection, for example, copper caps of grenadiers.

Besides line infantry, there were elite troops (mainly, the guards of monarchs and popes) and the light infantry which appeared in the late 18th century. Light infantry consisted of riflemen (such as the Jäger), armed with expensive rifled carbines and trained in aimed shooting and use of defilades. Line infantry, whose muskets with bayonets were heavier than carbines, became known as heavy infantry.

In France during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars the division into the Guard, line infantry and light infantry formally continued to exist. But actually both line regiments and light regiments had identical tactics and weaponry (smooth-bore fusils). The French troops were completed on the basis of universal conscription, so they weren't trained to attack in lines, and attacked in another close formation namely the column. They aligned in a line very seldom and only in defense. Both line regiments and light regiments had a battalion of very distinguished soldiers who fought in extended order.

Since the era of the Napoleonic wars, when the linear tactic was considered outdated, line infantry continued to name any infantry combating in close order. Line infantry became more used to hand combat. The light infantry provided fire support, covered the movement of units. In Russia, Great Britain and some other states, linear tactics and a discipline of the rod were maintained even in the middle of the 19th century (during the Crimean War).

In the middle of the 19th century breech-loading rifles were invented, which gave the riflemen a tangible advantage over the line infantry. The growing rate of fire of rifles and the invention in 1883 of Maxim gun machine gun led to the fact that close orders of line infantry began to suffer huge losses and failed to reach a distance of bayonet fighting. This led to a complete abandonment of the line infantry on the border of the 19th and 20th centuries.