Talk:Line infantry

Name of the article

It seems to me that the name [[Infantry of the Line]] is far more appropriate then the current name--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 05:03, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Crap Hats

Removed all of this as subjective. Also, RAF regiment are not infantry so are removed as are Royal MArine commandos. Only units of the British Army can be line infantry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boooooom (talk • contribs) 08:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

RAF Regiment

There seems to be someone with an affiliation to the RAF Regiment who has restored their original references in a bid to make the 'Rock Apes' appear somehow better than infantry. This is misleading and the poster should know that such references are counter-productive to the Rgt since the Army regards them as little more than Walter Mitty-esque attempts to 'big up' the Rgt and those who serve in it. The references are far too subjective. The RM do not refer to line infantry as 'crap hats' in my experience, but 'pongos'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sir Edmund Bear (talk • contribs) 11:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I just add to that...RAF Reg: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA

Merger proposal

This article does not appear to add anything to Infantry of the British Army, I suggest it should be merged into that article. Highfield1730 (talk) 12:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Merged as this article seems to attract no constructive additions Highfield1730 (talk) 16:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

New article

A new article was created which is about historical line infantry of European countries rather than about the modern infantry of the British Army. Ufim (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC).

Gustavus Adolphus most assuredly did not issue his infantry with wheel-locks, like the vast majority of infantry during the first half of the 17th C. they were equipped with matchlocks. --Trithemius (talk) 03:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal 2

Line infantry and Line (formation) seem to cover basically the same content, with only slight changes in wording. I would suggest merging Line infantry into Line (formation). If the former covers something that the latter doesn't, then a new section could be added to the latter... but mostly, I think they're duplicates of each other. --Quuxplusone (talk) 22:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Line infantry used not only line formation. Line infantry also used column and carré.

Line formation was used not only by infantry, but also by some sorts of heavy cavalry and by fleet. Ufim (talk) 08:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Most of the content of Line Infantry is really about line tactics in the 17th. - 19th. century. However, Line infantry, as has already been said, used other tactics - they were line only in the sense that they were the "ordinary" infantry type who made up the bulk of the line, as opposed to specialists like grenadiers or light infantry (who also, of course, could use line formations and tactics). Other uses of line tactics (e.g. by cavalry) could be covered by expanding what is in the article or dividing it Line (infantry formation), Line (cavalry formation). There is already a separate article for ships and a stub on line for aircraft formations could be added if required. Monstrelet (talk) 15:33, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree. As noted by editor Monstrelet above "line" in most European armies had by the 19th century come to mean the numbered, regular infantry or cavalry regiments who did not have specialist roles, (such as mountain troops), or social status (such as guards). In short the majority of any army. If this definition can be given in a brief stub, the bulk of the present article should be collapsed into the one describing line formations and tactics. Buistr (talk) 07:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Wheellocks

"At the beginning of 17th century the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus decided to equip his army with firearms with wheellocks, but only his cavalry received them in his lifetime. Shortly after his death, the Swedish infantry was equipped with new muskets with wheellocks which were comparatively light when compared to older muskets, making it easier to fire the weapon without the aid of a support. "

I'd challenge that. Wheellocks were available, but were (for the time) precision weapons and thus very costly - far too dear to equip masses of infantry with them. Even the link to 'wheellock' suggests differently. Long-arms did indeed become lighter and rests were discarded, but that's another issue.

Hand guns

Perhaps to avoid confusion and to better phrase the sentence in the following section: "With the massive proliferation of hand guns (firearms that could be carried by hand, as opposed to cannon; not to be confused with handguns)"

Would it not be better to replace hand guns with simply "small arms"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thom430 (talk • contribs) 15:32, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for pointing that out. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 15:13, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Foot Guards?

In the lede, Buistr has recently re-added text that contrasts Foot Guards with line infantry. I'm confused about this. How are Foot Guards not line infantry? They were just a supposed better class of standard infantry at the time, which was line infantry. The under-sourced Foot Guards article does not indicate any different tactics, formations, or weapons, used by them -- only the single sentence "In some militaries, foot guards are senior infantry regiments." Without any reasoning on why they are not line infantry, I'm for removing it. (Even if they are different by some view, it's not really significant for the lede, since foot guards are little-known.) --A D Monroe III^(talk) 15:33, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

• The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines "The Line" as regular and numbered army regiments (not auxiliary forces or Guards). As explained in the main text this is a traditional distinction without modern tactical significance. However since this article deals largely with historical topics the distinction between line infantry and foot guards, militia etc should be referred to in the lede and not edited out. Buistr (talk) 01:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Again, what is the distinction between line infantry and foot guards? If we can't define the difference, we should not contrast them. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 15:56, 28 January 2018 (UTC)he

• • "Foot Guards" are (or historically were) the infantry component of 'the royal guards of the major monarchies of Europe and the Middle East". They "differ in purpose, function and composition from other troops. Guards are defined as troops with the word 'guard' or its equivalent, in their formal title, and having the function of guarding their monarch". They "were (or in London still are) the largest military force in the capitals of the monarchies of Europe" and hence "in moments of crisis, often decided the fate of the monarchy". Quotes taken from the introduction and preface to "Pillars of Monarchy. An Outline of the Political and Social History of Royal Guards" 1400-1981, Philip Manson, ISBN 0-7043-2424-5. The COED definition of line infantry is given above. Buistr (talk) 18:28, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay, within all that, I suppose there's a decent attempt at a definition of foot guards, but it's nothing that can be conveyed in the lede. Foo guards did not fight differently from line infantry. They were, at best, simply the more elite line infantry, though often even that distinction was hard to prove. I'm okay with noting the assumed distinctions between foot guards and line infantry at some point in the article, but it's too weak to fit concisely in the lede. The lede for this subject exists only to provide the definition of line infantry, not to define foot guards. Adding foot guards in the lede, either briefly with little or no explanation, or at full length with way too much emphasis, does nothing but confuse the reader. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 15:45, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Then we should also take out the (undefined) references in the lede to light infantry, skirmishers, militia, and especially support personnel (the last category simply didn't exist prior to the Napoleonic Wars). We seem to be looking at the distinction between foot guards and line infantry from the perspectives of different eras - the historic 18th-19th century period when, as detailed by Philip Manson, foot guards in most armies were a very conspicuous and distinct separate entity from the mass of "ordinary" line infantry; and the present day when there is no difference in tactical terms. I feel that since this article deals mainly with the classic evolution of "line infantry" we should acknowledge the authoritative and commonly used Oxford English Dictionary definition (ie. − line infantry are "regular and numbered army regiments (not auxiliary forces or guards)". However quaint, snobbish or anachronistic foot guards may appear to modern eyes they did predate line infantry in the English, French, Prussian, Spanish, Russian and other armies and should not be written out of any lede summary. Buistr (talk) 20:43, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

We're trying to help the reader understand what defines something as line infantry. Saying we should take every distinction out if we take foot guards out is just a false dichotomy. Each of the other distinctions are defined quite well in their respective main articles. Foot guards, however, is the only one whose article has no helpful definition at all, much less anything that can be contrasted with line infantry. Arguing here about what foot guards are or aren't in talk in this article is moot if its main article can't do as much. No one is looking for a distinction between line infantry and foot guards -- above all, not the readers. Telling the readers that a distinction exists without any information on what that distinction might be isn't just unhelpful, it amounts to misinformation. If we can really come up with a clear and notable well-supported difference between foot guards and line infantry, then we must first fix the foot guards article to include this important fact. Only then can we include foot guards in this article, and even then probably not in the lede unless that difference is somehow very fundamental to what it means to be line infantry. Otherwise it can only go in a separate paragraph with a full explanation after the lede. (Also, the OED mentions "guards", not "foot guards", and implies soldiers on guard duties in bases and forts, which are certainly distinct from line infantry -- but nothing to do with foot guards.) --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:47, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

With no reason given to keep for over a year, I've removed Foot Guards. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 17:23, 6 April 2019 (UTC)