Redcoat Officer by Stuart Reid

Author:Stuart Reid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Redcoat Officer: 1740 – 1815
ISBN: 9781782005247
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

INTO BATTLE

Throughout the mid to late 18th century, infantry battalions were broken down into a number of platoons, each commanded by a captain. In the 1740s companies were administrative rather than tactical units and at the outset of an action or a tactical demonstration the battalion was ‘told off’ into ad hoc platoons and officers allocated to each quite arbitrarily (see Warrior 19 British Redcoat 1740–93). Whilst theoretically efficient enough, this was a bad practice in man-management terms as it frequently separated soldiers from their own officers. In the 1750s, however, James Wolfe introduced the Prussian-style ‘alternate firing’ system under which each company was divided into two platoons. This was much more popular and, when preparing to cross the St. Lawrence to reinforce Wolfe’s unsuccessful attack at Montmorency in 1759, Captain John Knox of the 43rd Foot breathlessly recorded that his orders were that ‘the regiment should embark, land, and fight by companies under their own Officers, which afforded the highest satisfaction to the soldiers’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.