NA524
King & Country
Not yet released - expected in early February.
As drummers rarely if ever would carry a musket this Drummer is using his sword to defend himself.
These 12 all-new French Line Infantrymen are dressed in the uniforms of the period from 1805 until 1812 and carry the weapons and equipment of that same time.
The term ‘Line Infantry’ describes the type of infantry soldiers that made up the vast majority of European land armies from the early 19th century onwards.
For both battle and parade drill, it usually consisted of two to four ranks of foot soldiers drawn up side by side in rigid alignment, thereby maximizing the effect of their massed firepower on the enemy.
Some time later, the term came to be applied to regular regiments ‘of the line’ as opposed to ‘Light Infantry’… skirmishers, militia and other support personnel plus some other categories of infantry not focused on heavy front-line combat.
As mentioned earlier, Line Infantry soon became the most common type of Infantry in European countries with specialists such as Voltigeurs and Grenadiers, formerly elite troops, gradually being absorbed into these new formations.
To successfully perform the Line movements required a large measure of strict discipline and many hours of practice until they became second-nature. During training both drill and corporal punishments were widely used.
During this time the standard French musket was the ‘Charleville’, a .69 calibre weapon that served from 1717 until the mid 1840s.