Skirmisher

Last updated October 27, 2024

Skirmishers are light infantry or light cavalry soldiers deployed as a vanguard, flank guard or rearguard to screen a tactical position or a larger body of friendly troops from enemy advances. They are usually deployed in a skirmish line, an irregular open formation that is much more spread out in depth and in breadth than a traditional line formation. Their purpose is to harass the enemy by engaging them in only light or sporadic combat to delay their movement, disrupt their attack, or weaken their morale. Such tactics are collectively called skirmishing.

Skirmishers can be either regular army units that are temporarily detached to perform skirmishing or specialty units that are specifically armed and trained for such low-level irregular warfare tactics. Light infantry, light cavalry, and irregular units often specialize in skirmishing. Skirmishers' open formations and smaller numbers can give them superior mobility over the regular forces, allowing them to engage only on favorable terms, taking advantage of better position or terrain, and quickly withdrawing from any threat of superior enemy forces.

Though often critical in protecting the main army from sudden enemy advances, skirmishers are poor at taking or defending ground from heavy infantry or heavy cavalry. In modern times, following the obsolescence of such heavy troops, all infantry has become indistinguishable from skirmishers, and the term has effectively lost its original military meaning as a distinct class of soldier, although skirmishing as a combat role is commonplace.

Ancient history

An Agrianian peltast holding three javelins, one in his throwing hand and two in his pelte hand as additional ammunition Agrianian3.jpg — An Agrianian peltast holding three javelins, one in his throwing hand and two in his pelte hand as additional ammunition

In ancient warfare, skirmishers typically carried bows, javelins, slings and sometimes light shields. Acting as light infantry with their light arms and minimal armour, they could run ahead of the main battle line; release a volley of arrows, sling stones, or javelins; and retreat behind their main battle line before the clash of the opposing main forces. The aims of skirmishing were to disrupt enemy formations by causing casualties before the main battle and to tempt the opposing infantry into attacking prematurely, thus throwing their organization into disarray. Skirmishers could also be effectively used to surround opposing soldiers in the absence of friendly cavalry.

Once preliminary skirmishing was over, skirmishers participated in the main battle by shooting into the enemy formation, or they joined in melée combat with daggers or short swords. Their mobility made skirmishers also valuable for reconnaissance, especially in wooded or urban areas.

In Classical Greece, skirmishers originally had a low status. For example, Herodotus, in his account of the Battle of Plataea of 479 BC, mentioned that the Spartan Army fielded 35,000 lightly armed helots to 5,000 hoplites, but there is no mention of them in his account of the fighting.^[1] Often, Greek historians ignored them altogether,^[1] but Xenophon distinguished them explicitly from the statary troops.^[2] It was far cheaper to equip oneself as lightly armed than a fully-armed hoplite. Indeed, it was common for the lightly armed to go into battle equipped with stones.^[3] The low status of skirmishers reflected the low status of the poorer sections of society that made up skirmishers.^[4] Additionally, hit-and-run tactics went against the Greek ideal of heroism. Plato gives the skirmisher a voice to advocate "flight without shame" but only to denounce it as an inversion of decent values.^[5]

Nevertheless, skirmishers then chalked up significant victories, such as the Athenian defeat at the hands of the Aetolian javelin men in 426 BC and, during the same war, the Athenian victory at the Battle of Sphacteria.^[4]

Skirmisher infantry gained more respect in subsequent years, as their usefulness was more widely recognised and as the ancient bias against them waned. Peltasts, light javelin infantry, played a vital role in the Peloponnesian War, and well-equipped skirmisher troops such as thureophoroi and thorakites would be developed to provide a strong mobile force for the Greek and the Macedonian armies.

The Celts did not, in general, favour ranged weapons. The exceptions tended not to include the use of skirmishers. The Britons used the sling and javelin extensively but for siege warfare, not skirmishing.^[6] Among the Gauls, likewise, the bow was employed to defend a fixed position.^[7] The Celts' lack of skirmishers cost them dearly during the Gallic Invasion of Greece of 279 BC when they found themselves helpless in the face of Aetolian skirmishing tactics.^[8] Thracians were famous for their skirmish war tactics and offered their services as mercenaries more than once in the Greek civil wars in ancient times.^[9]

In the Punic Wars, despite the Roman and Carthaginian armies' different organisations, both had the role for skirmishers as screening the main armies.^[10] The Roman legions had a specialised infantry class, Velites, which acted as skirmish troops who engaged the enemy before the Roman heavy infantry made contact, and the Carthaginians recruited their skirmishers from the native peoples across the Carthaginian Empire.

The Roman army of the late republican and early imperial periods frequently recruited foreign auxiliary troops to act as skirmishers to supplement the citizen legions.

Middle Ages

Medieval skirmishers were generally commoners armed with crossbows or longbows. In the 14th century, although long held in disdain by the aristocratic Castilian heavy cavalry, the crossbowmen contributed greatly to the Portuguese victory at the Battle of Aljubarrota. Similarly, English archers played a key role in the English victory over French heavy cavalry at the Battle of Crécy. In the next century, they largely repeated that feat at the Battle of Agincourt. Such disasters have been seen as marking the beginning of the end of the dominance of medieval cavalry in general and of the heavy cavalry in particular.

Early modern period

Americas

The Seven Years' War and American Revolutionary War were two early conflicts in which the modern rifle began to make a significant contribution to warfare. Despite its lower rate of fire, its accuracy at long range offered advantages over the smoothbore musket, then commonly used by regular armies. In both wars, many American frontiersmen served in the militia. The Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War was assisted by such irregular troops, such as the Minutemen, who engaged in skirmishing tactics by firing from cover, rather than in the open-field engagements that were customary at the time. Their tactics were influenced by experiences in fighting Native Americans. Militia in a skirmish role was particularly effective in the Battle of Cowpens. The character of Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans was notably called La Longue Carabine by the French because of his skill with the long rifle, which was common among the Colonials.

Napoleonic Wars

During the Napoleonic Wars, skirmishers played a key role in battles; they attempted to disrupt the main enemy force by firing into their close-packed ranks and to prevent enemy skirmishers from doing the same to friendly troops. Because skirmishers generally fought in open order, they could take cover behind trees, houses, towers and similar items, thereby presenting unrewarding targets for small arms and artillery fire. Such tactics often made them vulnerable to cavalry. Some skirmishers had a minor sapper role by placing cheval de frise to deter cavalry.

A skirmish force screening the main body of infantry became so important to any army in the field that eventually, all major European powers developed specialised skirmishing infantry. Examples included the German Jäger , the French voltigeurs and the British riflemen.

Muskets were the predominant infantry weapon of the late 18th century, but the British Army learned firsthand of the importance of rifles during the American Revolutionary War and began experimenting with them shortly thereafter, resulting in the Baker rifle. Although slower to reload and more costly to produce than a musket, it was much more accurate and proved its worth during the Peninsular War. Throughout the conflict, British riflemen could selectively target and eliminate the officers and NCOs of French forces from outside musket range.^[11]

During the War of 1812, American riflemen again contributed to British casualties but also had to contend with the revised British light infantry tactics.

A consequence of those wars' experiences was a trend to training line troops to adopt tactics that had been used only by skirmishers.^[12]

American Civil War

The treatise New American Tactics, by General John Watts de Peyster, advocated making the skirmish line the new line of battle, which was then a revolutionary idea.^[13] During the American Civil War, cavalrymen often dismounted and formed a skirmish line to delay enemy troops who were advancing toward an objective. An example was the action of the Union cavalrymen led by Brigadier General John Buford on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Skirmish lines were also used to harass enemy probing missions, hampering the other force from gaining an effective intelligence picture by engaging their scouts, and likewise forcing them to deploy.^[14]

Late modern period

By the late 19th century, the concept of fighting in formation was on the wane. Heavy infantry had disappeared, and all infantry effectively became skirmishers. The term has become obsolete, but as late as World War I, it continued to be associated with battlefield reconnaissance screens, which are essentially modern skirmish lines. As in the American Civil War, the primary role of the infantry skirmish line was to screen the advance of a parent force and to disrupt the enemy's own reconnaissance efforts.^[15] With the mechanization of modern warfare, the role of infantry skirmishers was more or less combined with those of light cavalry, as mounted scouts in specialized reconnaissance vehicles took over the responsibility of screening large formations during maneuvers, in addition to conducting their own probing actions.^[16]

Cold War and beyond

Some modern military units still use light and heavily armed units in conjunction. For example, the Soviet Army routinely deployed more lightly armed motorized rifle regiments as skirmishers on the flanks or secondary sectors of a motorized rifle division on the offensive, and the heaviest units, backed by the heaviest armour, would fight in the division's main effort. The modern US military has light rapid-deployment Stryker brigade combat teams working with heavy-mechanized and armored units, with tracked M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks forming the primary combat force.

Apartheid South Africa's military doctrine stressed the use of highly-mobile, light-mechanized forces that could cover ground swiftly while they kept heavier enemy armoured and infantry formations off balance and did not engage until the conditions were favourable.^[17] The lightly armed South African units used tactics such as rapid movement, flank harassment and confusing the enemy with continuous maneuvering to compensate for their inferiority in firepower when they were faced with Angolan and Cuban forces during the South African Border War.^[17] The innovative use of South African reconnaissance units to throw Angolan tank formations into disarray before it lured them into ambushes, effectively deploying the units as skirmishers, was another consistent feature of that conflict.^[18]

Related Research Articles

Historically, cavalry are groups of soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Until the 20th century, cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in the roles of reconnaissance, screening, and skirmishing, or as heavy cavalry for decisive economy of force and shock attacks. An individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations depending on era and tactics, such as a cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, drabant, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, cuirassier, lancer, dragoon, samurai or horse archer. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to any military forces that used other animals or platforms for mounts, such as chariots, camels or elephants. Infantry who moved on horseback, but dismounted to fight on foot, were known in the early 17th to the early 18th century as dragoons, a class of mounted infantry which in most armies later evolved into standard cavalry while retaining their historic designation.

Infantry is a specialization of military personnel who engage in warfare combat. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, irregular infantry, heavy infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry, mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and naval infantry. Other types of infantry, such as line infantry and mounted infantry, were once commonplace but fell out of favor in the 1800s with the invention of more accurate and powerful weapons.

Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects—for example, using infantry and armour in an urban environment in which each supports the other.

Light infantry refers to certain types of lightly equipped infantry throughout history. They have a more mobile or fluid function than other types of infantry, such as heavy infantry or line infantry. Historically, light infantry often fought as scouts, raiders, and skirmishers. These are loose formations that fight ahead of the main army to harass, delay, disrupt supply lines, engage the enemy's own skirmishing forces, and generally "soften up" an enemy before the main battle. Light infantrymen were also often responsible for screening the main body of a military formation.

<i>Peltast</i> Type of Thracian light infantry

A peltast was a type of light infantry originating in Thrace and Paeonia and named after the kind of shield he carried. Thucydides mentions the Thracian peltasts, while Xenophon in the Anabasis distinguishes the Thracian and Greek peltast troops.

Light cavalry comprised lightly armed and armored cavalry troops mounted on fast horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the mounted riders were heavily armored. The purpose of light cavalry was primarily raiding, reconnaissance, screening, skirmishing, patrolling, and tactical communications. Prior to the 17th century they were usually armed with swords, spears, javelins, or bows, and later on with sabres, pistols, shotguns, or carbines.

Line infantry was the type of infantry that formed the bulk of most European land armies from the mid-17th century to the mid-19th century. Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus are generally regarded as its pioneers, while Turenne and Montecuccoli are closely associated with the post-1648 development of linear infantry tactics. For both battle and parade drill, it consisted of two to four ranks of foot soldiers drawn up side by side in rigid alignment, and thereby maximizing the effect of their firepower. By extension, the term came to be applied to the regular regiments "of the line" as opposed to light infantry, skirmishers, militia, support personnel, plus some other special categories of infantry not focused on heavy front line combat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Macedonian army</span> Army of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia

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Infantry tactics are the combination of military concepts and methods used by infantry to achieve tactical objectives during combat. The role of the infantry on the battlefield is, typically, to close with and engage the enemy, and hold territorial objectives; infantry tactics are the means by which this is achieved. Infantry commonly makes up the largest proportion of an army's fighting strength, and consequently often suffers the heaviest casualties. Throughout history, infantrymen have sought to minimise their losses in both attack and defence through effective tactics.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Javelin</span> Type of light spear designed to be thrown by hand

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References

1 2 Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p61
↑ Xenophon, (tr. Bingham, John). The Historie of Xenophon. 1623. Publ: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. ISBN 9789022107041
↑ Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p64p
1 2 Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p65
↑ Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p65. Laws 706c
↑ The Ancient Celts, Barry Cunliffe pp 94–95
↑ Caesar, De Bello Gallico, Book 7, XLI
↑ Peter Green, Alexander to Actium, p 133
↑ "Thracian Skirmishers - Odrysian Kingdom - Total War: Rome II". Royal Military Academy. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
↑ Hannibal's Last Battle: Zama and the Fall of Carthage, Brian Todd Carey p. 12 (Carthage) and p. 18 (Rome)
↑ Urban, Mark. Rifles: Six Years with Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters. Faber & Faber 2004, ISBN 978-0571216819
↑ History of the Art of War, Vol IV Hans Delbrück p449-51
↑ Randolph, pp.82–88
↑ Williamson, David (2009). The Third Battalion Mississippi Infantry and the 45th Mississippi Regiment: A Civil War History. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Publishers. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-0786443444.
↑ Clarke, Dale (2014). World War I Battlefield Artillery Tactics. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-1782005902.
↑ Glantz, David (1990). Soviet Military Intelligence in War. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge Books. pp. 364–365. ISBN 978-0714633749.
1 2 Scholtz, Leopold (2013). The SADF in the Border War, 1966–1989. Cape Town: Tafelberg. pp. 40–41. ISBN 978-0-624-05410-8.
↑ "Mobile firepower for contingency operations: Emerging concepts for US light armour forces" (PDF). Defense Technical Information Center. 1993-01-04. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 22, 2014. Retrieved 2015-08-18.

Sources

Randolph, Lewis Hamersly, Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Officers of the Army and Navy, Henry E. Huntington Library: New York, 1905.

External links

Skirmish tactics during the Napoleonic wars: skirmishing, skirmishers

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[Greek_Warfare_p61-1] 1 2 Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p61

[2] Xenophon, (tr. Bingham, John). The Historie of Xenophon. 1623. Publ: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. ISBN 9789022107041

[3] Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p64p

[Greek_Warfare_p65-4] 1 2 Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p65

[5] Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p65. Laws 706c

[6] The Ancient Celts, Barry Cunliffe pp 94–95

[7] Caesar, De Bello Gallico, Book 7, XLI

[8] Peter Green, Alexander to Actium, p 133

[9] "Thracian Skirmishers - Odrysian Kingdom - Total War: Rome II". Royal Military Academy. Retrieved 2021-12-20.

[10] Hannibal's Last Battle: Zama and the Fall of Carthage, Brian Todd Carey p. 12 (Carthage) and p. 18 (Rome)

[Urban-11] Urban, Mark. Rifles: Six Years with Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters. Faber & Faber 2004, ISBN 978-0571216819

[12] History of the Art of War, Vol IV Hans Delbrück p449-51

[13] Randolph, pp.82–88

[Williamson-14] Williamson, David (2009). The Third Battalion Mississippi Infantry and the 45th Mississippi Regiment: A Civil War History. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Publishers. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-0786443444.

[Clarke-15] Clarke, Dale (2014). World War I Battlefield Artillery Tactics. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-1782005902.

[Glantz-16] Glantz, David (1990). Soviet Military Intelligence in War. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge Books. pp. 364–365. ISBN 978-0714633749.

[Scholtz-17] 1 2 Scholtz, Leopold (2013). The SADF in the Border War, 1966–1989. Cape Town: Tafelberg. pp. 40–41. ISBN 978-0-624-05410-8.

[DTIC1-18] "Mobile firepower for contingency operations: Emerging concepts for US light armour forces" (PDF). Defense Technical Information Center. 1993-01-04. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 22, 2014. Retrieved 2015-08-18.

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