Light-infantry

Light infantry is a designation applied to certain types of foot soldiers (infantry) throughout history, typically having lighter equipment or armament or a more mobile or fluid function than other types of infantry, such as medium, heavy or line infantry. Historically, light infantry often fought as skirmishers; soldiers who fight in a loose formation ahead of the main army to harass, delay and generally "soften up" an enemy before the main battle. Today, the term "light infantry" generally refers to units that specifically emphasise speed and mobility over armor and firepower (including Commandos and parachute units), to units that historically held a skirmishing role but keep their designation for the sake of tradition, or to some combination of the two.

The concept of a skirmishing screen is a very old one and was already well-established in Ancient Greece and Roman times in the form, for example, of the Greek peltast and psiloi, and the Roman velites. As with so called "light infantry" of later periods, the term more adequately describes the role of such infantry rather than the actual weight of their equipment. Peltast equipment, for example, grew steadily heavier at the same time as hoplite equipment grew lighter. It was the fact that peltasts fought in open order as skirmishers that made them light infantry and that hoplites fought in the battle line in a phalanx formation that made them heavy infantry.

Early regular armies of the modern era frequently relied on irregulars to perform the duties of light infantry skirmishers. In the 17th century, dragoons were the light infantry skirmishers of their day – lightly armed mounted infantrymen who rode into battle but dismounted to fight, giving them a mobility lacking to regular foot soldiers.

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