Talk:Heavy infantry

To link between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age: Regular Infantry (British redcoats, etc), though unarmored, would have been considered heavy infantry, in contrast to skirmishers or light infantry.

The only link to the modern era except for mech infantry would be the development of powered exoskeletons, although such has seen only fictional military use, some promising DARPA projects notwithstanding.--Sergeantgiggles

The use of the term being limited to pre Gunpowder does not actually seem to be the case, Napoleonic Troops seem to be described as light and heavy as a matter of course. Even if the post gunpowder claim (I say claim as it seems to lack citation) is accurate it would seem to be against popular consensus. -- Jadrax —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.13.252.214 (talk) 15:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Its worth noting that by the late Middle Ages - at least on the battlefields of the hundred years war - that the traditional mounted knight had largely transformed into heavy infantry fighting with a poleaxe or other such two handed weapon while protected by advanced plate. At Agincourt for example, the French only mounted a portion of their knights as a special tactical force tasked to ride down the English flanks while the vast majority of the knights on both sides fought on foot. There are many potential reasons for the change to dismounted knights. The devastating effects of massed longbows and crossbows against boot-to-boot cavalry charges (where horses were far more vulnerable than riders and tended to cause ugly pile-ups when they went down) are generally understood, but perhaps more important than that is the frightening disadvantage of facing a truly lethal spearing and chopping two-handed weapon while stuck on a horse in a melee - as far back as Hastings, mounted men might find their horse nearly decapitated by a well placed blow that they could neither parry nor return. The historical record suggests that it was the rise of professionally trained and equipped heavy infantry as much as later gunpowder weapons that ended the domination of heavy horse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.158.136.166 (talk) 21:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

It is my unmderstanding that heavy infantry is often confused with heavily-armored infantry. When historians talk about heavy infantry they are talking about units that fight in a tight formation, heavily-armored or not. For instance, most greek hoplites could not afford any body armor, but since they fought shoulder to shoudler, the "weight" of their unit was greater, i.e., it hit with more force on a charge (which for hoplies was probably a slow trot) and was harder to move when it was charged against. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scoutrto (talk • contribs) 04:50, 19 April 2011 (UTC)Reply

Indeed the article tends to focus on equipment rather than role; light vs heavy could equally be define those units which are "line of battle" (heavy, emphasising fighting power) & those who fulfill other roles such as skirmishing, harassment, reconnaissance & raiding (emphasising tactical mobility.)

The change to the gunpowder era doesn't alter this - as the velite fought ahead of the triplex acies & fell back through its ranks as the battle closed so is the tactical relationship between the tirailler & line of fusiliers (in an oddly apt comparision the legionnaire as much as the fusilier hoped to break his enemy with his organic firepower, though both were expected to close if needs be.)

What gets confusing is the idea of "medium infantry" a concept that seems modern, albeit applied retrospectively to previous eras. This quite possibly to distinguish elite (guards, grenadiers) line units from the homogeneously equipped infantry line, "heavy" traditionally implying more battlefield capability than other line units. It could be said that this semantic difference followed on to a real difference as the "elite" infantry unit some late-19thC/early-20thC nations ended up with higher densities of machine guns, more organic artillery and other support assets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.108.189 (talk) 11:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Classical "Medium infantry" might perhaps consist of such creatures as ekdromoi, theurophoroi, thorakities (my spelling may stink) or Roman Antesigni - men equipped and trained to fight in close order but also trained for skirmishing. The classic role=/=equipment is the "peltast" units deployed by some of the Hellenistic diadochoi states that consisted of heavily armoured assault infantry who still rated as light troops (peltasts) because they fought in open order rather than being part of a phalanx. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 11:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Or is someone just very confused? The last para of "The Industrial Era and Beyond" needs a re-write to be clear what the author means. After several re-reads, sense eventually breaks through, but there's still an orphaned reference to Russians that makes it look like they were part of the Iraq Coalition. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 11:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Even now, 'heavy infantry' has been used to refer to troop formations intended for a more defensive role. They might operate closer to supplies at hand, carry more support weaponry (grenades, heavy machine guns, mortars, light artillery, etc.), and are basically there to hold territory. Light infantry on the other hand is still a term used for troops that range far ahead with less supplies on hand and fulfill all the roles that light infantry have essentially done since ancient times.

Light infantry are usually more conservative with ammo; they only carry some, since their focus is on movement day after day through whatever terrain is presented to them.

Heavy infantry on the other hand are there to break the enemy's will to fight in areas that the enemy clearly occupies; essentially by pounding the crap out of them with as much ammo as they've got, and can be resupplied with.

Heavy infantry are naturally, used in more conventional warfare, where the enemy is a known force that to be met in the open (eg. WW1 and WW2). Conventional wars being a lot more rare in the post-vietnam era could explain why the term has seen less use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Impfireball (talk • contribs) 06:58, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Grenadiers are used after middle ages and are chosen by the strongest men in the army. And so even without armour they should be included as heavy infantry. Sticktheok (talk) 07:16, 23 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Interesting point. The article in general seems to assume that "heavy infantry" is a concept that went away with the invention of firearms. If that's true, then the article should say so explicitly in the intro. If it's not true, then the grenadiers should definitely get a mention.

I don't know enough about military history to deal with this myself. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 13:45, 20 April 2024 (UTC)Reply