Musketeers

Musketeers are line infantry, able to attack with fixed bayonets or fire disciplined volleys into an enemy’s ranks.

Even Russia’s foes have a grudging respect for these sons of the Motherland. They are capable of delivering a volley of devastating fire into an enemy with their smoothbore muskets, and then following it up with a good bayonet charge. They have good morale, but this is no protection against artillery bombardment or the sniping of skirmishers. If threatened by cavalry, they can form square.

Barclay de Tolly, the Russian Minister of War in 1810, instigated a complete re-organisation of the Russian army, to bring it up to date with contemporary tactics. Before him, the army had suffered from the eccentricities of Tsar Paul I, who had reversed, ignored or subverted many of Catherine the Great’s policies. Paul chose to model his army on that of Frederick the Great, an organisation pattern already a quarter-century out of date when he chose it. Among the other madness that Paul inflicted on his poor soldiers was the introduction of steel knee plates; these were not for protection, but to make the soldiers adopt a “proper” stiff-legged marching style!