page_title: Line (formation)
section_title: The line formation and cavalry
hierarchical_section_title: Line (formation) / The line formation and cavalry
context_page_description: The line formation is a standard tactical formation which was used in early modern warfare.
  It continued the phalanx formation or shield wall of infantry armed with polearms in use during antiquity and the Middle Ages.
  The line formation provided the best frontage for volley fire, while sacrificing maneuverability and defence against cavalry. It came to the fore during the Age of Reason, when it was used to great effect by Frederick the Great and his enemies during the Seven Years' War. The line formation was very successfully first used with combined arms in the Thirty Years War by the Swedish
  king Gustavus Adolphus the Great, at the Battle of Breitenfeld.
  An infantry battalion would form "in line" by placing troops in several ranks, ranging in number from two to five, with three ranks being the most common arrangement. Each rank was approximately half a metre apart from the next, and soldiers in a rank were positioned closely to each other, with just enough room to present their weapons, fire, and reload. The line formation required that the troops be well-drilled and constantly supervised by officers and non-commissioned officers.
context_section_description: The line formation was also used by certain types of cavalry.
  The Sassanid Persians, the Mamluks, and Muslim cavalry in India often used the tactics named "shower shooting".  It involved a line of fairly well-armoured cavalrymen (often on armoured horses) standing in a massed static line or advancing in an ordered formation at the walk while loosing their arrows as quickly as possible by reducing their draw length.
  In the 16th century, the heavy cavalry (gendarmes, reiters and cuirassiers) often attacked in a line formation. Later, dragoons began to use linear tactics, being on foot in the defence. Accordingly, the name "line cavalry" has moved from heavy cavalry to the dragoons. Hussars in the 15th-17th centuries wore armor, and often attacked in close line formation, but later hussars became a light cavalry and stopped using linear tactics. Cossacks never used linear tactics.
caption: French Gendarmes
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