Not my era, and history of war is not my speciality in any era, but I understand it that rules of war were very formal at the time.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;612359Not my era, and history of war is not my speciality in any era, but I understand it that rules of war were very formal at the time.

RPGPundit

The 'rules of war' are always formal, and they're usually ignored.  That was one of the 'problems' with the American Revolutionaries.  

The thing is, the 'rules' are always agreed on by what the major powers think is 'fair' - and it's usually what lets them use their power effectively.  In some ways, it's not much different today.  

The 'powers that be', say that enemy combatants should be uniformed; they should not dress as the opposing side or civilians.  Obviously, that makes it much easier for drones to target them.  But even in the 18th century, British soldiers had problems when militiamen formed up to fight, then dispersed back to their farmsteads and assumed a role as 'non-combatants'.  

Likewise, it was considered 'ungentlemanly' to target specific soldiers - especially officers.  The 'ideal' of warfare were packed formations firing muskets at other packed formations, ensuring that the volley would take a toll...  If both sides followed the rules, than the side with the fastest firing time and most soldiers would win - and that was usually the British.

I've started on my article for the group:

-------------------------------------------------------------------


I promised I'd write something on this for the benefit of those less familiar with it, and perhaps as a starting point to get everyone on the same page. I know some of you already have an interest in the period and/or may have played Empire: Total War which covers this specifically (though being CA with varying degrees of historicity).

If, like me, you were already familiar with Napoleonic warfare, beware; as I've discovered in my research while writing this, I've got a lot of implicit assumed 19th-century-isms wired into my head. Which aren't necessarily appropriate to the mid-18th century.

Warfare is a worthy topic for two reasons: firstly because in many RPGs combat is derived from warfare to a degree, even though the PC scale is usually more like a skirmish than a battle. Still the modes of combat and choice of armaments are often a reflection of what soldiers and armies are up to. Secondly, this was an age defined by war. For all the high-minded talk of ideals, war in this century was endemic (it's sometimes called the Second Hundred Years' War). All the great European powers of the day were fighting each other at home, abroad in their colonies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, and still in the business of trying to conquer native peoples in those areas too. We had a number of genuinely global conflicts, especially the one most relevant to this game set in the 1750s, the Seven Years War. Almost all of them were defined by conflict between two rival powers, around whom the alliances and concords were formed: Great Britain and France (likened to Carthage and Rome - Perfidious Albion was the villain of the piece).

On the nature of war and strategy

The 18th century signalled the death knell of the romantic and chivalric medieval notions of combat, along with almost all of their visible forms. Gunpowder was no longer a support element, but the main military technology changing everything about the way wars were fought. It was the birth of the Age of Rifles. This shake-up coincided with new ways of thinking about fielding and maintaining armies, and the pendulum of quantity v quality swinging into quality once again.

Professionalism was the order of the day; a well-drilled army could handily defeat a much larger, but more-poorly trained force taking relatively light casualties compared to earlier eras. It was also a means to supplant the mercenary companies which had grown to significant power and wealth, at the expense of nation states (and always liable to switch sides to the highest bidder) in the 17th century. Regular armies had uniforms, soldiers were drilled in how to perform their duties so that they became automatic, every arm had its prescribed role in battle and was expected to act as part of the broader plan. The campaign itself had a specific intent: to bring about a decisive battle which would force the loser to accede to the victor's terms in the treaty that followed. War had become a science (fitting in the Age of Reason) which could be studied; from how to train men in the best way, how to march them on campaign, how to choose a site for battle, how to deploy and lead them, how to billet and supply them and so on. Though it's worth noting that there were only a few genuine military academies training a minority of the officers in any nation's armed forces.

Professional forces were expensive to recruit, outfit, train and maintain, and thus generals became much more careful in how they used them. Strategy grew up around only fighting on terms favourable to you, and otherwise avoiding battle. Along with taking time in sieges, which became a skilled discipline in it's own right. You couldn't afford to lose half your force in an ill-planned action, those casualties would be irreplacable in the short term. If that force was your nation's entire military (as the case for Prussia), throwing them away would end your ability to remain independent. As in previous eras, the loser suffered disproportionate losses to the victor, usually because of men killed in the rout once the battle was over.

It's worth stressing how important psychology was, battles were not won by simply killing more of the other side (though that helped), but by breaking the morale and fighting spirit of the opposition. Many of the facets of this style of warfare were unusual or frightening to someone not hardened by drill and experience; everything was noisy, stinking sulphurous smoke often obscured the field; men on horses roamed the field looking for an opportunity to kill and might appear behind you; fragments of lead and metal struck all around seemingly at random; men were cheering, shouting, swearing, praying and screaming and sobbing in pain; drums, flutes and pipes were playing.

War was also perceived (by contemporaries and some later) as having become a more honourable affair, now that melee combat was relegated to a secondary role. Due to stratified class structures, officers were men of property and connections, thus expected to be gentlemen. While promotion was officially determined by seniority, you could buy your way up the chain of command, jumping the queue. Ordinary soldiers would expect their officers to be "better" than them, and officers could expect to receive different treatment. If a ranker was captured by the enemy, he'd be put in prison. If an officer was captured, he could expect to be "paroled", and be free to move around the enemy camp, swearing on his honour that he would not try to escape, but would wait for an enemy officer of equal rank to be traded for him. If an enemy surrendered, they expected not to be summarily executed. If a city chose not to resist a siege, the local populace would expect to be left unmolested (though the age-old maxim of a besieged populace being entirely at the mercy of the besiegers once the assault began remained). It was deemed ungentlemanly to specifically target officers in battle. Thoughts were spared for actually supplying an army on the march, rather than living off the land (ie stealing whatever you needed from the local people), though it was still an amateurish affair (and not every general cared about the goodwill of the host nations).

The order of battle

The previous era, the Age of Pike and Shot has its last gasps in the 1720s, by the 1750s every European nations' regular forces had phased out those modes of combat in favour of the new. Advances in gunpowder technology were the reason. Flintlock muskets were more robust, more reliable and more powerful than firelock arquebuses. More powerful firearms finally made personal body armour obsolete (shields had all but gone before that); armour couldn't get any heavier without being impractical, and it was no longer sufficient to stop a regular musket ball. Infantry duels could be won with musketry alone (partly due to the psychological effect of massed volley fire), and combined with the innovation of the bayonet (which turned a musket into a handy cavalry-negating spear), the pike was made irrelevant. No pikes and no heavy armour meant the plethora of two-handed weapons designed to defeat pike blocks and get through heavy armour were no longer useful on the battlefield, though they remained in ceremonial use. The sword went from a ubiquitous sidearm to something only worn by officers and cavalrymen.

There were three main battlefield elements to an army of this era: infantry, cavalry and artillery, which interacted with each other in what was basically an enhanced "stone, paper, scissors". Infantry in line (or wosre still, skirmish order) was a poor target for artillery, but a ripe target for cavalry (who had no trouble riding down and in amongst scattered men). Infantry in square or column was impenetrable to cavalry, but a nice rich target for artillery. If all three arms were employed in concert, you had a range of tactical options to approach an enemy, and one which was poorly co-ordinated could be taken apart by one which was.

Infantry

The bulk of any regular force remained the infantry. Recruited from the lowest stratum of society and often scorned by civilians and their officers, many were tricked or otherwise induced into signing up, or did so to escape criminal punishment. Poor footsloggers were the people who had to march in ordered ranks into artillery fire and duke it out with other bodies of infantry, all the while staying alert for lurking cavalry hoping to fall upon them in open/skirmishing order. A key part of the intensive drilling of a professional force, besides being able to reload and fire swiftly on command, was being able to smoothly change their formation as a collective. From marching column into battle order, from line into square/column and back again as circumstances and opposition demanded. There were three types of infantry, line/heavy, elite and light.

Line infantry were the decisive element, the main combatants who fought in close order lines and traded volleys with their counterparts. Their job was to take and hold ground. They fought in a three- or four-rank line for musketry or collapsed into a hollow, four-rank square to ward off cavalry, or a wide-fronted column to move quickly under fire. They wore identical uniforms with hats reflecting both their nation and individual regiment. They wore no armour and carried all their personal gear on their backs. Rankers were armed with a heavy musket and socket bayonet. A musket was smoothbore, it wasn't accurate beyond about 50 yards (and even then not terribly so), which necessitated volley fire to increase the chances of some bullets hitting something. Non-commissioned officers were often armed with a spontoon rather than a musket, and wore a sword as a badge of rank. Officers wore different uniforms and didn't carry a longarm, instead using a sword (usually a smallsword, though Scottish Highland officers might prefer a broadsword) and pistol. Personal weapons included knives, hachets (popular in the Americas) and hangers.

Elite infantry were the remnants of royal guards and other units designated as special such as grenadiers (who carried grenades). They were the only infantry who might retain some form of personal armour, often only helmets, but possibly extending to breastplates. Aside from their prestige, they were employed in the same manner as line infantry, though might be more likely to be reserved for the thickest fighting. Grenadiers and pioneers might carry big axes for tackling fortifications.

Light infantry (such as the German Jäger) were skirmishers trained to fight in open order and make use of the terrain for cover. Their job was to screen the main force, harass opposing skirmishers, scout the route ahead and so on. These were usually riflemen carrying rifled carbines which were shorter and lighter than a musket, but also slower to load (because of the difficulty of forcing a bullet down past the grooves of the rifling that made them accurate) and faster to foul (making them harder still to reload). Unlike the musket, a rifle was accurate with aimed shots to about 100 yards. Light infantry weren't very well regarded by most nations, who saw line infantry as the most important force. Light infantry officers sometimes used sabres rather than smallswords.


Cavalry

While infantry did most of the fighting, cavalry retained a role - usually in countering enemy cavalry and riding down fleeing infantrymen at the conclusion of a battle. While attacking an unbroken infantry unit head-on was suicidal, lines were vulnerable in their flanks and rear. There was also the psychological impact of a man on a horse charging at you. Thus effective use of cavalry could turn a battle, though they could no longer win it by themselves. They made up a minority of the roll of battle, though some nations were able to field more cavalry than others.

Cavalry were a presitigous arm, troopers were held in greater esteem than infantry privates. They were often recruited from the yeoman farmer class, as well as country lads who'd experience of riding. Ambitious men of substance who weren't afraid to fight often sought commissions in cavalry regiments as a means to fast advancement. Most cavalry wore no armour, barring some elite/heavy units who might have a cuirass. Very roughly there were two types of cavalry, light and heavy, with a third special type emerging in this era.

Light cavalry tended to be the majority of a cavalry contingent, unarmoured men and horses used for scouting, screening, skirmishing, fighting other light cavalry and riding down fleeing infantry. Fast and agile, they could be a menace to unaware enemy infantry and poorly-protected artillery batteries. They used either sabre or lance (the Polish were renowned and feared lancers) and might carry pistols.

Heavy cavalry were often designated as elites (usually royal guards or equivalent, including the Mamluks). Bigger men on larger, heavier horses who sometimes wore a cuirass and helmet and generally fought with broad swords. Their job was to drive off enemy light cavalry and charge into the flanks and rear of infantry.

A third type which appeared in this era (and became proper "medium cavalry" towards the end of the century) was the dragoon, intended as mounted infantry able to use the speed and mobility of a horse to get to where they were needed, then dismount and form up. Multi-role generalists, they were often inferior against proper cavalry (especially heavies) and were paid less and had lower status than the other two types. That flexibility, however, also made them useful for "internal security" against smugglers and civil unrest. Their classic panoply was a sabre, an axe and a carbine (short musket).

Artillery

The Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus made the cannon an effective force on the battlefield, using smaller, lighter guns in larger numbers than previously available. Bombards of old were too heavy and slow outside of sieges, and liable to be lost in retreat. The new types of gun completely invalidated millenia of siege warfare, where any medieval style of wall or fortification could be easily reduced to rubble. This led to a frenzy of bastion-style fortresses being built across Europe and the colonies, but also strengthened the hand of the monarch with respect to his local lords if he had modern artillery.

-support - musicians, engineers, logistics, couriers/messengers/aide-de-camp


Irregulars

While nations would prefer to only have properly-trained regulars, use of auxiliary troops of various types was inevitable. Most often locally-recruited militias, civilians pressed into military service (either temporarily or drawing upon existing units formed for civil defense). In the Americas each of the colonies was required to maintain a militia against the threat of invasion from foreign powers.  Irregulars usually performed the tasks of light infantry, scouting, screening and skirmishing, and often weren't trusted to feature in the fighting line. The reality of warfare in the colonies was that there was only ever a limited number of regulars stationed there, and the bulk of the fighting was done by irregulars (militias and natives), usually outside the context of formal, pitched battles as described above. This meant that irregular units could, with experience, become just as proficient as regulars, and some "ranger" units (such as mixed militia and native outfits like Gorham's Rangers) were often elites.

Hastily-armed civilians might be issued standard infantry muskets; those with a hunting background could bring along rifles. In America specifically, the long rifle was a common hunting weapon in certain parts (it's first recorded manufacture was in 1719), and men familiar with its use brought it to war with them. Accurate at distances even longer than the rifled carbines used by light infantry (200-300 yards wasn't uncommon in the hands of a competent marksman), it brought a particular character to warfare in America. The final French and Indian War demonstrated the value of the long rifle for light infantry, where pragmatic colonials ignored the polite rules of war and targeted officers to reduce an enemy's effectiveness. Irregulars would often have a knife and/or hachet as backup weapons, given their value as tools on the frontier.

Another major classification of irregular in the Americas were the native peoples, who fought on every side of the various conflicts. Their traditional forms of warfare were perfectly adapted for light infantry tactics, and they often served as scouts and skirmishers to European armies and militias. Some militias recruited friendly natives directly, and many of the ranger-designated outfits learned their trade from their native members. Every native warrior carried a knife, though beyond that weapon choices were down to individual preference. For ranged weapons traditional armaments included the bow, sling or blowgun and throwing weapons such as javelins, bolas and balanced axes were common. While some native warriors used the musket, they fought as individuals rather than in ordered lines making it less effective (but also making musket volleys less effective against them in turn). For close combat a wide range of weapons was employed; tomahawks, war clubs and gunstock clubs, spears and hammers. Many colonials adopted native methods of fighting and armaments.



It's worth noting that one of the earliest treatise on the use of light infantry and guerilla warfare, Rogers' Rules of Ranging, was written in this era and in America.


Naval Warfare
  -marines

Civilians

Civilian life was by no means peaceful, with various forms of violence an everday occurrence. For the upper classes, it was expected that a gentleman wore a sword (he wasn't "fully dressed" without) and it behooved him to know how to use it, should he be called upon to satisfy questions of honour. Duelling was rife, though fashions had moved away from the sword to the pistol being the primary choice of weapon (after incidents like the death of Baron Mohun, popularised in fiction at the time). The rapier persisted, though many preferred the smallsword. Gentlemen who were serving military officers could wear their usual swords in public if in uniform.

Duelling pistols were more expensive and of better manufacture than the sorts commonly found in the hands of soldiers, though weren't carried on someone's person. A gentleman would send his valet or second to fetch his pistols from home if he were called to duel on short notice. There were various rules designed to minimise deaths, sometimes honour was satisfied merely by attending, then if one duellist chose to shoot the ground, the other could do the same and agree that both were happy.

Outbreaks of violence amongst the lower orders were not uncommon, and many working class men (rural and urban) carried a knife on their person as a matter of course, given it had various uses as a tool. Weapons improvised from repurposed tools used in their trade were commonplace (invariably something heavy and blunt).

Pugilism (ie boxing) was popular with all classes as was wrestling. There were also several European martial arts in use at this time. Fencing was popular amongst those who could afford to join a salle or have an instructor. Singlestick and la canne were two similar English and French styles of stick-fighting (also applicable to using a sword-cane). Rarer, but still accessible with the right sort of lifestyle were two unarmed styles, the French savate and Basque-Spanish zipota, popular with sailors.



What does any of this mean for PCs?
-to write-

Getting there with the article for my group (the real thing has a lot of Wikipedia links):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I promised I'd write something on this for the benefit of those less familiar with it, and perhaps as a starting point to get everyone on the same page. I know some of you already have an interest in the period and/or may have played Empire: Total War which covers this specifically (though being CA with varying degrees of historicity).

If, like me, you were already familiar with Napoleonic warfare, beware; as I've discovered in my research while writing this, I've got a lot of implicit assumed 19th-century-isms wired into my head. Which aren't necessarily appropriate to the mid-18th century.

Warfare is a worthy topic for two reasons: firstly because in many RPGs combat is derived from warfare to a degree, even though the PC scale is usually more like a skirmish than a battle. Still the modes of combat and choice of armaments are often a reflection of what soldiers and armies are up to. Secondly, this was an age defined by war. For all the high-minded talk of ideals, war in this century was endemic (it's sometimes called the Second Hundred Years' War). All the great European powers of the day were fighting each other at home, abroad in their colonies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, and still in the business of trying to conquer native peoples in those areas too. We had a number of genuinely global conflicts, especially the one most relevant to this game set in the 1750s, the Seven Years War. Almost all of them were defined by conflict between two rival powers, around whom the alliances and concords were formed: Great Britain and France (likened to Carthage and Rome - Perfidious Albion was the villain of the piece).


On the nature of war and strategy

The 18th century signalled the death knell of the romantic and chivalric medieval notions of combat, along with almost all of their visible forms. Gunpowder was no longer a support element, but the main military technology changing everything about the way wars were fought. It was the birth of the Age of Rifles. This shake-up coincided with new ways of thinking about fielding and maintaining armies, and the pendulum of quantity v quality swinging into quality once again.

Professionalism was the order of the day; a well-drilled army could handily defeat a much larger, but more-poorly trained force taking relatively light casualties compared to earlier eras. It was also a means to supplant the mercenary companies which had grown to significant power and wealth, at the expense of nation states (and always liable to switch sides to the highest bidder) in the 17th century. Regular armies had uniforms, soldiers were drilled in how to perform their duties so that they became automatic, every arm had its prescribed role in battle and was expected to act as part of the broader plan. The campaign itself had a specific intent: to bring about a decisive battle which would force the loser to accede to the victor's terms in the treaty that followed. War had become a science (fitting in the Age of Reason) which could be studied; from how to train men in the best way, how to march them on campaign, how to choose a site for battle, how to deploy and lead them, how to billet and supply them and so on. Though it's worth noting that there were only a few genuine military academies training a minority of the officers in any nation's armed forces.

Professional forces were expensive to recruit, outfit, train and maintain, and thus generals became much more careful in how they used them. Strategy grew up around only fighting on terms favourable to you, and otherwise avoiding battle. Along with taking time in sieges, which became a skilled discipline in it's own right. You couldn't afford to lose half your force in an ill-planned action, those casualties would be irreplacable in the short term. If that force was your nation's entire military (as the case for Prussia), throwing them away would end your ability to remain independent. As in previous eras, the loser suffered disproportionate losses to the victor, usually because of men killed in the rout once the battle was over.

It's worth stressing how important psychology was, battles were not won by simply killing more of the other side (though that helped), but by breaking the morale and fighting spirit of the opposition. Many of the facets of this style of warfare were unusual or frightening to someone not hardened by drill and experience; everything was noisy, stinking sulphurous smoke often obscured the field; men on horses roamed the field looking for an opportunity to kill and might appear behind you; fragments of lead and metal struck all around seemingly at random; men were cheering, shouting, swearing, praying and screaming and sobbing in pain; drums, flutes and pipes were playing.

War was also perceived (by contemporaries and some later) as having become a more honourable affair, now that melee combat was relegated to a secondary role. Due to stratified class structures, officers were men of property and connections, thus expected to be gentlemen. While promotion was officially determined by seniority, you could buy your way up the chain of command, jumping the queue. Ordinary soldiers would expect their officers to be "better" than them, and officers could expect to receive different treatment. If a ranker was captured by the enemy, he'd be put in prison. If an officer was captured, he could expect to be "paroled", and be free to move around the enemy camp, swearing on his honour that he would not try to escape, but would wait for an enemy officer of equal rank to be traded for him. If an enemy surrendered, they expected not to be summarily executed. If a city chose not to resist a siege, the local populace would expect to be left unmolested (though the age-old maxim of a besieged populace being entirely at the mercy of the besiegers once the assault began remained). It was deemed ungentlemanly to specifically target officers in battle. Thoughts were spared for actually supplying an army on the march, rather than living off the land (ie stealing whatever you needed from the local people), though it was still an amateurish affair (and not every general cared about the goodwill of the host nations).


The order of battle

The previous era, the Age of Pike and Shot has its last gasps in the 1720s, by the 1750s every European nations' regular forces had phased out those modes of combat in favour of the new. Advances in gunpowder technology were the reason. Flintlock muskets were more robust, more reliable and more powerful than firelock arquebuses. More powerful firearms finally made personal body armour obsolete (shields had all but gone before that); armour couldn't get any heavier without being impractical, and it was no longer sufficient to stop a regular musket ball. Infantry duels could be won with musketry alone (partly due to the psychological effect of massed volley fire), and combined with the innovation of the bayonet (which turned a musket into a handy cavalry-negating spear), the pike was made irrelevant. No pikes and no heavy armour meant the plethora of two-handed weapons designed to defeat pike blocks and get through heavy armour were no longer useful on the battlefield, though they remained in ceremonial use. The sword went from a ubiquitous sidearm to something only worn by officers and cavalrymen.

There were three main battlefield elements to an army of this era: infantry, cavalry and artillery, which interacted with each other in what was basically an enhanced "stone, paper, scissors". Infantry in line (or wosre still, skirmish order) was a poor target for artillery, but a ripe target for cavalry (who had no trouble riding down and in amongst scattered men). Infantry in square or column was impenetrable to cavalry, but a nice rich target for artillery. If all three arms were employed in concert, you had a range of tactical options to approach an enemy, and one which was poorly co-ordinated could be taken apart by one which was.

Infantry

The bulk of any regular force remained the infantry. Recruited from the lowest stratum of society and often scorned by civilians and their officers, many were tricked or otherwise induced into signing up, or did so to escape criminal punishment. Poor footsloggers were the people who had to march in ordered ranks into artillery fire and duke it out with other bodies of infantry, all the while staying alert for lurking cavalry hoping to fall upon them in open/skirmishing order. A key part of the intensive drilling of a professional force, besides being able to reload and fire swiftly on command, was being able to smoothly change their formation as a collective. From marching column into battle order, from line into square/column and back again as circumstances and opposition demanded. There were three types of infantry, line/heavy, elite and light.

Line infantry were the decisive element, the main combatants who fought in close order lines and traded volleys with their counterparts. Their job was to take and hold ground. They fought in a three- or four-rank line for musketry or collapsed into a hollow, four-rank square to ward off cavalry, or a wide-fronted column to move quickly under fire. They wore identical uniforms with hats reflecting both their nation and individual regiment. They wore no armour and carried all their personal gear on their backs. Rankers were armed with a heavy musket and socket bayonet. A musket was smoothbore, it wasn't accurate beyond about 50 yards (and even then not terribly so), which necessitated volley fire to increase the chances of some bullets hitting something. Non-commissioned officers were often armed with a spontoon rather than a musket, and wore a sword as a badge of rank. Officers wore different uniforms and didn't carry a longarm, instead using a sword (usually a smallsword, though Scottish Highland officers might prefer a broadsword) and pistol. Personal weapons included knives, hachets (popular in the Americas) and hangers.

Elite infantry were the remnants of royal guards and other units designated as special such as grenadiers (who carried grenades). They were the only infantry who might retain some form of personal armour, often only helmets, but possibly extending to breastplates. Aside from their prestige, they were employed in the same manner as line infantry, though might be more likely to be reserved for the thickest fighting. Grenadiers and pioneers might carry big axes for tackling fortifications.

Light infantry (such as the German Jäger) were skirmishers trained to fight in open order and make use of the terrain for cover. Their job was to screen the main force, harass opposing skirmishers, scout the route ahead and so on. These were usually riflemen carrying rifled carbines which were shorter and lighter than a musket, but also slower to load (because of the difficulty of forcing a bullet down past the grooves of the rifling that made them accurate) and faster to foul (making them harder still to reload). Unlike the musket, a rifle was accurate with aimed shots to about 100 yards. Light infantry weren't very well regarded by most nations, who saw line infantry as the most important force. Light infantry officers sometimes used sabres rather than smallswords.

Cavalry

While infantry did most of the fighting, cavalry retained a role - usually in countering enemy cavalry and riding down fleeing infantrymen at the conclusion of a battle. While attacking an unbroken infantry unit head-on was suicidal, lines were vulnerable in their flanks and rear. There was also the psychological impact of a man on a horse charging at you. Thus effective use of cavalry could turn a battle, though they could no longer win it by themselves. They made up a minority of the roll of battle, though some nations were able to field more cavalry than others.

Cavalry were a presitigous arm, troopers were held in greater esteem than infantry privates. They were often recruited from the yeoman farmer class, as well as country lads who'd experience of riding. Ambitious men of substance who weren't afraid to fight often sought commissions in cavalry regiments as a means to fast advancement. Most cavalry wore no armour, barring some elite/heavy units who might have a cuirass. Very roughly there were two types of cavalry, light and heavy, with a third special type emerging in this era.

Light cavalry tended to be the majority of a cavalry contingent, unarmoured men and horses used for scouting, screening, skirmishing, fighting other light cavalry and riding down fleeing infantry. Fast and agile, they could be a menace to unaware enemy infantry and poorly-protected artillery batteries. They used either sabre or lance (the Polish were renowned and feared lancers) and might carry pistols.

Heavy cavalry were often designated as elites (usually royal guards or equivalent, including the Mamluks). Bigger men on larger, heavier horses who sometimes wore a cuirass and helmet and generally fought with broad swords. Their job was to drive off enemy light cavalry and charge into the flanks and rear of infantry.

A third type which appeared in this era (and became proper "medium cavalry" towards the end of the century) was the dragoon, intended as mounted infantry able to use the speed and mobility of a horse to get to where they were needed, then dismount and form up. Multi-role generalists, they were often inferior against proper cavalry (especially heavies) and were paid less and had lower status than the other two types. That flexibility, however, also made them useful for "internal security" against smugglers and civil unrest. Their classic panoply was a sabre, an axe and a carbine (short musket).

Artillery

Artillery was the smallest and most technical arm of an 18th century army. It was their job to reduce fortifications, decimate packed bodies of infantry and counter enemy artillery. The use of artillery required educated officers knowledgeable in mathematics to calculate range, trajectory, adjust for environmental conditions and so on. Gunnery had become a science, and it's officers were some of the most qualified men in the army. It also required technical expertise on the part of the crews who had to keep the guns working even as their barrels fouled and grew hot. Even moreso than in the class distinction in other arms, there was a real gulf between artillery officers and gun crews. They were a respectable arm, though deafness was an occupational hazard.

It was in the 17th century that the cannon an effective force on the battlefield, where smaller, lighter guns were fielded in larger numbers than previously. Bombards of old were too heavy and slow outside of sieges, and liable to be lost in rapid enemy action. The new types of gun completely invalidated millenia of siege warfare, where any medieval style of wall or fortification could be easily reduced to rubble. This led to a frenzy of bastion-style fortresses being built across Europe and the colonies, the cost of which was beyond anyone but a central authority, further strengthening the hand of the monarch with respect to his local lords if he also had modern artillery.

The basic design of a field gun was set in the 15th century; a barrel mounted on a wheeled carriage with a limber that allowed it to be drawn by horses or oxen. The 17th century brought technological advancements and more specialised pieces; shipboard artillery, howitzers and mortars. The heaviest guns were in fixed emplacements, or strictly siege pieces. Next were those aboard ship, with only the lightest being deployed in the open field. In the 18th century a French artillery engineer introduced standardisation of artillery and the century also heralded battlefield use of indirect fire and horse artillery (light guns with entirely mounted crews, able to get into position and fire quickly, but also able to quickly pack up and move if threatened).

The most basic ammunition was the roundshot, solid balls of lead which had a long range and were useful against fortifications and packed bodies of men. Roundshot could also be heated prior to use to start fires. Explosive shells, hollowed out lead balls filled with gunpowder that fragmented when the internal charge went off, were invented in this era, which were an effective anti-personnel round. Grapeshot was a bag packed with small fragments (musket balls, nails, etc) which at close ranged turned the gun into a giant blunderbuss and caused hideous damage to anyone in front of it. Canister was similar to grapeshot, but used a metal container which would also fragment when fired.

Support

The three main arms weren't the only participants in war. Infantry regiments had musicians who doubled as stretcher-bearers to take away the wounded. For infantry, drummers and pipers were the most common, who helped men to keep time while marching and boosted morale. Cavalry regiments had buglers who relayed orders using pre-arranged signals.

- musicians, engineers, logistics, couriers/messengers/aide-de-camp, camp followers (laundresses, cooks, tailors, sutlers, etc)


Irregulars

While nations would prefer to only have properly-trained regulars, use of auxiliary troops of various types was inevitable. Most often locally-recruited militias, civilians pressed into military service (either temporarily or drawing upon existing units formed for civil defense). In the Americas each of the colonies was required to maintain a militia against the threat of invasion from foreign powers. Originally every free white man was enrolled, but with the end of the threat from Indians, this had ceased by 1725. If a conflict took place within a colony, the militia would be compelled to muster. Meanwhile militias from neighbouring colonies would be asked for volunteers to participate. Irregulars usually performed the tasks of light infantry, scouting, screening and skirmishing, and often weren't trusted to feature in the fighting line. The reality of warfare in the colonies was that there was only ever a limited number of regulars stationed there, and the bulk of the fighting was done by irregulars (militias and natives), usually outside the context of formal, pitched battles as described above. This meant that irregular units could, with experience, become just as proficient as regulars, and some "ranger" units (such as mixed militia and native outfits like Gorham's Rangers) were often elites.

Hastily-armed civilians might be issued standard infantry muskets; those with a hunting background could bring along rifles. In America specifically, the long rifle was a common hunting weapon in certain parts (it's first recorded manufacture was in 1719), and men familiar with its use brought it to war with them. Accurate at distances even longer than the rifled carbines used by light infantry (200-300 yards wasn't uncommon in the hands of a competent marksman), it brought a particular character to warfare in America. The final French and Indian War demonstrated the value of the long rifle for light infantry, where pragmatic colonials ignored the polite rules of war and targeted officers to reduce an enemy's effectiveness. Irregulars would often have a knife and/or hachet as backup weapons, given their value as tools on the frontier.

Another major classification of irregular in the Americas were the native peoples, who fought on every side of the various conflicts. Their traditional forms of warfare were perfectly adapted for light infantry tactics, and they often served as scouts and skirmishers to European armies and militias. Some militias recruited friendly natives directly, and many of the ranger-designated outfits learned their trade from their native members. Every native warrior carried a knife, though beyond that weapon choices were down to individual preference. For ranged weapons traditional armaments included the bow, sling or blowgun and throwing weapons such as javelins, bolas and balanced axes were common. While some native warriors used the musket, they fought as individuals rather than in ordered lines making it less effective (but also making musket volleys less effective against them in turn). For close combat a wide range of weapons was employed; tomahawks, war clubs and gunstock clubs, spears and hammers. Many colonials adopted native methods of fighting and armaments.

It's worth noting that one of the earliest treatise on the use of light infantry and guerilla warfare, Rogers' Rules of Ranging, was written in this era and in America.

Mercenaries

While the British famously used Hessian mercenaries in large numbers in the Americas, its inconceivable in an era of near-constant warfare that there wasn't a surplus of ex-military veterans and others familiar with violence who might turn their hand to mercenary work.


Naval Warfare
  -marines

Civilians

Civilian life was by no means peaceful, with various forms of violence an everday occurrence. For the upper classes, it was expected that a gentleman wore a sword (he wasn't "fully dressed" without) and it behooved him to know how to use it, should he be called upon to satisfy questions of honour. Duelling was rife, though fashions had moved away from the sword to the pistol being the primary choice of weapon (after incidents like the death of Baron Mohun, popularised in fiction at the time). The rapier persisted, though many preferred the smallsword. Gentlemen who were serving military officers could wear their usual swords in public if in uniform.

Duelling pistols were more expensive and of better manufacture than the sorts commonly found in the hands of soldiers, though weren't carried on someone's person. A gentleman would send his valet or second to fetch his pistols from home if he were called to duel on short notice. There were various rules designed to minimise deaths, sometimes honour was satisfied merely by attending, then if one duellist chose to shoot the ground, the other could do the same and agree that both were happy.

Outbreaks of violence amongst the lower orders were not uncommon, and many working class men (rural and urban) carried a knife on their person as a matter of course, given it had various uses as a tool. Weapons improvised from repurposed tools used in their trade were commonplace (invariably something heavy and blunt).

Pugilism (ie boxing) was popular with all classes as was wrestling. There were also several European martial arts in use at this time. Fencing was popular amongst those who could afford to join a salle or have an instructor. Singlestick and la canne were two similar English and French styles of stick-fighting (also applicable to using a sword-cane). Rarer, but still accessible with the right sort of lifestyle were two unarmed styles, the French savate and Basque-Spanish zipota, popular with sailors. All of these could see use in warfare as well as in the street.


What does any of this mean for PCs?
 
Obviously if you have a PC with a military background, or experience of war they'd be aware of some or all of this stuff. What is of greater impact, though are the sorts of weapon choices open to them, the types of training commonly available, and the way their enemies are likely to fight. As already noted, regulars has a limited impact in the American theatre because there were so few of them. Most nations relied on militias and natives, though the former were often arranged along similar lines to regulars, and might even have regular officers or else veterans of regular units.

As noted most of the medieval mainstays - armour and a wide variety of swords - are no longer in circulation. At best they're historical relics in the form of family heirlooms or in the hands of private collectors. Wearing a sword wasn't frowned upon (especially if you were of a certain class), but it was likely to be a smallsword, or if a serving officer in uniform, a sabre or broadsword. Knives were a practical tool carried by many, though these were usually utility knives, rather than larger hunting or fighting knives. Tomahawks or hachets were popular amongst frontier and native types. Clubs, singlesticks and batons were a common choice of weapon when preparing for trouble (or occasionally a quarterstaff), and many gentlemen carried a cane or walking stick which could double up as a weapon (when it didn't conceal a sword). Guns weren't usually carried around in town, and most people didn't own a gun unless they had a hunting or duelling background.

Armed opposition is most likely to be either natives or European civilians. Of the civilians, some may be militia-trained and armed with firearms, but others would simply have whatever improvised weapon they could bring along.