The mania for Prussian drill vanished fairly rapidly with Britain's experience of more flexible formations in America (though in peace it made a comeback, until the Duke of York's unfortunate campaign in Flanders). Their subsequent military reforms were based on the French model, and they raised many Landwehr (essentially militia) units to fight Napoleon after the Russian invasion. The Prussians were whipped by the French at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt in 1806. Prussian discipline was fierce and, to exaggerate only slightly, designed to turn ordinary soldiers into unimaginative automatons. But they weren't fast and generally placed far too little emphasis on skirmishing and light infantry. Prussian troops were extremely well drilled. You're probably getting confused with the general admiration for Frederick the Great's military system in the mid-18th Century, where states adopted elements of Prussian drill. In fact, British and later American soldiers were trained by Prussian drill sergeants.Not exactly. 1840), were the most elite regular soldiers of any European army. Prussian Line Infantry, up until about the end of the Napoleonic Age (ca.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to be training troops that are equivalent to your rivals', when by training Line Infantry, you get superior soldiers to your rivals while paying less. At least that much is historically correct. Austria has their swift Hussars, the Ottomans have their massive artillery, Russia has her vast numbers, and Britain has her indomitable fleet. The bottom line is this: Line Infantry are Prussia's backbone, and regardless of how good any skirmishers or cavalry are, Line Infantry will always be the cream of a successful Prussian army. Both of these give the commanding general two extra command stars when leading infantry units. Moreover, most Prussian generals will have the attributes 'Prussian Junker' and/or 'Drillmaster'. They are also the cheapest to train and maintain. Just a little information you might want to know, however: in the original campaign and DMUC addon, Prussian Line Infantry have the highest overall stats of all 'vanilla' Line Infantry.

Empire total war prussian units