Silesian Schuetzen are a type of skirmisher infantry in Napoleon: Total War.
Description[]
Elite rifle-armed troops, these men are crack shots and skilled in skirmish warfare.
Named for the province in which they are raised, Silesian Schuetzen are elite sharpshooters. These troops can hide completely in a variety of terrain types and fire upon the enemy with startling accuracy. They fight in loose formation, which gives them added protection from line infantry. If they meet the same units in open conflict, these skirmishers will suffer. The Silesian Schuetzen are also at a disadvantage in close combat.
Historically, Schuetzen units were raised from a variety of sources to defend Silesia from the French attack of 1807. They were originally garrisoned in Liegnitz and, like many units in their early years, they lacked uniformity of armament, though mostly they were armed with infantry muskets. Eventually the men were all armed with the 1787 pattern rifle, a long gun with a calibre of about a finger’s width. Unusually for a flintlock, it had front and back sights: the back sight was graded up to 300 paces, allowing startling feats of marksmanship.
General Information[]
Unique to Prussia, Silesian Schuetzen are superb skirmishers. Their accuracy is tied with Rifles for being the best in Napoleon: Total War, and their reloading skill is only marginally worse. They are extremely weak in melee combat, even when compared to other skirmishers, but this is usually of little consequence as no skirmisher can fare respectably in a melee anyway.
While their reloading skill is much higher than that of most other skirmishers, Silesian Schuetzen are still armed with rifles, making their overall reload speed still very slow. This, combined with their terrible melee statistics, makes them extremely vulnerable to being charged by cavalry. Silesian Schuetzen are best used in close support with other troops to cover this weakness. As with other skirmishers, they operate best when placed on high elevations, allowing them to use their superior range to support friendly troops from the rear or the flanks.
Silesian Schuetzen are greatly superior to standard Prussian Jägers in terms of ranged combat, but they are hampered by their cap of only two regiments. They are the best skirmishers available to Prussia.
Although the Modern Rifles technology is required to train these units, two regiments are already present in the Prussian Army at the beginning of the Grand Campaign, and more cannot be trained regardless unless these regiments are killed or disbanded. Their early presence, coupled with Prussia's large number of existing Jägers in its starting armies, give Prussia a powerful advantage in the skirmisher arm of its forces.
Silesian Scheutzen are considered by the game to be elite units, and are therefore immune to the effects of cold attrition.