For the Napoleon: Total War version see Rifles.
Green Jackets are skirmishers in Empire: Total War.
Description[]
Green Jackets are snipers without peer, picking off leaders to sow confusion in enemy ranks.
Organised and equipped as light infantry with rifles, not smoothbore muskets, riflemen have every right to see themselves as an elite. Chosen for initiative and intelligence, they fight without close supervision from their officers. Their uniforms set them apart in an age when soldiers dress like peacocks: they deliberately blend into the landscape so that they can stalk their prey.
Historically, the most famous riflemen, the British Green Jackets, carried infantry rifles designed by Ezekiel Baker. This muzzle-loading flintlock used a small but tightly rifled barrel to give superb accuracy. There are some accounts of riflemen holding targets for each other at hundreds of paces! It was a slow business to load the piece properly, as high-quality powder was carefully measured out and the bullet wrapped in a leather patch then tapped down the barrel to engage with the grooves. All of this could take a minute or more to do properly, but the resulting shot was deadly over astonishing ranges. Baker even carefully supplied a long "sword bayonet" so that the overall length of his rifle plus bayonet matched that of a line infantryman's bayonet-tipped musket.
General Information[]
Green Jackets are the British variant of the generic Riflemen. They are statistically identical to riflemen. They are recruitable only in the British home regions.
Green Jackets are long-range light infantry with slightly superior defense and charge bonuses to Ferguson Riflemen. They are also cheaper to train and maintain than the Ferguson Riflemen. However, they fire and reload much more slowly. They have very poor melee characteristics.