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I have never heard the term 'Skirmisher' before and was a little suprised when I was taken here after searching for 'Skirmish', which is a much more common term. Why does 'Skirmish' not have it's own entry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.15.7.70 (talk) 19:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The concepts are directly related: a skirmish is "a minor fight in war usually incidental to larger movements" and is frequently seen in the context of cavalry actions in advance of or on the flanks of an army. "Skirmisher" usually describes the role of an infantryman in advance of the main force and this article correctly states that this is no longer much of distinction now that large formations of infantrymen are infrequently used in combat. It would make more sense to name this article "skirmish" and redirect from "skirmisher", explaining both terms in the lead section. I would wager skirmish is used more frequently in Wikipedia than skirmisher. Hal Jespersen (talk) 19:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But not all the links do skirmish are really refering to small encounters eg Battle of Yarmouk. The link is from "skirmish line" and clearly has in mind a type troop ie skimishers. There really should be too articles. A skirmisher line is really something which plays a function in a much larger battle. A skirmish is often a fight between two small bodies of troops that is not part of a larger whole and may involve troops that are in no sense skirmishers.Dejvid (talk) 11:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Use of riflemen in the Americas during the Seven Years War and American War for Independence[edit]
The article mentions the British "experimenting" with rifles during the Napoleonic wars. However shouldn't mention be made of the major contribution American colonists using rifles during the Seven Years War and American War for Independence a generation and more earlier (it was the American colonists who were the main users of rifles and riflemen in both conflicts, NOT the British regulars)? These were among the first major conflicts where the modern rifle played a major role, and contributed to the British "experiments" in the early 19th century to begin with.Ambaryer (talk) 12:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have accounts from the Celts themselves, that's true. It is the interpretation of ancient writers and modern historians that the reason many groups of Celts were totally without skirmishers was a macho contempt. It is hard to see what other interpretation there can be, given that the Galatians suffered several disasters due to the total lack of skirmisher. It is certainly not true that the Greeks and Romans emphasized skirmishers. I will check my refs to ensure contempt is adequately reffed but by the same token any skepticism that the motivation was contempt will need a reff.Dejvid (talk) 13:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In the meantime, this notion of "macho contempt" remains unsubstantiated, and I will continue to revert back to neutral language. Please find a decent modern historian and not some twaddle from an Osprey book, by the way. I have not said the Greeks and Romans emphasised skirmishers, only that they put more emphasis on them than the Celts did. Paul S (talk) 10:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Shouldn't the intro clearly state that this is an obsolete term or at least be written in the past tense? As it stands it appears to be a current tactic or term when it isn't. DMorpheus2 (talk) 16:34, 7 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We define "skirmisher" and "skirmishing" in the lede paragraph, and then finally "skirmish" at the end. Would it be better to have the subject named "Skirmish" and then derive these terms from that? --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:06, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm moving this discussion from my user talk page to here, since its about changes to this article, which can interest other editors of this article. It concerns this addition, which I reverted.
There is nothing wrong with the source however, I'll rewrite my sentence again. It will now be; Mossi infantry had skirmishers which they used in combat. Please do not just delete someone's whole post, you can simply correct the grammatical errors. Kwesi Yema (talk) 14:12, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As I stated in my edit summary, I did not understand the edit well enough to correct it. Your new wording given here is understandable. However, I noted two other issues.
First, the citation is malformed. Some of the information you give in the <ref> part of the citation seems to belong inside the {{cite}} template (e.g., there's no "journal=" part in this).
Second, as the journal cited has "late 19th century" in its title, I'd assume it's about late modern combat, not medieval or ancient, so this all appears to be in the wrong section of the article.
If it's about late modern combat, the section for this in the Skirmisher article deals primarily with the loss of "skirmisher" as a distinct type of infantry, becoming just an activity that may be assigned to any infantry, including mechanized infantry or even light AFVs. Since I don't have access to the journal you are attempting to cite, I can't tell which definition of "skirmisher" applies to Mossi -- a distinct type of infantry or a general combat role. So, even with the corrected grammar, I still don't know how to make this an improvement to the article.
