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From: silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Special troops and their purposes
Message-ID: <1991May9.064245.13314@amd.com>
Date: 8 May 91 19:55:05 GMT
References: <1991May7.062227.12192@amd.com>
Sender: military@amd.com
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
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From: silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman)


a481@mindlink.bc.ca (J.D. Frazer) writes:
>2) The British Guards (the fellows who wear the huge furry hats and stand guard
>at Buckingham Palace) are, I presume, an elite outfit. What is their basic
>role, and have they ever seen any action?

I'm not sure what they have done in the current century, but they were
present in several of the Napoleonic battles (I think Talvera, and Waterloo).
They were basically elite, shock infantry.  As late as WWII there was at least
one armored guards regiment.  As a side note, the Life Guards (the ones on
horses that you see in parades) use the oldest military gear still in use
today, their breastplates were captured from the French at Dettingen in 1742.
-- 
ami silberman - janitor of lunacy
silber@cs.uiuc.edu