Their history begins with infantrymen mounted on horses. However, as this force was developed, more and more attention was paid to riding drills. This resulted in a force that could fight both in mounted and foot formation. They yielded to heavy cavalry in hand-to-hand fighting, but with sufficient training they could accomplish the same missions. Dragoons were armed with a musket (later a musket with a bayonet), a sabre or a broadsword and a pair of pistols. Dragoons had no armour. Their equipment was very much alike to that carried by musketeers, except for the fact that dragoons wore jackboots. In a foot array, they fell in 3 ranks like linear infantry. When mounted, they charged in a tight array like heavy cavalry. As the cavalry developed, dragoons were used less and less as
infantry.
