Kvlt 45 said:
Whats the difference between Landwehr, Landesshutzen, Landsturm & Jaeger?
In Victoria, Bavarians have a Landesshutzen unit, while other German states use Landwehr... Why?
Well, historically, the term "Landwehr" was first used during the napoleonic wars by Austria and Prussia to designate an rather "scratch-up" type of ill trained militia that was only raised in case of (french) invasion and mostly used only to defend the home territory due to its somewhat limited combat capabilities (somehow similiar to the use of american militia units during the War of Independence, methinks).
Later (in the "Victoria-era" until World War I), when permanent armies were raised and maintained by an almost modern-style conscript draft system, "Landwehr" and "Landsturm" in Prussia/Germany designated different "classes" of soldiers in the "Reserve".
A "Landwehrmann", iirc, was a former conscript after his active duty, aged 22-35 years, while a "Landsturmmann" was older, 35 to 45 years. Elder men (age 45 and up) were considered unfit for active duty and no longer called up in case of mobilisation. But in the game, both terms are used interchangeably, both designating reserve infantry divisions.
"Landesschützen" and similiar "Schützen"-Formations mostly were of much older tradition (some until back to the days of the Thirty-Years War) and originated from local (town or county) militia of (poorly) armed peasants called up by the feudal landlord in case of emergency to defend their (and his) belongings only. But at the time were "Victoria" takes place, these names were merely traditional, too, the actual units entitled als "Schützen" were raised, trained, equipped and used like reserve infantry. However, most of the original "Schützen"-formations were raised in Bavaria and other minor countries in southern Germany (and Austria-Hungary), hence only southern german reserve divisions in Victoria may bear the name.
"Jäger", as Van_Lijhnardt already pointed out, were light infantry (used and trained as skirmishers and sharpshooters and often equipped with rifles instead of smoothbore muskets) opposed to line infantry, but from the mid-1850ies on, this distinction practically no longer took place, "light" Jägers and ("heavy") line infantry were equipped, trained and tactically used in the same manner, and the term "Jäger" in several Unit names was kept, again, for traditional reasons.
Long story short: In Victoria the terms "Landsturm", "Landwehr" and "Landesschützen" apply to reserve divisions only, while "Jägers" should apply to some of the regular infantry divisions, but, afaik there isn't any other notable in-game difference between them.
