The British light infantry company was the line regiment's skirmisher and forest-warfare specialist. The concept had emerged in the French and Indian War, when General Thomas Gage and others organized light companies from line regiments to handle American forest fighting, and it was formalized army-wide by warrant in 1771: every line regiment was thereafter to maintain a light company on its left flank, sized for agility rather than the grenadier company's frame, dressed in shorter jackets and rounded felt or leather caps instead of the long coat and tricorne, and trained in open-order marksmanship and the bayonet rush. In the American war the light companies were repeatedly pulled out of their parent regiments to form composite light battalions under brigade command — Howe's flying striking force at Long Island, Brandywine, and Germantown, parallel to the composite grenadier battalions on the same approach. The 43rd Foot's light company was at Lexington Green on April 19, 1775 in the original march on Concord, and it served through the war's full catalog of actions from there.

This W. Britain figure shows a 43rd Foot light infantryman in the second rank of a firing line: musket leveled, butt at the shoulder, eye over the barrel, bayonet fixed — the position from which the rear rank delivered its volley over the front rank's heads or in alternating order with the front. The order is the light company uniform of 1780: short red jacket with the 43rd's white facings at collar, cuffs, and lapels, white shoulder wings marking the flank-company status, white waistcoat under, white breeches with black tall gaiters above the knee, white cross-belts supporting cartridge box and bayonet scabbard. The round felt hat with white cockade and tall white plume — replacing the battalion-company tricorne and the grenadier bearskin — was the light infantry diagnostic from 1771 onward. He fires in concert with the line-company standing firing battalion man in the regimental drill, and forms up alongside the grenadier company on the right of the line — three flank-and-line figures showing the regiment's full firing formation across battalion, grenadier, and light companies.

Model: 16217 / W. Britain 1/30 (60mm) / matte finish / 1 piece set