Historical Troop Designations

[Ron]

Scotley, please excuse some (likely) spelling errors.
[...]
By castradore, I think you might mean cacadore, which was a Portugese light infantryman in the Napoleonic era. Generally, a light infantry skirmisher type.
[...]

You're probably referring to Caçadores, which is the Portuguese word for Hunters. I don't know anything about the military unit, but the title appears to be appropriated to the description you gave.

 

[barsoomcore]

The best source for this kind of information I've ever seen is a miniatures/wargaming store. They'll have whole books on individual units in particular campaigns, so that painters can get every detail of their miniatures JUST RIGHT.

Came in very handy when a friend started up a campaign set in Napoleonic Europe and I decided to play a Kazakh warrior who'd ended up as a Mameluke in Napoleon's Imperial Guard. I know exactly what his uniform looked like, how much money he had, what the hilt of his sword looked like -- it's pretty awesome. I spent an afternoon leafing through books and taking notes and getting TONS of ideas.

I'm pretty sure that if you went into a store like that and asked around, people would be only too happy to tell you everything you ever wanted to know. And probably then some.

 

[Samothdm]

Thanks, this is the sort of information I was looking for. Are you suggesting that Hussar might translate as "head hunter"? I'll look forward to the links.

No. Hussar comes from the Hungarian word "Husz" which means "Twenty". The idea was that every 20th house had to supply a man to be in the Hussars. I remember there was a drawing of one in my parents' World Book Encyclopedia from 1960 or so. The picture had a guy in very elegant dress with lots of feathers in his tall hat, and he was carrying a blunderbuss, I believe, and had a brace of horse pistols and a sabre. This is based on memory so I'm sure I got some details wrong.

Later, the term "Hussar" just came to mean a lightly armored (and usually well-dressed) cavalry unit all throughout Europe.

I found a little info. on the etymology of the word here.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Osprey books are very very good for this sort of question.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Now I could be wrong, but I believe the Hussars were known for their ostentatious style of dress - including wings they would mount on the backs of their horses...

 

[Samothdm]

Now I could be wrong, but I believe the Hussars were known for their ostentatious style of dress - including wings they would mount on the backs of their horses...

I think some of them did have very ostentatious dress. The type you are referring to with the wings on their backs was mentioned in a special on the History Channel (or it might have been the old Discovery Civilization channel - I can't remember for sure).

Apparently the idea was that seeing a whole squadron of mounted troops with brightly colored wings afixed to their backs was supposed to cause fear in, or at least startle, the enemy.