Yep... but not just British military history, LoL... we breached a few of our "cousins" fieldworks and fortifications in NE USA a while back... <grin> I enjoyed my career first as an Infantryman and then as a Combat Engineer; both by choice. Sappers have been the vanguard of all advancing armies since well before before Napoleonic times - sometimes even ahead of the scouts - and is the proper historical term for the in-the-enemy's-face combat engineers - that's what we call them in the US Army as well - borrowed term from our "cousins".

We have advanced some from axes... although anyone who's had to resond to an "incident" at the Enlisted Club can vouch that macho grunts and cavalrymen risk serious peril mixing it up with fellows that wield 12 pound sledge hammers all night long <smirk>...

Mobility, Countermobility, Survivability, Demolition, Construction, Reconnaisance, fighting as Infantry - we do it all! No mechanized commander can or will move without his supporting sappers... the unmounted grunts usually have to run into trouble before the truth hits them ( I used to be one, blithley jumping out of airplanes and running around afoot).

Glad to see another sapper on the list!

Sappers First!

Tom
USA, Retired