Why was the brigade called the light brigade?

Answer 1

Because the Light Brigade consisted of five "light" cavalry regiments (battalions) including two each of light dragoons and hussars, and one of lancers. There was also a Heavy Brigade at the battle of Balaclava (10/25/1854) consisting of four (heavy) dragoon regiments. Up until after WWI brigades consisted of normally combining two to five regiments of similar arms, viz., weapons, under a senior colonel (known as a brigadier), or a brigadier general (however, the Light and Heavy Brigades at Balaclava were both commanded by Major Generals). Both the Union and Confederate Armies in the American Civil War made extensive use of brigades, with usually three (infantry) brigades to a division and possibly a cavalry and/or an artillery brigade existing at the corps level (usually consisting of three infantry divisions). Modern US Army brigades usually consist of two or three maneuver (i.e., tank or infantry) battalions, an RSTA (Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Target Acquisition) squadron, a "fires" (i.e. field artillery) battalion, a special troops (i.e., combat support units) battalion, and a support (i.e., combat service support units) battalion. USMC Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEBs) consist of one (or rarely two) Regimental Combat Teams (a heavily reinforced Marine Infantry Regiment consisting of three organic infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, and an armored vehicle battalion equivalent of tanks, armored assault vehicles, and light armored vehicles). Additionally, the MEB has one Composite (i.e., fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and aviation support squadrons) Marine Aircraft Group, a Marine Combat Logistics Regiment, and a Command Element (Command Group & MEB staff, communications, electronic intelligence, ground intelligence, deep reconnaissance, and fire support liaison units). The US Army formerly maintained several "separate" brigades, some of which had designations as "light infantry" (e.g., the 197th Light Infantry Brigade) and at least one "heavy" brigade, designated the 194th Armor Brigade. Between the late 1950's and circa 2007 US Army divisions consisted of three brigade headquarters (commanded by colonels) to which the division commander could assign two to five maneuver battalions of the division's nine to eleven (depending on type of division). Additional units available to the brigades could consist of: one or more field artillery battalions from the DIVARTY (Division Artillery) "group" of four or five howitzer battalions, and/or company-sized (or smaller) units (seldom) from the Air Defense Artillery battalion (batteries), Combat Aviation Battalion (companies), Armored Cavalry squadron (troops). Rarely, if ever, the brigades received units from the DISCOM (Division Support Command) consisting of battalions and separate companies (i.e., not organic to a parent battalion) of combat support arms (e.g., Engineers, Military Police, Military Intelligence) or (rarely) combat service support arms units. Therefore, in conclusion, in military terms a "light" unit simply means its primary weapon system/mode of transport is not as "heavy" (in terms of caliber, gross weight, armor or whatever) as another similar unit.