Newbie question on KS mod

A skirmishing unit need not stay in skirmish order for the duration. You can shift it back into line. With an especially proficient training doctrine such as the French have, you can take one unit out of sk order after it has fired off much of its ammo (say) and then send a second unit forward that is fresher in its place.

This confuses me a bit. As mentioned earlier, in the battle that I played today (austrian side, as brigadier), I designated a battalion (3rd rank battalion of a brigade) as skirmisher unit. Later, I couldn't change it back into line formation as it kept changing back to skirmish order. According to you, I have to let the unit use much of its ammo in order to change it back to line? Or can I, as I doubt that the Austrian skirmish doctrine was on par with the French (based on my limit understanding of what I know. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Or is it as Uncle Billy said, once a unit is assigned as skirmisher, it will always fight in skirmish order?

No, but I moved into an area that offered a juicy target of what I thought were unsupported guns but the enemy had several brigades of cavalry deeper in his rear in support and the lay of the land meant I didn't see these moving to cut me off until it was too late.

Actually, from start to finish it was 10 minutes. 10 minutes to get 3 regiments of heavy cavalry completely slaughtered and their brigade commander (me) killed. We took a few of the beggars with us though!

Were your assailants heavy cavalry as well or they were light and got the jump on you? The terrain is indeed a big death trap. Green as I am, I walked my whole brigade up a slope on the river bank to find out there were 2 light cavalry squadrons waiting there. Scare the hell out of me. Good thing the commander wore dark coloured trousers that day.

The current mod release has those skirmish units staying in skirmish formation whenever they get within fighting distance. The next release modifies that as I described earlier.

It makes sense now. Thank you.