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Infantry soldier armed with a rifle

A rifleman is an infantry soldier armed with a rifled long gun. Although the rifleman role had its origin with 16th century hand cannoneers and 17th century musketeers, the term originated in the 18th century with the introduction of the rifled musket. By the mid 19th century, entire regiments of riflemen were formed and became the mainstay of all standard infantry, and rifleman became a generic term for any common infantryman.

Units of musketeers were originally developed to support units of pikemen. As firearms became more effective and widely used, the composition of these pike and musket units changed, with pikemen eventually becoming support units to the musketeers, particularly against cavalry. The last pike regiments were dissolved by the 1720s, as pikes were superseded by the invention of the bayonet. This converted the musket into a pike for those situations where it might still be useful, such as following up volleys with a charge, crowd control, or defensive formations. Smooth bore weapons, such as the musket, had always been recognized as relatively inaccurate, especially at longer ranges, and required massed volleys to be combat effective. Although the smoothbore barrels impeded the accuracy of a musket, it was an advantage when loading because the looser fitting musket ball slid down the barrel quickly and easily with the ramrod being used mainly to compress the powder charge at the base of the barrel. Rifles required a tighter fit and thus more work to get the ball to be rammed all the way down the barrel. This meant that the soldiers chosen for this role needed to be good shots, resilient, brave, and resourceful. Riflemen were trained to act in isolation and were dispersed in teams of two, defending each other while they re loaded. They were still vulnerable, especially to cavalry, as they could not present the solid wall of bayonets a larger mass of soldiers could. These factors: the time and expense required in training, the limited number of suitable recruits, and the specialized roles and situations where they were most effective meant they were highly prized, given special privileges, and used sparingly rather than squandered. Such rifle units reached their heyday in the period shortly before and during the Napoleonic Wars, with the British riflemen partially derived from units of colonial militia (see Rogers' Rangers or the Royal Americans) — truly excelling in the American War of Independence. Regular units of rifles formed in the British Army in 1800 were the 60th Regiment of Foot and the 95th Regiment of Foot. These units were often given the name "light infantry", emphasizing their specialized roles. Starting in the 1840s, with the advent of the Minié ball and the first military breech loading rifles, the rifles entered the age of industrialized warfare. It was mass produced and accessible to all infantrymen. The high level of training and specialized roles gave way to generality: the rifles were much faster and simpler to load, able to be reloaded while prone, and impossible to be double loaded after a misfire. The term 'rifleman', once used solely as a mark of distinction and pride, became a commonplace description of all infantry, no matter what their actual status was. Nevertheless, the term retained a certain élan that is still found today.

Modern riflemen are armed with select fire assault rifles, which are considered technically distinct from older forms of rifle. However, the grouping of infantry according to their function as linemen is the structure which early modern militaries emerged from. Riflemen are the basic modern soldiers from which all other soldierly functions stem. Though by tradition certain infantry units are based on the rifleman, they employ a variety of other specialised soldiers in conjunction with the rifleman. In the context of the modern fire team, rifleman can be used to indicate a basic position such as scout, team leader, or designated marksman. In the same context, the terms "designated automatic rifleman" and "assistant automatic rifleman" are used to describe a soldier who carries either a light support weapon or its ammunition. The term "long rifleman" is often used by police tactical units, counterterrorist units, and small scale team based military forces worldwide. It is an assignment rather than a rank, and refers to a marksman or sharpshooter (not a sniper, who is additionally an expert in fieldcraft) who is meant to expand the team's effective range with a long, scoped rifle.

The Rhodesia Regiment had an affiliation with the King's Royal Rifle Corps since World War I. The regiment's badge was the Maltese Cross, the colours were red, black and rifle green and rifle green berets were worn. A private soldier had the title of Rifleman.

In 1808, the United States Army created its first Regiment of Riflemen. During the War of 1812 three more Rifle Regiments were raised but disbanded after the war. The Rifle Regiment was disbanded in 1821. In the Mexican–American War Colonel Jefferson Davis created and led the Mississippi Rifles. Riflemen were listed as separate to infantry up to the American Civil War. During the Civil War, Sharpshooter regiments were raised in the North with several companies being raised by individual states for their own regiments. In the United States Marine Corps, the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 0311 is for Rifleman. It is the primary infantry MOS for the Marine Corps, equivalent to the U. S. Army MOS 11B for Infantryman. Training for Marine Corps Riflemen is conducted at the U. S. Marine Corps School of Infantry and training for U. S. Army Riflemen is conducted at U. S. Army Infantry School.