Info about imperial dragoons was taken from Mr Hall's CD.
I think that all dragoons of the period were trained to fight on foot in close order. Confusion arose because their duties also included foraging, reconoitring and holding outposts what the did using a kind of skirmish order.

I think part of the problem has been in my title where it was really Irish Jacobite dragoons I was talking about and with their rushed formation, lack of uniforms and weapons I wondered just how trained they would have been to fight dismounted.
Sorry for causing any confusion to everyone.
Cheers
Dave

He,
the question is very interesting, and I also had open a new topic, not knowing that it was already open this.
In the books on the War of the Spanish Succession as I have, to sum up, I found written about the Dragons that they who were initially a mounted Infantry “intended to fight on foot like infantry but use horse for quick movement". (Louis XIV’s Army – by René Chartrand – Osprey).
After they assumed more and more the profile of normal Cavalry, however, able, when request, to fight on foot also. Their specific tasks were:
"internal security" against smugglers or civil unrest, and on line of communication security duties.” and “a variety of tasks: providing outposts, holding defiles or bridges in the front or rear of the main army, lining hedges or holding enclosures, and providing dismounted musketeers to support regular cavalry.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragoon).

I think that the Dragons, even in this period of early 1700, when fighting on foot can be regarded as the Light Infantry of the Napoleonic period. In open field they fight as Line Infantry, because that was the way of fighting. In certain situations they could fight in skirmish, for example in a town or in the woods or when they are going to the assault of buildings or fortresses, or to defend them.
In the battle of Turin, the Imperial and Savoyards Dragons were used as Cavalry. The French deployed 30 battalions of Dragoons on foot to defend the castle of Lucento and the adjacent trenches. During the long siege, the French Dragons were also used in the assaults to the citadel of Turin, together with the Grenadiers of the various Infantry regiments.

What is it your opinion?

Cheers,

Also in the battle of Staffarda 1690: "a me miei dragoni"

I think the Savoyard Dragoons were especially apt (or trained) to charge on horseback, which most of the armies' dragoons were not, or not ment to.

Yes, of course.
However, in the battle of Turin also all the regiments of the Imperial Dragoons fought on horseback, as normal Cavalry.
Cheers,