How could the newly raised 73rd Highlanders be elite?

How could the 73rd Highlanders be considered elite when the battalion had only recently been raised?

In an army that raised units for particular campaigns, a new battalion could still be elite if it was built around very capable officers and veteran noncommissioned officers.

A viewer notes that the battalion had been raised only shortly before the Gibraltar campaign. The answer agrees with the chronology but rejects the assumption that a young unit could not be elite. In an eighteenth-century army, capable officers and experienced noncommissioned officers could create a high-quality formation without a long institutional history. Modern ideas about old regimental traditions do not map neatly onto campaign-era force generation.