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However, when cavalry charges succeeded, it was usually due to the defending formation breaking up (often in fear) and scattering, to be hunted down by the enemy. [5] While it was not recommended for a cavalry charge to continue against unbroken infantry, charges were still a viable danger to heavy infantry.
A modern recreation of a mid-17th century company of pikemen. By that period, pikemen would primarily defend their unit's musketeers from enemy cavalry.. A pike is a long thrusting spear formerly used in European warfare from the Late Middle Ages [1] and most of the early modern period, and wielded by foot soldiers deployed in pike square formation, until it was largely replaced by bayonet ...
The latter would originally have been 18 feet long but for reasons of practicality, 12-foot pikes are used today. Pikes were used to repel cavalry charges and swords would have been used for personal protection in the event of a pike being broken in battle. Musketeers wear a buff coat and wide-brimmed black felt hat.
In 1471, the Burgundian State organized its army into 1,250 lances of nine men each, thus its forces were 2/8 heavy cavalry (men-at-arms and sergeants), 3/8 mounted archers (who also carried hand weapons and could fight dismounted), 1/8 pikemen, 1/8 crossbowmen, and 1/8 handgunners; the last man in each lance was a noncombatant page.
While the use of pikes to fend off cavalry was common throughout the Middle Ages, such barricades were usually fixed in position. The Swiss pikemen were to bring a change of paradigm by reintroducing the offensive element into pike warfare. A pike square generally consisted of about 100 men in a 10×10 formation.
This statement contradicts the statement above that Pikemen had all but stopped being used by 1650. I have done some research on the English Civil War period as well and while in Ireland some units abandoned the Pike, Pikemen persisted in the New Model Army and in England in general till the end of the 17th century.
Soldiers of a tercio: a pikeman, a standard-bearer and a musketeer. Similar to military organization today, a tercio was led by a maestre de campo (commanding officer) appointed by the king, with a guard of eight halberdiers. Assisting the maestre was the sergeant major and a furir major in charge of logistics