Armies and Soldiers
of the
Pike and Shot Period

Introduction

by Don Featherstone

The "Pike-and-Shot" era ran roughly for about 250 years from 1450 to 1700. It embraced many positive forward steps in the art of warfare that must necessarily be considered if the battles are to be authentically reconstructed. As the period got under way, artillery and the hand-held firearm were beginning to remorselessly supersede the bow and edged weapons; it ended with the first glimpses of the "modern" soldier in Cromwell's New Model Army, just before the invention of the bayonet rendered the pikeman obsolete and the universal infantryman marched onto the battlefields of the world.

In the 16th century, gunpowder so dominated the battlefield that armour, except for the helmet and breastplate worn by heavy cavalry and pikemen, was discarded. The medieval formation of three dense "battles" -- blocks of mounted men and infantry -- persisted, despite being extremely vulnerable to gunpowder weapons.

This outdated system of dividing an army into "vaward"; "main-battle" and "rearward" gradually died out as time went on and the names became meaningless; the term "wing" came into use instead of "vaward" and "rearward" although the centre was still sometimes called "the battle."

At the end of the 15th century, the battles of Granson and Morat presented two distinct tactical innovations -- the re-vindication of heavy cavalry, and the successful Swiss tactic of massed pikemen moving in echelon. The English system of men-at-arms fighting on foot, supported by flanking formations of archers, which had brought success at Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), Agincourt (1415) and Veneuil (1422) had its weaknesses exposed in the last two English battles in France, when at Formigny in 1450. French artillery fire forced a disastrous counter attack, and at Castillon in 1453 even the redoubtable Talbot made a hopelessly unsuccessful assault on entrenchments containing artillery.

Similarly at Ravenna in 1512, unremitting artillery fire forced the Spanish army to counter-attack from their defensive position. Essentially defensive, the English system only worked when the enemy was obliging enough to attack an English army, strong in archers, formed up in a suitable defensive position.

Nevertheless, right down to the middle of the 16th century the English longbow was occasionally seen in Continental Wars and was still used in England at Bosworth in 1485 and at Flodden in 1515, and by Montrose's Highlanders at Tippermuir in 1644. The biggest disadvantage of the longbow was the years of training required to bring an archer to the height of perfection. For rapidity of fire, accuracy and reliability, no weapon surpassed the English longbow until the Martini-Henry rifle in the latter half of the 19th century.

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