Having analysed what was recommended in the various drills based upon pre and post wartime experience which most officers in the ECW would have had to rely upon when preparing their troops for battle I will end by drawring the readers attention to a number of quotes. Two from the Thirty Years War and one on Naseby where the Royalist musketeers actions both compair with the first quote and reflect Monck and especialy Turner' writings.

The first is from an English officer at the Battle of Leipsic who was second in command of Lumsden's regiment of Scots, quoted pages 104-105 in C.H. Firth's 'Cromwell's Army':

'...I suffered not my muskettiers to give their volleyes till I came within Pistoll shot of the enemy; at which time I gave order to the first three first rancks to discharge at once; and after them the other three; which done we fell pell mell into their rancks, knocking them down with the stock of the musket and our swords.'

The second quote is from Sir Edward Walker's account of Naseby (quoted page 40 in 'Gunpowder Triumphant):

'The Foot on either side hardly saw each other until they were with Carbine shot, and so made only one volley; ours falling in with Sword and butt end of the Musquet did nitable execution;' Now the Battle of Leipsig was in 1631 and Naseby in 1645; it would seem logical to assume that given the considerable number of professional officers who had served in the Swedish service who fought in the ECW that the method described was the norm.It might also be noted that Turner's description of the method used at Leipsig exactly mirror's that of the English officers account!

Finally compare this to the following quote from page 124, vol.i, 'The Swedish Intelligencer' given on page 97 in Firth's 'Cromwell's Army', of the Scots Briagde at Leipsig in 1631:

'The Scots ordering themselves in several small battagliaes, about 6 or 700 in a body, presently now double their rankes, making their files then but 3 deepe, the discipline of the King of Sweden beeng neuer to march aboue 6 deepe. This done, the formost ranke failing on their knees; the second stooping forward; and the third ranke standing right up, and all giuing fire together; they powred so much lead at one instant in amongst the enemies hors; that their ranckes were much broken with it.'

More Give Fire: ECW Formations and Tactics

Introduction
Skirmishing
Pre-War
Wartime
Post-War
Contemporary Battlefield Accounts
Conclusion
Biographical Notes
Troops Disposition Diagrams (slow: 143K)

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