In January. when I outlined a set of ECW rules, I expressed the thought that, concerning the interplay between musket and pike, I was still fairly much in the dark about what actually went on. When Lynn Bodin and company tried out the rules, and Lynn submitted an article on his efforts, he indicated that his Seattle- based group thought that my ideas concerning the era were somewhat skew (to say the least) and they "considered the entire system a load of road apples, especially for the ECW." The article was definitely enlightening, but was not that helpful, since it never came to grips with what the end result should be. Recently, I came across the writings of another young lad who couldn't quite figure out the ECW gambit. The "young lad" to whom I refer is Pat Condray, and the descriptor is used because Pat's comments were found in a copy of Don Featherstone's WARGAMER'S NEWSLETTER... this one dated almost 20 years ago ... February, 1969, when all of us were "young". At that time, the perplexed laddy wrote: "The attraction which the pike and shot era holds for so many seems to be based on the flamboyant garb and weird weaponry of the troops. The fatal flaw one encounters is that nobody seems to know what to do about them. As an example, take the old woodcut formations of infantry. In the centre is a "dense and impenetrable wood" of pikes with a brilliant banner gleaming in the midst. On either flank are columns of musketeers. Located in smaller masses on the flanks of several infantry blocks, one finds parties of cavalry, each with its guidons, arrayed in deep blocks. Now, one must ask, how did these people fight one another? Pikemen, it seems, clomped forward, flanked by musketeers, who fired by ranks then fell back down the files to reload. After popping away for some time, the infantry masses collided and came to something called "Push of Pike". Cavalry did something called a caracole - or did it? The caracole, in which successive ranks of horsemen trotted up, fired their pistols, and fell back to reload (a sort of cavalry squadron turned machine pistol), was designed to riddle unsupported pike masses. The latter, however, proved to be quite rare, so few instances of the use of the caracole (the only logical usage for the pistolier), much less successful usage, are quite rare." Perhaps, in the 20 intervening years, Messr. Condray has solved the ECW mystery? Will he enlighten us? Will he, as he slowly sinks into his dotage, reveal ALL? Let me suggest that all readers keep their subscriptions current ... you simply cannot afford, at this stage of the affair, to miss a single issue. Back to PW Review October 1988 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com