| 17th century infantry consisted mainly of soldiers armed with lances,
protected by armour and skilled in hand-to-hand fighting,
and marksmen armed with muskets. They formed tight arrays 6 ranks deep. Musketeers usually took up the flank
positions and retreated under cover from the pikemen when threatened
with attack. The pikemen moved forward to form a continuous line with adjoining detachments. The first
row of pikemen
rested their pikes against the ground, holding them with the left hand, and
wielded their swords with the right. Musketeers became significant at this time, while the pikemen were losing their offensive function with the
development of firearms. Under the
general scrutiny of infantry history, we see shooting units of
the Ancient World and Middle Ages as skirmishers. Although English archers were numerous
and influential in battles, the bow was not powerful enough to make archers
a key battle force. Firearms appeared to be a milestone of accomplishments in battle tactics. A musket (a heavy fuse gun compared to the earlier
harquebus; 1.25 m long, about 7 kg
in weight, 17 - 20 mm in calibre) had sufficient power to pierce
a knight's armour. Point-blank fire could be provided at a distance of more than 200 steps.
Its low rate of fire was
outweighed by its great formation depth. Having fired a shot, the first row retreated to recharge their
guns. Such fire tactics were called caracole (snail) tactics,
because they resembled the slow movement of snails. The formation depth could
be up to 12 ranks. As firearms developed, such tactics disappeared,
giving way to 6-rank musketeer formations. Lighter muskets
were introduced under Gustaf Adolf (1590 - 1632, King of
Sweden from 1611 to 1632). They allowed shooting without resting the gun against a prop. Paper cartridges appeared, allowing
the increase of the rate of fire
and the lessening of formation depth. Yet all this was not enough to give the
marksmen a chance to face up on an open field to cavalry or even cold
steel infantry without the pikemen's support. Only the
introduction of the bayonet and flintlock made the pikemen
more or less superfluous. |
