The Era of Musket & Pike, First Installment

What I hope to show in this blog series is how warfare developed through this era, and how the various game designers have used the engine to reflect these changes. To me, that’s one of the most fascinating aspects of the engine. Most of the other game series run basically “the same”. That is to say, once you learn the American Civil War engine, you’ve got a pretty good idea of the tactics to use for all the games in the series. Oh, the dense terrain and small forces of Campaign Ozark will play differently than massive armies in the fields of Pennsylvania, but it’s still more alike than different. Even the change from East Front to West Front in Panzer Campaigns is less profound than the difference between Renaissance and Seven Years War. Frankly, every game in the M&P series to this point is a game unto itself, and you need to approach it as such. The lessons you learned at Nordlingen may serve you very poorly indeed at Leuthen. To that end, I’m going to give an overview of the history of that era, and then illustrate how the games reflect those changes. 
 
We’re going to focus on European warfare in this series, with an occasional glance down to the Ottomans to see what they are up to, as that’s what the M&P series has to offer, so far. When we think of the warfare of Europe in this period, there’s really going to be three areas where we will want to look, because each of them developed in interesting ways. The first is Western Europe. The second is Northeastern Europe (especially the region around the Baltic). Finally, the third is Southeast Europe, where the armies of the European states vied with the Ottomans. As we go along, I’ll highlight developments in those different regions at different times. Now, before I get started for real, a disclaimer. I’m an 18th Century guy. That’s where the majority of my reading has been over the years. The earlier we go into the M&P period, the less familiar ground I’m on.

From ancient times, the proper use of combined arms was one of the defining traits of successful armies. Alexander conquered with his feared Phalanx and the Companion Cavalry. The Romans were well practiced in using various auxiliary troops in support of the Legion and so forth. That remained true in the era of the Renaissance, and remains true today for that matter.  

For each era, we’ll take some time to focus on the three major arms: infantry, cavalry and artillery, and see their development.

A.  Infantry

For centuries, infantry had been looked at as the rabble of the battlefield. Often impressed from the peasantry, they were considered a necessary force, but rarely the arm of decision. However, that was in the process of changing. In the period of the M&P series, infantry would progress from being the despised rabble to becoming the foundation of all armies.

In the year 1500, you can essentially look at infantry as falling into three broad types: pikemen, swordsmen and missile troops (arquebusiers and archers).

One of the problems that infantry had faced for a long time was simple: how do you defend yourself against enemy cavalry? If you were fortunate, terrain could take care of that for you. A nice forest, or maybe a fortified town. However, if you were in a field battle, that might be a bit more difficult. The most effective way to defend yourself that had been developed up to that point was the pike: a long spear (around 5m). A unit of pikemen could create a hedgehog that could keep cavalry away.

That much was not a new idea, but in the 13th Century, the Swiss came up with an innovative twist. They trained their infantry to form up in a Pike Block, able to march in any direction. Before this, pike infantry had generally been largely immobile, and thus purely defensive. With their training, the Swiss Pike could move in any direction and even launch an effective charge. As always, success bred imitation, and mobile pike blocks soon became a feature across Western Europe.

The second form of infantry was the swordsman. These might even be dismounted knights or men-at-arms, but they were most effective in the attack. They could stand on the defensive to a point, but not nearly as well as the pikemen, especially against enemy cavalry.

Finally we have missile troops. Early in this period, most missile troops tended to be either archers or crossbowmen. There were a few very early firearms, but at this point they were of limited effectiveness and importance. However, that would change very, very quickly. The great weakness of dedicated missile troops was in melee. While they would often carry knives or even small swords, that was generally a last resort. As such, armies would look for means to protect infantry against enemy melee.  

One interesting battle to think about to see how infantry might fight against cavalry in this era is to reach back a few years before M&P and look at Agincourt. The English army had an interesting makeup. The vast majority of their troops were archers (longbowmen to be precise) with a smaller number of men-at-arms.  

The key to the battle is that Henry V was able to force the battle onto a ground of his own choosing. He set up between two woods, anchoring his flanks on either. He deployed his dismounted men-at-arms as his center, with the archers to the wings. However, the archers made sure to plant stakes in front of them before the battle. Even though the English had no pikemen, this served the same role, preventing the French Cavalry from charging into the archers. This funneled the French attack into the center, where the longbowmen were able to fire from both flanks with great effect. There’s much more to the battle, but it shows the basics: infantry needs something to keep cavalry at bay.

B. Cavalry

You can generally break the cavalry of 1500 into two broad types. For the sake of ease, we’ll call them light and heavy.

Now, heavy is what people will normally think of when they think of cavalry. These are the heavily armed and armored knights. Their specialty was the melee, diving into the fight with sword and lance. Your classic shock troops.

Light Cavalry was the heir to a long tradition. They specialized in using speed and mobility to harass the enemy. Never attack head-on if you can slash at the flanks, use your missiles (typically horse bow, but possibly also things like javelins) to do quick damage. Slash at the flanks and rear, shoot at the enemy and wear them down.

C. Artillery

In the year 1500, artillery was fairly primitive. Many of the pieces were purely immobile siege pieces, too heavy and ponderous to be used effectively in a battlefield. There were some very early light artillery that could be moved on the field, but they were still relatively unimportant in battle.

II. An Era of Change

Up to this point, we’ve been looking at the situation as it was around the year 1500. However, everything was about to change. The practice of warfighting is never really stable, and you can easily say that the changes which marked the 16th Century set off a wave of changes which continues to this day. The largest source of change is the rise of firearms, both pistols and muskets.

A. Infantry

If you look at the Musket and Pike games as a story, one major plot line is the transition of infantry from being a primarily melee force to being primarily firepower-oriented. That process starts here in the 16th Century. The rapid growth of firearms would transform the nature of infantry and the battlefield. However, that process would take about 200 years, with the War of the Spanish Succession marking the full ascent of firearm-only infantry.

In the early days of the M&P period, the use of firearms was largely dominated by two issues. The first was the limitations of the early firearms. The second was how to integrate firearm infantry into the army. We’ll start with the first issue, as that had a great deal of influence on the second.

In the beginning of our period, firearm infantry would generally be armed with either an arquebus or a matchlock musket. Either way, the peculiarities of these weapons dictated their usage. First of all, they were slow. Loading one of these weapons took well over a minute, even for an experienced soldier. Another complication is that the troops had to stand further apart from one another than you might expect. In short, the combination of constantly burning slow matches and loose powder led to the possibility of unpleasant accidents if troops were too close to one another.

Another limitation of these early weapons was that they were not effective melee weapons. Put all these factors together, and you’ve got troops who are in a relatively loose formation with weapons that are not especially effective in melee. It’s a recipe for troops who will want to avoid hand to hand combat at all costs.

That brings us to the second issue – how do you integrate these weapons into the rest of the army? Generally speaking, the practice was to mix them in some manner with the pikemen of the infantry. The most successful at this were the Spanish, who used the tercio formation. (Confusingly, the term tercio was used both for the formation as well as the administrative unit. I’ll be focusing only on the tactical usage.)

In simple form, the tercio was a combined pike and shot formation. The muskets would take position outside the pike block, and then retreat into (or behind) the pikes when the enemy threatened. Here is one example of a pike and shot unit from an English pamphlet on tactics:

The “o” in this picture represents shot, while the “p” is pikes. There are also some “h” halberds in, though they would not always be there. In this formation, the primary shot are to either wing of the block, though some are advanced ahead and behind the block.

B. Cavalry

People don’t really think of firepower as something which transformed the cavalry of the 16th Century, but it really did. I’m not even talking about cavalry having to react to the rise of infantry firepower (though that was a serious concern.)  

In the mid 16th Century, the “Schwarze Reiter” (black riders) began to appear on the battlefields of Central Europe. Instead of the lance, their main weapon was the pistol. It would be common for a horseman to carry 2-3 pistols and a sword.  

The early pistols were pretty limited, but still quite effective. Their effective range was often less than 10 meters, and being muzzle-loaders, reloading them was a serious chore, especially on horseback.

They could be used two different ways. The first was in general melee against other units (especially cavalry). They were used at very close range; in fact, if possible, riders liked to press their guns against either weak points in the armor of their foes, or against the enemies’ horses. They carried multiple pistols to allow them to quickly fire again before having to draw their sword.

The other way to use pistols was as a standoff weapon. The most complex (and famous) approach to this was the caracole. In this case, a unit would form up in a deep formation. The front rank would fire their pistols at the foe, and then wheel out and move to the back of the column, where they would reload. In theory, they could keep such a “caterpillar” going to keep a consistent fire on their enemy.  

However, the caracole had some definite limitations. It was really only effective against infantry. The complex wheeling motion of the caracole was too dangerous to try in front of an enemy cavalry unit that could countercharge in an instant. Remember, we’re talking about a range of only 10 meters or less! The maneuver could be quite effective against pike infantry, as the horsemen could easily evade if the pikemen tried to advance. However, if the enemy had their own missile troops at hand (bow or firearm), they could generally easily outshoot the cavalry. As such, the caracole faded from the book fairly quickly, and was largely gone by 1600. That said, they didn’t lose the ability to fire at the enemy without melee; it was just that very particular approach to doing so that fell by the wayside.

In any case, once pistols were introduced, they quickly showed themselves to be superior to lance armed cavalry. The lance was largely a one and done weapon, while a Reiter would have several pistols. Further, Reiters were easier to raise, train and mount. As such, traditional lance armed cavalry largely vanished from the battlefields of Western Europe by 1600 (though that was not the case in the East, as we shall see.)

Here's a reference that may be of interest:

II. Modeling This in the Game

A. The Tool Chest

At different points in this series I’ll take the time to discuss some aspects of design philosophy as well as the details of how the games are modeled. In this first excursus, I’m going to take the time to discuss parts of the “tool chest” that we have at hand. In other words, what are the different things that the engine allows us to do to model different troops.

Let’s look at a small piece of the Order of Battle for Fornovo:

Swiss/Mercenary A Suisse
    Begin
    L 2 5 183 24 de Bessey
    U 200 5 X M 15 15 0 0 18 14 0 Arquebusiers
    U 250 -7 G H 34 34 2 4 15 23 1 Hallebardiers
    U 700 -6 Z P 4 4 0 3 18 18 3 Piquiers
    U 700 -6 Z P 4 4 0 3 18 18 3 Piquiers
    U 675 -6 Z P 4 4 0 3 18 18 3 Piquiers
    End

For the moment, I’ll focus on the units (those whose line begins with U) as opposed to the leader (L).  

To break down the unit of Arquebusiers: U 200 5 X M 15 15 0 2 18 13 0 Arquebusiers

U indicates that this is a unit.
200 shows unit strength.
5 shows the Unit Quality. So the unit has a base morale of “B” in game terms.
X shows that they are 4 rank infantry, but can fully break down into skirmishers.
M indicates the weapon, whose strength is found in the PDT. In this case, it’s an Arquebus.
15 Unit Picture in the information screen.
15 3D image.
0 Armor Value.
2 Melee Bonus.
18 Movement points.
13 Victory Points (how many you gain for killing each Strength Point).
0 Special Flag. In this case, 0 means no special flag. The 1 on the Hallebardiers means they can form both block and line, and the 3 on the Piquiers means block only.

You can see much of this information in-game in the unit information area.

So, what does all that mean in terms of modeling Musket & Pike warfare? Or to say it another way, how do these tools work? For this point, we’ll focus on the following items:

Quality
Unit Type
Weapon Type
Armor Value
Melee Bonus
Movement Points
Victory Point
Unit Flag

1. Quality: Quality is an old and familiar part of the system, present all the way back to the roots of the system in Battleground: Waterloo. That said, there are a few tricks in there. Morale mostly influences two things in game. How likely a unit is to rout, and how combat effective it is. In this case, higher morale is better. A Morale of A or better grants combat advantages, while E grants combat disadvantages. Note, if you look at the oob fragment above, you may notice that the Piquiers have a value of -6. The negative value indicates they are “fanatical”, which effectively makes them 2 steps harder to rout. (They take morale checks as though their Quality were A++ instead of A.)
2. Unit Type: This is much more complex, and reflects the changes in warfare. Different codes can be used to define an infantry unit as ordinarily operating in 2, 3 or 4 lines, as well as their ability to break down into skirmishers. Likewise, there’s a few variations for cavalry and artillery. I’ll talk more about this as we get into specific examples.
3. Weapon Type: Familiar and straightforward (for now!). What kind of weapons do they have? Swords? Crossbows? Muskets? They are linked to fire data entries in the pdt file that define their actual fire strength.
4. Armor Value: This is one of the unique aspects of M&P compared to the Napoleonics engine. Units are assigned an armor value. When a unit fires at a unit with an armor value other than 0, they actually use a different weapon value (the hard target value) in the pdt. In this way, a weapon that can harm a man but not heavy armor can be simulated. The higher the value, the greater the protection provided.
5. Melee Bonus: Again, this is unique to M&P. We can assign specific units to be more effective in melee. Each point represents a 10% advantage.
6. Victory Point: This allows more finesse in assigning victory values than the older NAP and ACW series. If we want to say the Coldstream Guards are worth more VP than raw militia, we can.
7. Unit Flags: This largely deals with the ability of units to form block or not.

So, to show how all this works out, let's compare two of the units in the above example, the Arquebusiers and Hallebardiers:

U 200 5 X M 15 15 0 2 18 13 0 Arquebusiers
U 250 -7 G H 34 34 2 4 15 23 1 Hallebardiers

So, the halberd-armed troops have considerably better morale: 2 points more, and on top of that they are fanatical. It’s going to take them a great deal to rout (high exhaustion will be a decisive factor). Both units can fully break down into skirmishers (the G indicating they qualify as guardsmen). However, the big difference is towards the end. The Hallebardiers have 2 points of armor, a +4 melee advantage and can form block. The Arquebusiers have none of that, and can only form line. They’re also worth considerably fewer VPs.

When we start a new M&P game, one of the first things we do is try to figure out how to model the troops within that system. How did they fight? What kinds of formations did they use? What special features of this period do we need to account for? This is something that we kick around and discuss (and occasionally argue) over. The final decision rests in the designer of the given game, but we are all involved to a greater or lesser extent.

Note: Further details can be found in the Scenario Editor Manual that ships with each game. This version linked here is the most up to date.

B.  Renaissance 

The first game of the M&P series, and the only one to cover the 16th Century, is Renaissance (referred to with the acronym of REN). Now, it’s the first game, not only in terms of simulating the earliest period of the M&P series, but it’s also the first one that was developed. So, Rich White and John Tiller were still working some things out at the time, but they did a remarkable job with it.

Let’s go back and look at our troop types that I discussed earlier.

1) Infantry

Let’s stay with Fornovo for the moment. One hallmark of REN is that it includes forces with a great deal more variation than later armies. You have pikemen, halberdiers and archers of various sorts. Other battles have swordsmen as well.  

We’ve already looked at the frontline infantry in this battle fairly closely (the pikes and halberds). They are both designed to largely operate in block (though the halberds can use line if the situation allows for it). One advantage of block formation is that enemy cavalry cannot get the charge bonus against them.  

The vast majority of the remaining infantry on both sides is made up of archers (mostly crossbows, and then the Scottish longbows). At this point, it’s good to look at the PDT (Parameter Data Table - press F2 in-game). Crossbows are rated for “poor defense.” That is a reflection of the fact that a crossbow is a poor melee weapon, so it gets a heavy penalty in melee combat. So, you don’t want to get into melee with units that are rated that way if you don’t have to. Bows are meant for ranged attacks. Most bows in this scenario give the troops 2-3 hexes range.

2) Cavalry

Cavalry can be rated as four different types (Irregular, Dragoon, Light, Heavy) and all are present in this battle.

The Stradiotti are rated as “irregular”. That means that they are unable to charge. They can melee offensively, but they get no special bonus. This type is often used for light cavalry that employed traditional hit-and-run tactics. In this case, they are armed with a Javelin, which gives them some ranged fire abilities. However, they do have a melee penalty because their weapon is rated as “poor defense”. As before, this means that this unit is extremely poor in melee. It’s always worth checking the PDT to see which weapons are rated this way.

The only “Light” cavalry in this battle are the Zagadari. Now these guys are a little bit different than the norm. Light Cavalry can charge (though less effectively than Heavy) and the lance and crossbow combo is effective in melee. They are also ranged units, with the ability to fire 2 hexes. Notice also that they do have a bit of armor, and a melee buff. That makes them useful melee units all around. They’re also worth many more VPs than the irregulars.

Dragoons in this early era are as much mounted infantry as cavalry. In this case, the unit in question is essentially a mounted crossbow unit. Again, the crossbow has major melee penalties, so they really are mostly to be used for ranged combat (either on the saddle or on foot).

Heavy Cavalry are the real hammers in this engine, and in this case we can see a few things. They have much heavier armor than the Light Cavalry (3 points), and a 3 point melee advantage. On the other hand, they have no ranged ability. One of the key differences between Heavy Cavalry and others is that they get an additional bonus when on the charge. So, these troops make up your most effective assault force.

3) Artillery

Artillery in this era is in a very early stage of development, and that’s reflected a few different ways in the engine. While the guns themselves would be greatly improved by the time of the Napoleonic Wars, just as important is the improvement in carriages. We see that as we look at a couple of the gun types in this scenario.

In this case, the difference between the two guns is a bit hidden. The terms “Field” and “Heavy” are a bit of a tell, but this is a time where you really need to go look into the Parameter Data. Both guns need to be “set up”. That is, it will take time to set up the guns even once you’ve changed formation. Guns in this era often would not move at all during battle. Then the heavier Culverin has another important difference to be aware of. It cannot fire defensively. This is a heavy piece that isn’t as flexible in being quickly adjusted.

Note: After this discussion of weapons systems and the early evolution of firepower, you may find the following book of interest. The first several chapters cover the topics we have been covering, and then it moves on into modern times.

Now, let’s jump forward to the end of REN, the 80 Years War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, the Battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600. By this point, the fundamentals of battle had begun to change, and we can see that in how the armies are modeled in the game.

If you look at the Dutch position here, you can see a formation where the solid line of infantry are all in block, and they have shot units in line in front of them. One of the most difficult decisions in REN was how to represent the development of mixed pike and shot units (as described above). In REN, the choice was made to break it up into separate counters. As such, the block units are armed with pikes, and have no fire ability. The shot units then would need to withdraw through the pike blocks when the time comes for melee. That is how it was modeled at the time, but if you look at WDS Thirty Years War, it’s not uncommon for Pike Blocks to have some fire ability (such as at White Mountain). I’ll talk about that in the next installment of this series of articles.

Here we see the big, big change in cavalry over the course of the century. This is heavy cavalry, still very well armored and effective in melee, but they now have pistols. That means that they have 1 hex standoff ability, but the pistol is not rated as “poor defense”, representing the fact that they also carried swords (not to mention the use of pistols in close combat).

This provides us a good baseline to see how the later games in the series trace the development of warfare up to the year 1788.

In the next installment, we’ll look at the developments of the 17th Century, including a look at the very early 18th Century as reflected in Great Northern War.

And that completes this 1st installment. If you would like to discuss this, or any of the games in the Musket & Pike series, head on over to our dedicated forum section.

Until next time, keep your powder dry and your belly full!