The Era of Musket & Pike, Second Installment

The Musket & Pike engine is one of the most flexible that we have at WDS, and that’s important, because the Musket & Pike Era (from approximately 1500-1788) is a period of enormous military change and development. The thought process on inception in naming the series was that it would be able to cover topics with Pike, Muskets or a combination of both. So, unlike other games on the market that are solely focused on games where Pikes played a dominant role, our series has a much wider scope - as indicated by the time period put forth above.

What follows is the second in a series of articles prepared by Gary McClellan. The first installment can be found here. Gary was the scenario designer for the Seven Years War & Vienna 1683 titles, played a significant role in the development of  War of the Austrian Succession, and continues to develop content for this series. So, let's jump into the meat of things.

How much difference can 100 years make in warfare? Well, if you think about it, 100 years is enough for enormous change. In 1815, Wellington’s infantry fought off Napoleon’s Columns at Waterloo, but by 1915, the great grandchildren of those troops were wearing gas masks in the trenches of Flanders. The changes which came about in the 17th Century are nearly as profound, even if we don’t know them as well today.

100 years takes us from Nieuwpoort, where we left off last time, to the very cusp of both the Great Northern War (GNW) and the War of the Spanish Succession (WSS). We’ll end with the GNW today, and look at the WSS as the gateway to the era of Linear Warfare in Western Europe next time.

Much like the changes from 1815-1915, the changes in warfare in the 17th Century were largely technology driven. In this case, it is not so much the astounding technical change from the muzzle-loaders at Waterloo to the machine-guns of the Somme, but figuring out how to use the newly emergent technology of firearms, especially as that technology continued to advance in this period.

From Pike to Musket (the 17th Century)

Maurice of Nassau	Gustavus Adolphus

 

Part I: Infantry

When we look at the warfare of the 17th Century, there are many generals who are considered “masters of the art of war”. After all, this is the century of Wallenstein, Montecuccoli and Turenne. However, there are two names that rise above the others, because they were not only masters of the art, but they also shaped the way that armies would fight for centuries to come: Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus.

We actually ended with Maurice last time, with his great victory at Nieuwpoort right at the turn of the century. How did the rebellious Dutch compete with the mighty Spanish tercios? One part of the answer is the innovation which Maurice brought to the Dutch army. First of all, Maurice pushed to drill his soldiers, in ways that had not been seen since the armies of Ancient Rome. They practiced maneuvers and formation, and most of all, they practiced in the manual of arms (the drill of loading and firing their weapon.)

Second of all, he acted to make much greater use of firepower than the integrated formations of the previous century. He would array his musketeers in a long line, up to ten deep. They would often have a “core” of pikemen in the middle of the line, to give his muskets some cover for when the need came, but between the regular drill with the musket and this new “linear” formation, the pattern for warfare had been charted deep into the 19th Century.

Why did he set up his infantry line so deep? I’ll get into the details of firepower and the associated topics in Part III, but one thing that led to the progressive thinning of the lines (from 10 to 6 to 4 to 3) throughout this century is the improvement in rate of fire. The muskets of that era were sufficiently slow to reload that it would take the rotation of 10 ranks to give enough time for the first rank to reload and fire again when their turn came around. As the muskets and drill improved, the faster reloads would allow the lines to get thinner. Infantry firepower is a complex (and surprising!) topic, and one I’ll get into in depth next time around, as the 18th Century is where those advancements came home to roost.

The other major name in this era is Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. We’ll be hearing his name quite a bit in this installment, as he was likely the single biggest innovator of the century. Further, many soldiers of fortune joined the Swedish forces during the Thirty Years War and then took his ideas home with them, spreading them throughout western Europe.

So, what did Gustavus do? A few things really. First of all, he broke up the very large tactical units of the previous era into smaller, more flexible units. Then, he thinned out the 10 deep infantry lines of Maurice down to 6, and at times even 3. One of the reasons that he was able to do this is that he’d advocated for a lighter musket. Up to this point, heavier muskets that required a forked rest were still common, but the Swedes adopted a smaller, lighter musket that didn’t need the fork. This allowed the musketeers to fire faster, giving rise to the thinner formations.

This process would continue throughout the century, and would be paralleled by another fundamental change in infantry warfare: the gradual abandonment of the pike. At the start of the century, mixed pike and shot units might have a relatively even ratio of pike to shot. However, as the century went on, the pikemen were slowly but surely phased out. In WDS's Thirty Years War, it’s not uncommon to find units with a 1:2 pike/shot ratio. By the Battle of Vienna in 1683, most Western units had a 1:5 (or higher!) ratio, and some units had transitioned entirely to muskets. Then, in the War of the League of Augsburg (Nine Years War) to close out the century, ratios were still lower, and the Army of Piedmont had already fully transitioned over to full musket only. The War of the Spanish Succession in Western Europe would see the first war in centuries were pikes were largely non-existent.

Why did this happen? It’s common to give the answer that the bayonet made the pikes redundant, and to a certain extent that is true. The plug bayonet had already been introduced early in the 17th Century, allowing musketeers to turn their weapon into an impromptu pike. However, it was always a flawed expedient, preventing the musket from firing. In the late 17th Century, the socket bayonet was invented and rapidly adopted across Western Europe. Now, every musketeer was his own pikeman.

However, that was not the only thing which led to the retirement of the pikes. Experience in the field showed that well used firepower was often capable of “seeing off” an enemy melee attack, even from charging cavalry. In part this was because of the somewhat limited cavalry tactics, but even so, it meant that there was less need for pikes.

Of course, Western Europe was not the only place of warfare, as WDS has produced two games on wars in Southeastern  (Vienna 1683) and Northeastern (Great Northern War) Europe.  

At Vienna, the European infantry who faced off with the Ottomans were largely standard European infantry. However, the Ottomans had emerged in their own traditions, and were a bit different. The elite Ottoman infantry were made of the Janissaries, and they were well trained and highly motivated. They were generally armed with musket and sword, which worked well enough for infantry melee, but not so well against cavalry.  

The infantry of the Great Northern War largely fought along the same lines as the troops in the contemporary War of the Spanish Succession with two major exceptions. First of all, the process of eliminating pikes hadn’t gone nearly as far as it had in the West. If you look at Poltava (1709), you’ll notice many units armed with some mix of musket and pike.

The second is the Swedish tactic of the Ga Pa. I’ll leave that sit for the moment, as I’ll dive into it in the section on melee a bit further down.

Part II: Cavalry

In Western Europe, the use and role of cavalry would remain relatively unchanged from what we saw in the first installment. However, there is a very different story as we move to Eastern Europe. Once again, we start with Gustavus Adolphus. Much like Charles XII, he advocated the use of cold steel in cavalry tactics. He largely eschewed firepower based cavalry tactics, except for possibly firing pistols in the very last stage of the charge. The charge was made at the gallop.

Much of this was in response to his encounters with Polish Cavalry in his wars before the Thirty Years War. The Poles had not followed in the switch to the more firepower based tactics of the Schwarze Reiter, but instead kept using more heavily armored cavalry (the famed Winged Hussars), The Swedish King found his horse consistently getting the worse of that encounter. Since he could not counter the larger, stronger Polish horses, he instead focused on mobility. He also used more aggressive tactics, as noted, focusing on the charge with cold steel.

The Swedes would also deploy small bands of musketeers with their cavalry, to give them a bit of extra firepower.

As the century progressed, three schools of cavalry clashed outside of Vienna. The Imperial Forces used tactics largely derived from the Schwarze Reiter, while Vienna is often considered the greatest battle of the Polish Hussars. As mentioned, the Hussars were heavily armored noble cavalry, and they were still using the lance. Note, the Polish Hussars of this period are very, very different from what would be called Hussars later on. They were the elite heavy cavalry of the day.

On the other hand, the Ottoman horse were following another tradition entirely. The Ottoman Cavalry mostly consisted of light levy cavalry who were following in the traditions of light cavalry all the way back to Roman times. They tended to count on mobility and used ranged weapons (pistols or bows) to harass enemies, slashing at the flanks instead of facing their enemy head on.

For that matter, there were considerable numbers of steppe horsemen on both sides of the battle. For the Ottomans, they consisted of the Tartars who accompanied the main army (though, in the event they stayed out of the main battle). On the other hand, the Poles had recruited some “Wallachian” cavalry units who were very much the same. Much like the Ottoman Sipahi, they were light cavalry, although generally they were even lighter (and often lacking in discipline).

By the time you reach the Great Northern War, the biggest thing to note is the continued aggressive tactics of the Swedes, with Charles XII also extolling the virtues of cold steel.

Part III: Artillery

Probably the biggest advance in artillery came about under the auspices of Gustavus Adolphus (see! I told you we’d keep hearing his name). The “leather cannon” is an interesting case. It was a light, thin walled cannon that used leather straps to strengthen the barrel. They were an attempt to add mobility to artillery, and allow the cannon to work in close conjunction with the other units.

However, the leather cannon was largely a failure. In the end, they were just too flimsy to be a reliable weapon on the battlefield. However, they did show that light artillery could be effective in a close support role. Light artillery of brass construction was quickly developed, and they were sufficiently mobile to serve as “battalion guns,” greatly augmenting the firepower of infantry. They are called battalion guns because it would be common for infantry battalions to have 1-2 guns assigned to them. (In game terms, it’s not uncommon to have their firepower factored into the units instead of having separate counters and adding to the counter density.)

Battalion guns were typically in the 3 pound range (with the gun size rated by the size of solid shot it would fire) and could be manhandled on the battlefield by the gun crew. So, at Vienna, the Saxons were able to aggressively use their battalion guns to push back the Ottomans, despite fighting through some fairly dense terrain (vineyards split by ravines).

This also highlighted the process of making guns more mobile. Throughout the century, lighter, better mounted cannon would slowly work their way onto the battlefield, making artillery both more common and more effective. However, other than the battalion guns, they still tended to be fairly stationary once they were deployed.

Excursus: Melee

Now it’s time to step away for a moment and think about one of the fundamental systems of the game: melee.

When I say the word “melee” what mental image comes to mind? For most people, I suspect that it’s some form or another of bloody, hand to hand combat. Well, that’s absolutely right and largely wrong at the same time.

One of the interesting things about the M&P system when you think about it is the profound transformation of melee over the course of the era the games represent. If you are playing Renaissance, well, your image of melee is pretty much on point. The soldiers are in there going at it with pike, sword and knife. On the other hand, if you’re playing Seven Years War, that form of melee (at least for the infantry) is actually very situational.  

Here’s my definition of melee in the games: “the process of close assault by the attacking force to push back the enemy”. Now, here’s where things get really complicated. Over the years, there are lots of different techniques that armies used to deliver that close assault, and the system covers them all.

As I mentioned, in the REN era, it’s fairly straightforward. If one side wants to launch an assault, it pushes forward with pike, sword and knife. Now, even then, it might be possible for that assault to never get home. Maybe the other side’s archers will be able to break up the assault before it reaches the point of contact, but most generally, the two sides are going to be going at it the old fashioned way.

For that matter, that’s going to largely remain true for cavalry for the entire M&P era. If they’re launching a melee, they’re going into close combat: swords, lances, and point blank pistols. (If they’re looking to use their pistols without closing, say with the caracole, that’s considered fire combat. I’ll hit that next installment.)

However, as firearms began to take over the battlefield, infantry tactics changed fairly rapidly. Just how do you assault with a force of musketeers after all? In the English Civil War, there were times where one side or the other would advance to extremely close range, and fire off one mass volley, charging into combat with clubbed muskets and swords while the other side was still staggered by the chaos of the volley. For that matter, English troops would be known for that practice even after the introduction of the socket bayonet, using that weapon to great effect.

Likewise, the Swedes in the Great Northern War used the “Ga Pa” or “go on” form of assault. They would advance at a steady clip until they got to close range, fired and then charged. In fact, as the war went on, they tended to speed up their advance to minimize their time in range of enemy fire.

On the other hand, some armies would use a “stop and go” technique. They would advance, and then stop, have part of the battalion fire, advance some more, have the next part of the battalion fire, and then advance to point blank range, fire again, and then charge home.

Now, even as late as the War of the Spanish Succession and (especially) Great Northern War it was still relatively common for infantry to come to blows in the open field. However, by the time we get to the War of the Austrian Succession and Seven Years War, that would change. By that point, infantry in the open field would very rarely actually melee one another.

Now, I keep saying “open field” and that’s important. If troops are in woods or a town, or even behind fortifications, everything changes. At that point, bayonets and clubbed muskets were often the order of the day.

Why the change? A great deal of it had to do with psychology. Now, the word psychology hadn’t been invented yet, Freud was still centuries down the road, but make no mistake, armies of this era were well aware of the importance of “getting into the other guy’s head.” They would write about their tactics with phrases like “making their spirits’ quail” or the like.

By the WAS/SYW era, what would happen is this: the attacking side would signal the advance and the defenders would start firing away. The attackers would keep coming, but their buddies would be dropping off one by one as the enemy fire took its toll. At that point, it all becomes a gigantic battle of nerves (or a game of chicken really.) Whose nerve would break first? Would the losses of the attackers finally lead them to lose their momentum and drift back? Or would their steady approach finally break the nerves of the defenders, leading them to retreat?

So, if these units didn’t actually go at it with bayonets, how can we have so much melee in game? Are the games broken? No. The melee phase represents all of those forms of assault I mentioned (and more). The losses? They represent those who were shot in the early stages, or maybe the retreaters who were a bit too slow, and may well have been bayoneted in the back. Melee is the entire process of close assault, regardless of how the troops did it.

If there are so many methods all tied into assault, how can the engine represent all of that? That’s where one of the new features that was added to the M&P engine with REN comes to the forefront. Every unit has an OOB (order of battle) defined melee bonus. It may well be 0, but more effective units will gain a greater advantage.

So, for instance, let’s look at the Swedes in GNW.

Take a look at the melee rating for that guy: 5. That means it gets a 50% advantage in melee (each point is 10%). So, in melee, it fights with the strength of 825 men (not counting any other bonuses). Why? That is a reflection of how effective and feared this was on the battlefield.

Now, note that these rankings are always relative within the game. In other words, you can’t directly compare the values used from one game to another. We aren’t looking at minis games where we can take this Swedish Infantry and dump it onto the field of Ramillies to see how it would stack up with Marlborough’s infantry (as interesting a thought experiment as that may be).

As I mentioned, a great deal of the time, the various melee approaches that different armies had would involve firing at some point during the assault. It’s best to think of those firings as part of the melee, and not as something that you should do as you move your units into position. Now, if you want, you can fire, but remember that a unit which has not fired that turn actually gets a 20% bonus! The “final fire” of say the Ga Pa is considered part of melee, and not part of the fire phase. I find it easiest to consider “fire” in game to always be “stand off” fire, and not firing as part of the assault.

Modeling this in Game

Let’s take a look and see how all of this is modeled in the various games.

A. Thirty Years War

So, let’s jump to the opening stages of the Thirty Years War and look at the Battle of White Mountain:

The first thing that jumps out at us is that the battle is very, very block heavy. Almost all the infantry is either already in block, or is block capable (the Imperial units in column on the road). The only “shot” units are a few small (generally less than 100 men) units in line for the Bohemians. We also see one of the characteristics of a battle in this era. It would be common to have each block set apart from one another a bit, and we see that in the image above.

We also see a difference between the way things were set up in REN and the way they are here in TYW. While this is a block unit, it’s listed as having “Pike/Shot 1:2”. That means that the shot is incorporated into the unit. That is a reference to the weapon listing, for which the fire effectiveness is available in the PDT file. However, notice that this unit cannot form line. It’s limited to column and block, both of which substantially reduce firepower. Units in Block fire at 25% effectiveness. Units in column in this scenario also fire at 25% effectiveness. (For that, check the Column Fire Modifier in the PDT.) Thus, while it can fire, it will have a bit limited effectiveness. The good news though, is that as long as it’s in block, it can fire in all directions.

On the cavalry front, there are three different types out there. For both sides, the “regular” cavalry is split about 50/50 between melee cavalry and mounted arquebusiers. Much as we saw in REN, the mounted arquebus troops are really poor in melee. Then there are some irregular cavalry out there, and they are also mostly missile troops.

We see a bit more field artillery than we did, but it’s still fairly rare. That will change as we move up towards the 18th Century.

Now, let’s move forward to perhaps the most famous battle of the Thirty Years War: Lutzen.

Looking at the map, we see things are very, very different than they were at White Mountain. It’s especially notable on the Swedish side, but you can even see it with the Imperial army. While there are some Block units on the Imperial side (stacked with 3lb battalion guns in the center), you see many more independent shot units, including some are deployed with the cavalry on the wings. Notice though that the Imperial Blocks are still restricted to “No Line”. So, much as we saw at White Mountain, they’re limited to Block and Column.

It’s with the Swedes where you see the major differences though.

There are a couple of things to notice with the Swedish infantry. First of all, they’re much smaller. This is a reflection of the Swedish preference for smaller, more flexible units. Second though, they are capable of forming line, while still being able to block. Finally, they have a better melee bonus than the Imperial block.

Well, what about the cavalry? There’s a fair bit of variety of values for the cavalry at Lutzen, but this unit highlights the changes under Gustavus Adolphus. They’re listed for sword only, which means that they have no standoff capacity. However, they also get a useful melee bonus.

This does bring up a point that someone commented about in the last blog. What does “Assault Pen” mean? It’s actually a fairly specific flag indicating that a unit gets a major penalty for attacking into certain types of terrain, especially abatis. If you look back at the map for this battle, you’ll notice there’s a solid line of abatis in front of the Imperial position. That may just be a problem for the Swedes…

B. Vienna 1683

Let’s bounce on down to the relief of Vienna in 1683. One of the things of note here is that we’re looking at three very different armies.

When it comes to infantry, the Imperial and Polish forces are not all that different.

The Saxon infantry in this battle was actually without pikes (but even the other Imperial infantry that had pikes had them at a low enough ratio that they’re not allowed to block). The Poles also did not have pikes, but they did carry a long handled axe called a bardiche, which is why they have a +1 melee.

Now, the Ottoman infantry are somewhat different. I’m not going to worry about the levy Azab infantry here (they’re all in the siege lines outside the city). However, the key points in the Ottoman defense are held by the elite Janissary infantry.

You may wonder what the difference between “Musket-W” (Western) and “Musket-O” (Ottoman) is. The Ottoman muskets at this point were generally bigger and heavier than the standard European models, which gives them an extra hex of range, but at the cost of a bit of close range firepower (because of a slower rate of fire).

None of the infantry in Vienna are allowed to block, but that is a much more serious problem for the Ottomans. All of the Ottoman cavalry are irregular (we’ll get to them in a moment). On the other hand, there’s an entire Polish army out there, chock full of heavy cavalry. The Janissaries were well equipped for infantry melee with swords as well as their muskets, but that’s far less useful than a pike or musket mounted bayonet when it came time to fight heavy cavalry.

So, what do we have on the cavalry side of things?  Here, we have lots (and lots!) of variation. We see three very different approaches to cavalry.

The Imperial forces largely fall into the pattern of the Schwarze Reiter that we’ve discussed before. It is worth noting that both the Imperial forces as well as the Poles have some Dragoons, and they are starting to become more of a cross between cavalry and infantry, rather than mounted infantry.

Now, we at last, the Winged Hussars arrive (you didn’t think I’d let that one pass me by, did you?) Here we see all of the highlights of the famed horsemen. They’re considered heavy cavalry, so they get a substantial strength bonus on the charge compared to other units. Further, they have a +2 melee bonus, and armor to protect them. The best shock cavalry on the field. Of course, their VP reflect that. Losing a strength point of Hussars hurts more than losing an Imperial Reiter (10 vs 7).

Now, the Ottoman cavalry are quite different than what we saw with the European powers. As I mentioned before, they come from the long tradition of hit and run light cavalry. As such, they are rated “irregular”. The most important aspect of that is that absolutely none of them can charge. They can melee offensively, but none of them will receive a charge bonus.

Almost all of the Ottoman cavalry at Vienna are like the above. There’s a single brigade of Kapikulu Sipahi, who have higher morale and a bit of armor, but even they are irregular.

Neither side at Vienna has a great deal of artillery, but there’s lots of artillery stacked up around the city of Vienna for the siege. That includes some very heavy, largely immobile guns. If you look some of the largest guns have surprisingly low firepower. That’s because siege guns tended to have very low rates of fire. Some of them took so long to load, that they actually should be every other turn! Remember we’re looking at 15 minute turns, so the ability of a gun to fire more often will increase its firepower.

One thing to note. In this game, the light (3lb) battalion guns are not represented with distinct counters, but instead are considered part of the firepower of the unit. This was done to keep counter clutter down a bit.

C. Great Northern War

Finally, to wrap up we come to the Great Northern War. Now, I’m cheating slightly here because we’re really slipping into the 18th Century, but don’t worry, I’ll circle back to this next time around, to compare and contrast what Charles XII is up to with the army of Marlborough.

The Russians at Poltava are relatively straightforward after what we’ve seen up to this point. The infantry are mixed pike-shot, line but not block capable. The cavalry is split. There’s some sword armed cavalry, so melee only. A fair number of dragoons, and then as you’d expect with a Russian army, some Cossacks (irregulars).

However, the Swedes have a very distinct model going on here.

There’s a few things that jump out at us. The first is the quality: A. These are really, really good troops. But, more important for the moment is the melee bonus: 5. That is an extremely hefty bonus, bigger than anything we’ve seen to this point. This is a reflection of the effectiveness of the Ga Pa I mentioned before. These guys are priming to go in bayonet first.

In fact, they sort of have to. The Russians have them outnumbered severely, and if you look in the PDT, you’ll see that the Musket Pike combo only has 2 points of firepower at range 1, as opposed to the Russians whose Musket Pike-FP has 3 points of firepower. They really should not get into a firefight. Go forward indeed!

We see much the same with cavalry, where they are primarily sword armed, and have +3 or even +4 melee bonuses. This is an army that needs to get the cold steel stuck into the enemy, which is exactly what Charles XII strove to do.

Now, there are other armies in GNW, including some of our friends from Vienna, the Poles, but I’ll leave it for you to look at them and see how they’re modeled. Look at things the way I have, and you’ll learn to read your army. (And remember, this is a pretty ragged time for the Poles, and the relief of Vienna is very much a high water mark for the Kingdom.)

In closing, we have a few more book recommendations for you:

Well, I hope you’ve found this helpful, and next time out, we’ll be moving on to the 18th Century: The Era of Linear Warfare. However, even there, we’ll see hints of what would come afterwards. The Army of the French Revolution did not invent column or skirmishers, though they will adopt them in ways that others had only theorized about. So, next time out, from Chiari to Yorktown, and everything in between.  See you soon!

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.