Forgive me if I sound ignorant but isn't pike and shot just extremely weak to artillery? Why bother with tight formations when you can just mass arquebus and attach a bayonet on them to deter horse charges? I played total war and get fricked by artillery whenever I go with tight formations and since Europe had cannons, why bother with infantry squares of guns and pikes?
I would just mass arquebuses and cannons and any horse charge can be mowed down by volleys.
This is why pike and shot developed into linear warfare. The bayonet is also a later invention.
Yes
artillery sucked back in those times
I dont know much about history but I would assume that artillery then and napoleonic era artillery were pretty much the same. Is this not the case?
Napoleon literally revolutionized the use of artillery.
What did he do that Adolphus didn't think of first?
Be the best of his era instead of a flash in the pan who had his big victory over a divided command where the old, way past his prime mediocre commander (Tilly) didn't even want to give battle and got hastily forced into it by his headstrong subordinate.
Then he had a string of hardly opposed victories while the imperials decided they had to do what it took to bring Chadenstein back into the field.
The two met and Big Swedes entire army for broken, along with his body, in total Chadenstein victory, the Blessed Virgin smiling upon the destruction of the heretic.
No.And a lose formation would get fricked by cavalry and the firearms used back then couldn’t fire fast enough to counter cavalry on their own which is why pike and shot was developed in the first place.
Not at all. Before the middle of the 18th century virtually all artillery guns were unique pieces of equipment.
The french were the first implement a system of standardized and interchangeable parts. They furthermore redesigned their guns and carriages to save weight, iirc weighing 1/3 less than the guns of their enemies, allowing greater mobility.
This happened only a few years after the dutch revolutionized artillery construction. Previously guns were cast as hollow tubes around a mold which could move and misalign the barrel among other things, the dutch then chose to just cast while pieces and drill in a barrel.
Pike and shot formations were VERY vulnerable to artillery, but there are some caveats to consider ontop of that. The first, and probably most important one, is that big, open field battles during the age of pike and shot just weren't that common. When one happened, like at Breitenfeld, it was a departure from the norm and a big deal.
The second caveat is that like says, artillery in the 1600s is very heavy, and a almost all custom-made pieces. You have to remember that armies are bringing guns with them primarily to besiege and degrade an enemy fort when they find one. Compare this English Civil War-era (above, 1640s) to this Napoleonic-era (Below, 1800s) cannon. The napoleonic gun is lighter, was made to standardized sizes and calibers, and is much better suited to fighting on the field.
But yes, when armies did meet on the field and had their cannon ready and accurately laid, cannon were extremely deadly to the dense formations of the pike and shot era.
>isn't pike and shot just extremely weak to artillery?
yes, artillery is the hard counter to pike and shot, always has been
however
>Why bother with tight formations
IRL soldiers don't receive perfect instructions from a giant hand in the sky with perfect panoramic vision, also
>I played total war
games don't adequately model the balance between infantry, cavalry and artillery
>since Europe had cannons, why bother
cannon experienced a slow growth in effectiveness from Malplaquet to the Napoleonic Wars but eventually only dominated the battlefield beginning with the American Civil War
>Is this not the case?
very much no
>What did he do?
Centrally subordinate it under the battlefield commander in chief (either himself or the Marshal commanding the battle) instead of allowing independent fire under each infantry unit, which was the status quo before Napoleon
Not a Bonaparte innovation
also,
and
>Gribeauval system
happened as Napoleon was growing up, and he became perfectly placed to take the matured system in hand and use it.
Bayonets were originally knives with skinny tapered grips to jam into arquebus/musket barrels. Strictly for dealing with cavalry, and you couldn't reload and fire while using the bayonet. Bayonets also weren't common at that point. Socket bayonets didn't emerge until the late 17th century, and that's when bayonets became universal and pikes finally died.
Couldnt you just get an arquebusier to carry a spear with him too if you didn't have bayonets?
What did he do?
>What did he do?
He mounted it on wheeled carriages towed by horses.
How the frick is that revolutionary? Its a heavy ass object. Did they tow the fricking cannons by hand before Napoleon?
Prior to him artillery was seen as more of a siege thing, or at best an ancillary role for the infantry. Napoleon was an artillery officer, so he had expert insight in how it works and how it could be used.
There was a long sequence of technical and doctrinal improvements prior to (and contemporary with) him but Napoleon was the first to use artillery for what it has been ever since: the undisputed king of the battlefield, using its *mass* (in the form of grand batteries) to crack the enemy open: artillery breaks the enemy at a certain point, then cavalry and infantry exploit that break.
>Prior to him artillery was seen as more of a siege thing, or at best an ancillary role for the infantry.
Nonsense, that's pre 30 Years War maybe but not pre Napoleon
Gustavus Adoplhus was the first as far as I know to experiment with mobile artillery, but in general until Napoleon artillery was mostly something you spent hours getting into place for bombarding a castle or other fortified position. These cannons were very heavy, had very short ranges, quite expensive (nothing on Cavalry though) and took an age to reload. The craft was not advanced enough yet for artillery to make up more than a small percentage of total battlefield casualties, no matter how they were employed. Even one of the lightest models at this time required multiple horses to transport it, as well. The main factor that led to artillery's greater prominence by the time of Napoleon was the reduction of its weight, which meant it could be brought close to the frontlines without this being a death sentence, but of course there were many improvements in other aspects as well.
Gribeauval system (named after i's inventor, count de Gribeauval) : it's arationalisation of artillery caliber, fabrication, crew formation, etc.
Tactically French artillery truly teamworked alongside cavalry and infantry to get result. They also did'nt just use canons as a support from the rear line but used them as assult weapon. They came close from ennemy formation and moved them forward alongside the infantry attack after each shot.
it is
the issue is getting your artillery set up and firing fast enough before they come over to rape your face
Solid shot could be devestating when hitting a formation, and cannons are used in field battles in the 17th century then into the 18th, but the revolutionary use of artillery coincides with larger use of explosive shells which would shred formations a lot more efficiently. You’d get some 17th century generals experiment with light mobile guns but a 1pdr cannon is a 20mm gun that’s muzzle loaded and you don’t have any sights to aim these things so they’re inaccurate to use at the only ranges they provide a benefit over a formation of musketeers. They hurt bad when they hit just right, but it was hard to get them to hit right.
>I don't read books and I play videogames
>are my ideas about history valid?
No
OP came to learn and wasn't at all obnoxious unlike you.
>Forgive me if I sound ignorant but isn't pike and shot just extremely weak to artillery?
Yes, which is why Pike & Shot formations 1. would tend not to advance into prepared artillery positions and 2. disappeared once artillery became more mobile (not the only reason it disappeared, but one of the reasons).
Though even after pike & shot disappeared, forming squares to deal with cavalry was still essential. Which was a bit of a conundrum if artillery was nearby.
From the square formations of the 16th and 17th century to the linear formations of the 17th and 18th century, the small unit tactics of the second half of the 19th century and onward, the constant reduction of soldiers per kilometre of frontage that started half a millenium ago and is still ongoing... it's basically all just a race to reduce losses to artillery. The basic equation of reducing the number of soldiers on a given amount of frontage as much as possible without actually making that front too weak to withstand an attack hasn't changed since the 1630. Breech loaders, repeating rifles, automatic rifles, machineguns, grenade launchers, they're all just a means to allow the infantry to disperse more without losing firepower per metre so it can hold the line without losing a dozen men to every artillery shell.
Artillery has driven every evolution if warfare for the past four centuries. All in a race to reduce vulnerability to it by spreading the men out more.
>Though even after pike & shot disappeared, forming squares to deal with cavalry was still essential. Which was a bit of a conundrum if artillery was nearby.
artillery cant fire in a cavalry charge since they would hit their own men, who tend to be upper class aristos.
They would shoot at their own cavalry obviously.
The cavalry only needs to threaten a charge and they don't need to get super close for that.
If the infantry forms a square they are vulnerable to the artillery if not they risk getting charged.
anyone recommend some books about this discussion?
that's why they abandoned this tactic as artillery and guns got better, thin lines were adopted instead in the mid to late 17th century
Yes. Artillery was highly inaccurate and the regions where Pike and Shot was practiced were mountainous/hilly and this minimized artillery's effectiveness.
Muskets at the time were large and cumbersome devices that had more in common with a swivel gun than the wielder, lighter arms that were to follow due to advances in design and metallurgy. Due to this, bayonets weren't really a thing at the point of history pike and shot was prominent, and even if someone tried you'd end up with a very shitty top-heavy spear that was wholly inferior to just using the bayonet like a knife or the musket like a club.