Originally Posted by
Wolfgang von Zweibrücken
I have a few questions and suggestions...
Regarding Bohemia, I notice it is not on the Religion chart and should be about 65-70% Protestant (Lutheran/Hussite/Utraquist) 30-35% Catholic.
Regarding military, is the recruitment cost "unit cost + quality cost"? I.E., Regular Pikeman cost 6% (2% for Pikeman, 4% for "Regular" status, -50% = 3% upkeep)? And what are the "Conscript" and "Line Infantry" units meant to represent? Musketeers?
In the era, infantry were either Pikeman - heavy infantry, impervious to cavalry charges, and usually armoured - or Musketeers - medium or light infantry, generally unarmoured, equipped with a heavy matchlock musket and a rest - and the two never fought separately.
It is appropriate for them to be available as separate units for recruitment, even though they would fight together, because the ratio of Pike:Shot varied greatly depending on budget and availability (Pikes are cheaper than guns), tactical preference (Catholic armies mostly used the Spanish Tercio formation, which used equal pikes and guns, ideally, while the Protestants mostly used the Dutch Regiment formation, which used 1:2 pike/shot ratio, ideally - both formations would use more or less shot based on availability), and on the technological advancement of weapons over the period - as guns became lighter, cheaper, stronger and longer ranged, the musket increased in popularity versus the pike and its proportion in formations increased accordingly, to about 1 pikeman for every 3 or 4 musketeers by the end of the war in 1648.
This was the Western European method of battle - slow-moving Infantry blocks, largely impervious to cavalry (unless they broke) but difficult to maneuver having it out against each other while cavalry skirmished on the wings (whichever side's cavalry won the cavalry battle would usually chase off the defeated cavalry then, ideally, flank the infantry or chase off the artillery, though often they would just loot the enemy's baggage train).
Eastern Armies were very slow to adopt the Western model of war-fighting. The armies of the Poles, Turks, Russians and Transylvanians/Hungarians were all built around cavalry. Heavy cavalry - Winged Lancers, Kapikulu Sipahis, etc. - as the elite force, and light cavalry as the bulk of the force. Infantry were generally just musketeers who would dig in on the battlefield to hold a position, defend the baggage and artillery, or attack or defend forts, cities and castles in sieges. In a Western force, cavalry would make up 15-25% of a force. In an eastern army, infantry might be 15-25% of the force. Even crack foot troops, like Janissaries or Streletsy, would still mostly or only use muskets, not pikes, and rarely fight in Western infantry blocks
Two examples of these armies meeting each other in battle would be the wars between Sweden and Poland which ended around the late 1620s, where a conventional Western force of mostly slow-moving infantry blocks met a conventional Eastern force of mostly highly mobile, but brittle, cavalry and the result was a stalemate. The Poles could not defeat the Swedes in a conventional battle, and the Swedish army was too slow to catch the Poles.
Bethlen Gabor's force consisted of 15,000 Transylvanian and Hungarian light cavalry when he invaded Austria and besieged Vienna, but even though they outnumbered the defenders, they could not properly siege the city, nor could they defend their siege positions from outside relief forces because they were just too lightly equipped and arm.
So, with all that in mind, what are "Line Infantry" and "Conscripts" intended to represent?
Re: [1618] - Thirty Years' War IH
