A basic tactical manual for 1648 v.2 pike and shot warfare

[Fuzzibo]

@Dracula: Thank you very much!

[Dansk viking]

Great post, sir! I downloaded this mod again and am thoroughly enjoying every moment of it.

Started up as Denmark (of course) and would build up my economy when I was surprise attacked by the Swedes who I thought would, historically, prepare to help out the German protestants (as should I). Turns out they're greedy and they want eastern Denmark almost half a century too early, the bastards! Now I won my first skirmishes after deserting most of my fortifications in Halland and Blekinge and I can finally move my troops across the sound after acquiring my first ship (hmhm). My best moment so far was holding off a stack of 10-15 generals with bodyguards and a band of musketeers having only a small bande of pike and shotte (three pike units and one shotte) and two brave generals! Formed with pike in the middle, shotte in front and horse on the flanks (with guns too). It proved quite successful, mostly because of their hordes of horse blocking each other and enabling me to close in with the pikes while holding them with my heroic general's bodyguards. I ended up killing more than half of the named characters and routing the rest.

Here's a little something, you didn't get it from me...

[Turtler]

This is a noble effort, but there are several catastrophically dubious points in this. Most of it is good and something I agree with- and the contemporary sources are much appreciated-, so I'll stick to the issues I see problems with. But in my opinion, they are severe. Mostly about the role of cavalry, but to a lesser degree in the part about artillery.

This section REALLY overplays the invulnerability of pike and shot to cavalry, and underplays the usages of it against them. The broad contours of the usage are true (cavalry went after cavalry and served as flanking, recon, rout chasers, etc), but it's overstated and exaggerated to all dickens. Which hurts understanding of the era itself, and the sort of strategies one can use in this mod and others like it.

IIn this period cavalry was no match for the infantry. The musketeers had more firepower and range and the pikemen had more and longer pointing sticks.

The problem is that that conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from those facts. Especially since it only describes how they were inferior without talking about how they were superior.

The cavalry had more firepower and maneuverability than the pikemen and tended to have pointier weapons and more armor than the musketeers. In many ways they were jacks of all trades. Which was the reason why hybrid pike/ranged formations were so important. While cavalry might have been able to run down all but the best positioned and equipped musketeers or could harass a pike block to death or surrender (like the Mongols did centuries ago or the anti-Imperial Europeans did), the two together combined what was largely the best of both worlds. Superior CQC as well as and superior firepower to cavalry. So that the whole was far more effective than the sum of its' parts.

Furthermore, the examples are a bit problematic.

Let's start with the main definite claim here.

In the English Civil War, Cuirassiers were used only against cavalry (practically never in that war cavalry successfully attacked infantry except against bands of armed peasantry on the march early in the war).

The crowing problem with this assessment can be summed up in one word. "Naseby." That is far from the only one, but it is By Far the most obvious and important example against it. There the Royalist Infantry regulars were not only successfully attacked by the Ironside Curassiers, but by some particularly rash Dragoons who decided to make a rare cavalry charge. All of these flanked the committed Royalist infantry engaged with the Parliamentarian infantry center and smashed them flat. That and the long pursuit they launched pretty much destroyed the professional Royalist infantry core.

If this were the only major case of it happening in the English Civil War, it'd still be a massive omission but an understandable one. But the value of cavalry attacking pike and shot infantry- especially from the flank- was demonstrated otherwise. A few of the less-heralded but more decisive battles of the Irish chapter in it were Rathmines and Knocknaclasy. Both of which saw veteran Irish Confederate troops be devastated by Parliamentarian cavalry flanking their infantry formations, including pike blocks. While it is true that conventional infantry formations were not the typical way the Irish Royalists or Confederates (or for that matter, any force in the Irish war) fought, they were still hardened veterans and knew enough to acquit themselves well. They had punished many Parliamentarian and Covenanter armies before using both bush tactics and conventional ones. On top of this, the Royalist troops lost at Naseby were the finest conventional infantry the Royalists would ever field.

Now, to state the obvious: these were not everyday events in the English Civil War. Even with some of the greatest cavalry of the era- the Ironsides- outright events where cavalry broke formed pike and shot formations were uncommon. Moreso when those formations were composed of regular-quality troops. More often then not cavalry fighting formations of those would be lucky to escape defeat, much less defeat them in turn.

But it is clearly not an "almost never.*

They say three times is a pattern, and these three conventional battles alone- along with a fair number of others there probably are- indicate the vulnerability of pike and shot infantry formations to skillful, well-utilized cavalry. This is one of the most definitive points in this article, and at best it is highly misleading. And this was not limited to the English Civil War (which was- after all- a sideshow); the Spanish and French in particular acquired records in this period for using cavalry against pike and shot units in limited capacities. Perhaps most famous was the repeated French cavalry attacks on the gunpowder-mauled Tercios at the end of Rocroi.

Those charges failed miserably and are a good example of both the resilience of a disciplined Tercio even in a mauled form, and why doing that was generally a bad idea. But it shows that the idea of taking cavalry to attack pikes was not alien. And a sizable minority of times, it was even rewarded. Sometimes decisively so.

Reiters and other light cavalry, such as the Italian pistoliers in the game, only made opportunistic attacks on routing units, raided baggage, plundered wagons, camps, collected prisoners, stole cattle and the like (Cruso says as much).

i'd say this is true but the former is somewhat misleading. Especially since the term "Reiter" in the Thirty Years' War and related eras applied to some very different kinds of units. This is especially a problem because several of the "Reiters" used by many factions- especially the Dutch and Swedes- were heavier than light cavalry, and often served the role of heavy(/ier) Curassiers. It might be more of an ambiguous terminology issue than anything, but it might be worth considering.

In other words, pikemen would not fight cavalry on the battlefield but would attack the enemy infantry, their role was no longer what it had been in previous centuries. Pike blocks were the kings of the battlefield. Wherever they were, the field was theirs. They were not there to repel cavalry, it is just that cavalry could not harm them.

Huh?

The latter part I've discussed: cavalry could harm them but usually not decisively. Which was why they were used; they had a decisive advantage of them. But what really gets to me is...

pikemen would not fight cavalry on the battlefield but would attack the enemy infantry, their role was no longer what it had been in previous centuries. .....They were not there to repel cavalry

Then why was the push of pike a centuries old phenomenon by the time of the Thirty Years? Why did the Habsburgs develop these things after confronting elite French heavy cavalry in the Italian Wars?

The truth is that pike blocks- especially the classic Imperial Tercio- had similar roles to what they had in the past centuries. Because if the pikemen of the Tercio- especially the early tercio of the Italian Wars- could not deter cavalry(given how the French cavalry were armored juggernauts and some of them still were in the mod's timeframe) or push back opposing pike walls, then Nothing Could. The CQC weapons were too short and award to use in formation against horses, and musketeers/artymen were too squishy. A lot of what changed is how other forces reacted to them tended to be different.

They Were There to deter cavalry as well as engage as the main infantry fighting force. And they worked so damn well at it that most of the continent adopted it to some degree, and it deterred cavalry so effectively they usually didn't even try to engage the pike blocks up close. Which was another crucial defense in and of itself.

In many ways, the reason they didn't fight cavalry directly that often wasn't because deterring enemy cav wasn't their job. It was that they had doen it so well in the past that most steered clear. In many cases, their presence alone was a deterrent.

More importantly for the sake of the mod, that also holds. When a player plays this game, pikemen are what you will use a lot of to protect things from the enemy pike *and* cavalry formations just looping beside or through your formations to eat the soft, creamy core. Musketeers and artillery (the reason pike and shot got its' name and exist), supply wagons, etc. Things that could not hold them in an even struggle. The AI knows this usually tries to avoid them because it knows it will usually not fare well, and that's crucial.

Even if the actual killing is largely done by cavalry, gun infantry, or artillery those don't usually keep them at bay like a pike line.

Heavy artillery, such as demi- and full culverins, was only really effective in sieges.

This isn't particularly borne out by the results. Especially not given the sort of high ground batteries that all sides tended to want to use if they had the right amount of setup (see Lutzen, Rocroit, half the Dutch doctrine, etc). A lot of battles were turned on their head by one side grabbing the enemy's artillery and opening it up on the backs of their enemy (Nordlingen, Lubiszow, and Zenta are the ones that come to mind offhand, and at least the former two saw heavy artillery amognst them). They were certainly slower firing and less mobile than their lighter cousins and so harder to use on the field, but that didn't stop them from being so. Especially since they tended to pack more wallop per shot.

While I agree that a lot of pieces- especially the smaller ones- tended to be used around the same range as muskets, a lot of others weren't. And while the issues with firing at longer ranges were very real and probably had a sizable role why long range bombardment was limited (but not nearly as you imply from what I have been able to dig up), that also had to do with coordinating with visibility.

So what am I getting at with all this? What do all these examples and names I've been tossing around teach us?

I think the value of using the arms in concert, and beyond what you've mentioned in this. Of the devastating effect artillery could have when properly positioned or used on the battlefield of the era. Of the vulnerability of even professional pike units in good order to cavalry *if the situation provided.* And of how the infantry were so important to the cavalry and vice versa even if they relatively rarely fought head to head.

These are all good points that were used at the time in certain conditions, and I've found keeping them in mind has greatly improved my 1648 track record (as well as the FKoC one, and other "Renaissance/post-Renaissance formations" games). So I figure I have to add this in.

[Turtler]

This is an addendum to the post just prior.

I cannot believe I missed what I'm about to describe in the. I debated whether to add this in to the previous post or do this, but I believed it was worth highlighting.

The Original Post claims that long ranged bombardment by artillery (especially on field battles) was almost nonexistent, and that artillery- or at least the vast majority- deployed on the battlefield was deployed in front or to the side of the infantry subunits and fired at more or less musket range.

But in that very same post, it has a primary source describing the proper role of the infantry. Which includes This:

“As soon as you be within reach of the Canon you must go on directly upon the enemie (unlesse you be sheltered from his Artillerie) by this means your souldiers are encouraged, you avoid the danger of the enemies Canon, and you leave behind the place where your Armie stood ranged, which ground will serve to rally and order the Battaillons which shall happen to be routed. You must not give on so hastily, as that thereby the Battaillons be disordered; and on the other-side you are to use a marching pace untill you come within distance of a Pistoll-shot, but then to double your pace and charge furiously, the Pikes being close ferried , and the muskets continually playing on the Flanks, having certain Targetteers in front which may shelter the Battaillon and disorder the enemies Pikes.”
John Cruso The Art of Warre, 1639

This snippet alone raises some truly massive questions about the claim about battlefield artillery use in the OP. If the use of artillery on the battiefield *really was* as limited as the OP describes, then:

A: Why does Cruso make such a big deal about it and its' effect on the infantry? I have (alas) not read the book in question so for all I know the mention of "canon"(SIC) may be a reference to handheld firearms as well as artillery. But in at least one point of this paragraph he explicitly calls artillery out by anachronistically-spelled name, and does so in a sentence that describes it as the chief factor determining how you can attack (which is the entire purpose of this sentence).

All of this indicates that artillery was not only known on the battlefield of the field battle, it was viewed as a massive battle-decider in its' own right, as shown by the fact that he talks about its' deployment extensively even in the abstract.

You might be saying "so what? That doesn't contradict what he's saying about his deployment." And you might be right except...

B: Why does he address artillery and musketeers as playing very different roles from each other?

In the model proposed within the OP, artillery and musketeers in a field battle would be playing a very mixed role. Both having more or less the same range and attack (because remember, cannon allegedly did not fire much beyond point blank/musket range), both having similar roles in the formation, et cetera.

The problem is that not only does Cruso never talk about cannon and muskets acting at the same time or function in this paragraph, he depicts them as acting separately.

There are at least two pieces of evidence for this. One is ambiguous and more open to dispute than the former.

The more dubious part is how he references how he addresses a difference between the distance where "your Army stood ranged" and when the effects of enemy cannon begin to be felt.

“As soon as you be within reach of the Canon you must go on directly upon the enemie (unlesse you be sheltered from his Artillerie) by this means your souldiers are encouraged, you avoid the danger of the enemies Canon, and you leave behind the place where your Armie stood ranged, which ground will serve to rally and order the Battaillons which shall happen to be routed.

The problem with this stems from the definition of "stood ranged." This argument would lean (too heavily in my opinion) on the idea that it is "the point at which you can let the firearms troops start shooting holes int he enemy", which would indicate that the enemy cannon's range is longer than that which an opposing army would "stand ranged", thus why Cruso addresses the need to close to avoid the danger of it. But that phrase could also mean that it's where the army formed up before (for an attacker) advancing on the enemy or doing other maneuvering rather than where the shot of the pike-and-shot would have fired from.

This seems a lot more convincing because right after the term in question, he describes it as being a fall back position for withdrawing formations to reorder themselves and get back in the fray. Of course there might not be too much difference between them; the infantry firing line might have been a logical and convenient place for troops that got closer into the melee to retreat to.

But in any event without seeing the book itself to see the context and how Cruso usually uses that term, I cannot safely say that it is actual evidence against it.

But the more damning, definitive part is where he Explicitly addresses musket fire and where he explicitly addresses artillery fire. Emphasis mine.

“As soon as you be within reach of the Canon you must go on directly upon the enemie (unlesse you be sheltered from his Artillerie) by this means your souldiers are encouraged, you avoid the danger of the enemies Canon, and you leave behind the place where your Armie stood ranged, which ground will serve to rally and order the Battaillons which shall happen to be routed. You must not give on so hastily, as that thereby the Battaillons be disordered; and on the other-side you are to use a marching pace untill you come within distance of a Pistoll-shot, but then to double your pace and charge furiously, the Pikes being close ferried , and the muskets continually playing on the Flanks, having certain Targetteers in front which may shelter the Battaillon and disorder the enemies Pikes.”

He *doesn't even Mention* the two kinds of fire in the same place.

He spends the first part of this paragraph talking about the dangers of "canon" and artillery fire forcing units to close to range quickly and determining how they can do it without even mentioning muskets. Then in the final parts of it he explicitly speaks of musketeers and how they should act after advancement to a far closer range without mentioning artillery or cannon.

If the OP claim that they had the same range were true and that long range bombardment was not so, we probably should be seeing their fire being mentioned at the same time. Instead Cruso speaks of artillery coming into range long before the "distance of a pistol-shot", and it being why advancing to closer range is so essential.

This seems to indicate that even if Cruso himself personally disagreed the idea of using cannonf or long ranged bombardment, it was enough of a feature on the Western battle*field* that he included enemy useage of it in a generalized battle plan. One that was included as a source on an OP claiming that long ranged cannon bombardment was rare on a field battle. I'm sure it would be best if I tried to tie all of this together with a summary, but i don't think anything I could type would say more than those facts.

Which goes back to the point of my prior post. That cannon usage in field battles is undervalued in the OP, as is cavalry. Which is why while I think the OP is a valiant effort that gets a lot of things right, it is still far too flawed to be written off.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Pistols were fired at around 50m, often less (maximum range was longer, about 100-130m). Cruso is not referring to muskets here. The range of cannon was usually stated in paces and that was not a standard measure at the time. The point-blank ranges of various types of cannon have been estimated and most fall to within the firing range of a musket, some less, some more (see OP). Making the range more than that of the musket disadvantages the AI, as does making the range less than that of the musket. The AI tries to fire them at their max range and if that differs from that of the muskets they become separated from the infantry and become easy prey to the human player's cavalry. The fact that infantry when routed retreated back to the line of the maximum range of muskets and cannons makes good sense both historically and in the game.

This pdf has a short paragraph on the range and efficiency of cannons on the battlefield at that time.

I will try to answer your other points soon. Pikemen were not there to fight cavalry, since cavalrymen would not be so foolish as to attack a block of pikemen. Of course pikemen were a deterrent. But on most accounts pikemen fought pikemen in real life. You mentioned the push of pikes, which was exactly that.

[Turtler]

Pistols were fired at around 50m, often less. Perhaps some pistols had a maximum range of 60-70m. Cruso is not referring to muskets here.

I'm aware. I've worked with black powder weapons personally, and pistols almost always have a smaller accurate range than long arms, especially since they tended not to be use din the same range-enhancing formations long arms were. That was my point.

The fact that pistols have a smaller effective range than musket longarms (which would be the standard weapon used on the field, especially infantry) and the layout of the paragraph telling us that's when the pikes were supposed to double pace give us a good sense of the timing of the infantry attacks and their range. The fact remains that he talks about the use of muskets and other firearms on the opposite side of the paragraph (and with a different portion of the infantry advance) than when he gives us discourses on artillery tells us something.

That he talked about the enemy's artillery coming into play at a range well in advance of when the musketeers on the attack. Hence why he says to hurry the heck up rather than stand and try to drive them off by weight of musket firepower (like the Dutch and Swedes would occasionally attempt in the years after this was written). Ergo, the enemy's artillery has more expected range than the friendly musketeers. And since both sides would usually be using equivalent save on uneven ground or with one side having a clear equipment or training advantage, it is probably safe to say he's talking abut the artillery playing a role well before the hand held firearms come into play.

The true artillery revolution would only really kick off during the age of Vauban, but that was a scarce few decades in the future. And a lot of the essentials were either already in place (the French had already begun standardizing their cannon half a century before 1618) or being developed. So it's not a surprise they were dealt with so extensively even on the field.

The range of cannon was usually stated in paces and that was not a standard measure at the time.

Agreed.

The point-blank ranges of various types of cannon have been estimated and most fall to within the firing range of a musket, some less, some more (see OP).

I am aware.

The problem is that the OP and the mod treat point blank as more-or-less the maximum range (to a large degree). Which is flatly not true, especially for the (largely Western) doctrines that had the intended target of "Big Imperial Human Square the width and depth of Tuesday." Long range (for the time) field bombardments by artillery were important tools on the contemporary battlefield as an analysis of Cruso's writing indicates. They were the decisive blow in more than a couple battles, being the thing that broke the Imperial formations at Breitenfeld (when the Swedes captured the Imperial artillery and turned it on the formations it was supposed to cover), Rocroi (where the French also turned captured Spanish cannon and their own- probably superior- models on them), and Wimpfen (where the Imperials got lucky and hit the Union/Baden magazine during an artillery duel). Probably amongst others I haven't thought of right now.

The last one is especially important, because it could not have been at "point blank" range. The decisive shot occurred during an artillery duel between the Imperial and Baden armies where the latter were stationed on a hill with their artillery, well before range. We have little reason to believe the Imperials shoved their artillery up the base of the hill to try and get within point blank range (because that would've been problematic at best), and the Baden/Protestant Union troops had their magazine (as per the standard practice) off the front line in a more central and defended position. The fact that the Imperials hit it indicates shots that were made at an angle to land on the hilltop, and the position indicates it was made at a distance significantly further than point blank.

Beyond that, we also have some academic proofs of the time talking about momentum, angling, and what have you. Both from the Renaissance researcher standard that was still around, and because a few nations (like France) actively subsidized people doing research on artillery ranging at angles. I won't say "they wouldn't do that if they weren't going to use them" given the patronage ideal that rewarded funding things and research for their own sake, but in this case they had a practical issue.

In this case, my bugbear isn't the use in game (though that is an issue I personally have, especially with city walls). I can understand why it was done. It was a balancing issue to try and make these weapons work on the battle maps of Medieval II and with an AI that doesn't do them well. Their use is legitimate and fun.

My problem is the factual inaccuracies or over-generalizations of the OP, and their presentation as reliable fact. Especially because as I have mentioned before, there is more than enough reason to believe they are not fact.It brings down the OP and your noble efforts, and it does a disservice to students of history and war.

Making the range more than that of the musket disadvantages the AI, as does making the range less than that of the musket. The AI tries to fire them at their max range and if that differs from that of the muskets they become separated from the infantry and become easy prey to the human player's cavalry.

Yes Yes Yes, I understand the reason why you put it into game. I have some misgivings about that but by and large I don't see it being an issue.

My issue is *the content of the OP as a historical document.* It doesn't talk about "this is the way things were but we're going to change it up to fit the game." (That's the second post.) It's "this is how it actually happened." Even when it is dubiously true at best.

As I've detailed above, long range bombardment (at least by the standards of the time) was a common enough strategy even if it wasn't the most common. Entire campaigns were decided by it at times (Especially Dutch and French ones, though things like Wimpfen also happened). That coupled with the other glaring problems like the inaccurate statement about The War that Contained The Battle of Naseby and the idea that the Pikes were not there to deter cavalry (when the introduction of the bayonet allowing the fire troops to do just that themselves saw it die out right away) are what make me take issue.

The fact that infantry when routed retreated back to the line of the maximum range of muskets and cannons makes good sense both historically and in the game.

Agreed indeed, and like I said: the issue that made me raise these comments was not the game-play usage at all, or the historical content of that. I understand the logic and I feel it is appropriate, especially since this is one of the parts in the OP that is broadly historical and fitting.

My issue are things like blanket statements that infantry were all but invulnerable to cavalry, conflating "Point blank Range" with "maximum effective range", outright false claims about the English Civil War, and the like. The OP has a noble intent and much of its' content is legitimate like the game's is. These things are not.

This pdf has a short paragraph on the range and efficiency of cannons on the battlefield at that time.

Thank you. I think I've probably read that before, but it certainly is a nice, concise read. However, I'd advise careful reading because it doesn't really say what you think it does.

At Rowton Heath, balls hit infantry at point blank range of 200 yards and there were “legs and arms flying a
pace.

Rowton Heath was a battle fought mostly at brutally close quarters even for the era. It all took place during a failed Royalist relief attempt for a besieged city and its' outlying villages on a boggy moor broken up even further by those houses and trees. So the terrain almost constantly got in the way, many times one side or the other did not know the enemy was there until they opened up right on top of them, and the Royalist cavalry in particular got hemmed in on the various houses and streets where Parliamentarian firepower could swipe down and cut through them. The fact that it was a siege that featured significant Parliamentarian artillery being deployed for it meant that was used to the hilt.

So the distance reference is important because it's a reference to the range the cannon *were* fighting at, not the range they *Had To* fight at.

Assuming this is evidence that cannon of the era could not and were not fired at more than 200~ yards is to misunderstand the situation. It's the logical equivalent of assuming that the average WWII Longarm had the maximum range of a small room just because the battle for Objective XYZ/WXYZ consisted of a couple of Paratroopers busting into rooms filled with the Garman garrison and mowing them down at extremely close-to point blank range range.

In particular, it's worth contrasting with what it says just a while later.

Also, the guns were not capable of great accuracy, so were more

useful at sieges than fast moving actions. At Edgehill and Naseby most rounds ploughed harmlessly into the ground.

The battle of Edgehill saw the Royalists *intentionally start a long range artillery duel* when both armies were deeply, deeply Green. And in particular the Royalist artillery were perched up on a ridge and manned by troops who could not handle the angling, with the result that a lot missed their targets. But even they were valuable at covering the advance of the Royalist cavalry and infantry and diverting Parliamentarian cannon from turning on those (when they probably would've had a better effect). While the Parliamentarian artillery perched on the ground also wasn't an all star in terms of accuracy, it apparently did do significantly better in terms of hitting what it shot at even if its' target prioritization did not work. Then early in the battle Rupert's cavalry drove away a cowardly Parliamentarian Left Wing and then wiped out the Parliamentarian gun crews, ending most of the artillery dueling as the Royalist infantry moved up and the Royalists stepped down fire as they got in range.

Naseby is an example of artilery arranged like Dutch-style musketeers as per the OP and short range artillery practice trying to fire both at close range and at far. The problem is that the Parliamentarian artillery was on a hill while the Royalists were down below, and neither main body saw the other until close quarters fighting was about to happen. The first round of Parliamentarian cannon overshot, Royalist cannon plowed into the hill, and both lost sight of the other. At which point the Royalists could not fire their cannons without shooting their own men in the back, and those Parliamentarian cannons that had reloaded tried to get off close range shots before the two sides collided and generally dragged the Parliamentarian artillerymen into the melee. Even those that didn't could not reload or fire.

The next time the Royalist artillery had a clear field of view on the enemy, it was of Cromwell's cavalry running at them to wipe them out (which most of his cavalry went to flank and break the Royalist infantry).

So in other words:

Both Battles used in this example featured significant height differences.

One battle was conducted between heinously green troops who made all sorts of mistakes.

The latter battle saw the artillery *be unable to spot their targets* for a huge chunk of the battle, and *be unable to fire at them* for an even larger one.

Both featured attempts at long range artillery fire (but which were generally ineffective).

One saw the artillery parked up well in the rear as opposed to be mixed in with the pike and shot like the OP indicates.

These (and Rowton) Are Not Good Evidence to claim that cannon almost always fired only at point blank range in field battles. And I feel it worth noting that the spiritual sister mod for non-Kingdoms Vanilla- For King or Country- features artillery that I believe has a more accurate balance in terms of range vis-a-vis the other parts of the era armies.

I do not dispute that these- especially heavy duty pieces- were of more use in general with sieges (though I do believe the current system of neigh-unbreakable walls for almost all cities and forts regardless of content does not simulate this well). I do not dispute that accuracy in long range left a lot to be desired, or that a lot or even most fire from cannon was at close range. I also don't dispute that the current balance for field battles works well and doesn't need altering.

But these do not change my point that the Original Post has a lot of dubious and wrong information. We've spent this long talking about artillery alone, and while I appreciate your response it does nothing to address the point about it giving cavalry the short shaft and overplaying the invincibility of infantry to them (and their role in countering it). That isn't historical or even good advice for the mod (since a lot of times the AI does try to break your formations with cavalry charges, and if you do not set yourself up right they can succeed). If the OP does not do that, what purpose does it serve?

As I have detailed before, several field battles in this period saw long ranged bombardment be used to great effect, and many more saw it attempted. The methodology by which the OP claimed that cannon overwhelmingly fired at point blank range is faulty, especially if it- like with the citation of the PDF- compares events like Rowton to average battle ranges.

I will try to answer your other points soon.

I look foreward to it.

Pikemen were not there to fight cavalry, since cavalrymen would not be so foolish as to attack a block of pikemen. Of course pikemen were a deterrent. But on most accounts pikemen fought pikemen in real life. You mentioned the push of pikes, which was exactly that.

At best I think this is a problem of parsing or emphasis. If pikemen weren't there to fight cavalry, then why did they become obsolete with the bayonet, which allowed musketeers to fight cavalry? Why were they often deployed to counter sudden moves or breakthroughs by enemy cavalry?

If they weren't there to fight and deter cavalry, why not just use an entire army of musketeers (which is what people were starting to lean to anyway as we see with the development of the bayonet and even before it)? Why not swap them all out for a Roman-style sword? Plenty of troops had them (both amongst musketeers and pikemen) and God knows the great thinkers of this era were massive fans of the Roman military and looked to it for inspiration in their organizations. The Turks had experimented with this model for a couple centuries by this time, and had even used it to devastating effect on a number of occasions.

The answer is fairly straightforeward, and inadequacy fighting infantry isn't sufficient. Even if cavalry didn't often fight pike units directly, the pikes were one of the few things on the battlefield- and Certainly the only thing in the hands of infantry on unfavorable ground- that could beat off a Cavalry attack that closed range. When musketeers developed the ability to do it, pikes died a very quick and abrupt death.

The problem with the OP in all this comes from this, emphasis mine.

In other words, pikemen would not fight cavalry on the battlefield but would attack the enemy infantry, their role was no longer what it had been in previous centuries

Except for the fact that this was very much so the roles they had in previous centuries. To fight the main opposing enemy infantry (be they pikemen or whatever), and to ward off cavalry. The fact that cavalry's role had changed dramatically and most did not directly engage infantry in melee doesn't change the pedigree and necessity of the latter role.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

The tactical manual was written to introduce players to a different style of battle. This is no longer the period when cavalry dominated the battlefield.

Regarding the pikemen, in M2TW they behave mainly as an anti-cavalry unit and tend to chase cavalry around the battlefield while avoiding melee units. In this mod pikemen are melee generalists that will also try to deter cavalry. Which of the two roles was the original reason pikemen were introduced could be debated. I tend to think we mostly agree, perhaps we have a different viewing angle.

Regarding the use of artillery in open field battles, if we were to take as the range at which cannon stood to be 1000 or 1500m, i.e. the maximum range, then we have to assume that armies were deployed that distance apart before a battle and units were rallied that far away from the front line, which seems improbable. If you find some description that in some field battles cannon were fired beyond their point-blank range and how they were adjusted to fire at the point-blank range when the enemy advanced, considering they had no elevation screws, that would be useful to read. There are many ways to interpret what happened at Wimpfen. E.g. cannon set to fire at point-blank range when placed on a curvature, such as on a hill, may be firing long shots.

On cavalry, you mentioned the attack of the Parliamentarian cavalry on the Royalist infantry at Naseby. The question is what was the state of that infantry at that point? Those frontline Royalist regiments had already seen quite some fighting. Prince Rupert’s Regiment of Foot that had not seen yet any fighting only retreated when Fairfax’s Regiment of Foot advanced against them.

In terms of gameplay tactics, you can see in this youtube clip that cavalry can still defeat infantry. Of course the AI can also succeed in the same way, especially with enough numbers.

[Turtler]

Sorry for the delay.

The tactical manual was written to introduce players to a different style of battle. This is no longer the period when cavalry dominated the battlefield.

Agreed absolutely, and if more people of the time weren't lying to themselves about the myth of the horse, it had ended far earlier than they thought. O Hello Anglo-Welsh Longbows, Swiss Pikes, Turkish Muskets, etc.

That still doesn't change the fact that in terms of doing so accurately for the sake of history when it is positioning itself as history, or for gameplay the OP has crippling flaws. Which I have already covered at length, including with historical counterexamples.

Regarding the pikemen, in M2TW they behave mainly as an anti-cavalry unit and tend to chase cavalry around the battlefield while avoiding melee units.

Under AI direction they still do that. Trust me, I know. One of my favorite Rebel-stomping tactics is to take a unit of cavalry and a unit of musketeers, and use the former to maneuver around and spaz out the unsupported melee/pike units (if possible by getting them to chase me around, if not by at least making them slow down or maneuver a bit differently) while my musketeers cut them down to size. I have zero doubt that this would not work well against a half-competent human opponent who would just Phalanx charge my muskets, but it demonstrates what they still do.

In terms of avoiding melee units and chasing cavalry around the map, I haven't really seen them be more guilty of that that the normal heavy-or-spear melee units. Will they if you let them or you maneuver in a certain way? I wouldn't doubt it especially with their coding. But on the whole I've seen enemy spears and pikes engage infantry more than cavalry, both in my games and in the others I have seen.

In this mod pikemen are melee generalists that will also try to deter cavalry.

Which they do, don't get me wrong. In fact, they're probably the one type of unit the AI fully understands how to use. But it also doesn't change the fact that they still act largely liek they did in Medieval II's vanilla and Rome in my (flawed, nonexpert-in-coding) opinion. Like I said, the same strategies and exploits work against them.

Which of the two roles was the original reason pikemen were introduced could be debated. I tend to think we mostly agree, perhaps we have a different viewing angle.

Well, the former involves looking back at least as far as ancient Greece, so it's dodgy chicken and egg business (though from what I do know the Greeks tended to fight each other with them more than anyone else, and they were inadequate for responding to other types of threat ont heir own). So I'm not sure. On the latter, quite likely. We seem to have far more substantial differences regarding cavalry and artillery.

Regarding the use of artillery in open field battles, if we were to take as the range at which cannon stood to be 1000 or 1500m, i.e. the maximum range, then we have to assume that armies were deployed that distance apart before a battle and units were rallied that far away from the front line, which seems improbable.

This logic is faulty at best; it's assuming either/or. Either they deployed and fired at the minimum range, or they deployed and fired at the maximum range. This is the logical equivalent of noticing that the maximum effective range of sniper rifles has been 2,000+ yards; stating that from this we must assume they always deploy and fire from there and entire orders of battled deploy at that, correctly stating it is improbable, and then stating we must assume snipers deploy and fire at minimum range.

The problem is that people rarely deploy or engage at maximum effective range even if they're not worried about whatyoucallit like the cannon blasting itself off the carriage. Why? Because reality on the battlefield gets in the way. We see it all the time.

At Naseby the units Parliamentarians just behind the curve of the hill and the Royalists on the bottom didn't know how close they were to each other when they were on opposite sides of the same hill. At Vienna in 1683 the Turkish army did not realize the largest coalition army against them was riding right onto them until they were almost on them. Intelligence and recon gathering in the Thirty Years' were notoriously unreliable. And the Spanish even had an entire strategy for sneaking up on your enemy in the cover of darkness and stabbing them to death.

Climate conditions, terrain, the intelligence of the people involved, considerations about using supplies to the best effect, and the like all tend to limit ranges of detection, let alone engagement. You can be smack dab in the middle of the range you can fire at and still not be hit or even seen because of them. Assuming that means that all the weapons involved *can't* hit you at those ranges on the other hand... tends to be a fatal mistake.

And a reason why units could and did rally well within enemy artillery range beyond terrain is that once the battle was joined, artillery tended to not have a clear view and couldn't fire at the enemy's infantry or cavalry without saying "Screw It" like Cornwallis at Guildford. Especially if the artillery was positioned inside the infantry ranks itself. Again, I offer Naseby as an example.

All of this are also the reasons why sieges tended to make the most of cannon ranges. Not only was the target that much bigger and easier to hit, but the commander who couldn't set up a clear, unobstructed shot on a fortress during a siege was a Very Bad Artillery Commander. Those two things- the larger, stationary target *and* the clean, unobstructed view with easy set up time- go a long way to explaining it.

If you find some description that in some field battles cannon were fired beyond their point-blank range and how they were adjusted to fire at the point-blank range when the enemy advanced, considering they had no elevation screws, that would be useful to read.

Firstly, I did, which is why I detailed things like Naseby in such detail. I didn't exactly spend that time and detail describing my Nigerian Financial Transfer business. If you want exact quotes I will do what I can when I have time.

In terms of primary sources, I'd have to ask: how are you at reading French? Dutch? Turkish?

The French and Dutch were probably the world class experts at cannon design and use in this era, with the Turks coming up very close behind. The French and Turks in particular had centuries behind them when it came to doing this, and the French and Dutch were probably not just the biggest innovators and users of Western heavy cannon, but also the people who wrote (especially printed) the most about it. The problem is that a lot of that- for obvious reasons- hasn't been translated into German or English even after all these centuries, if it's remembered at all.

But if you wanted primary accounts about cannon use and especially the finer technical and technological issues, those are what you look for.

There are many ways to interpret what happened at Wimpfen. E.g. cannon set to fire at point-blank range when placed on a curvature, such as on a hill, may be firing long shots.

The problem with this is that ANY of those interpretations flatly contradicts the OP. Which assures us that cannon fired primarily at PB range *and* that they were not angled to fire. Which again ties back to the problems of the OP: it is overly strict and ladles on the blanket generalizations in a way that kneecaps it.

On cavalry, you mentioned the attack of the Parliamentarian cavalry on the Royalist infantry at Naseby. The question is what was the state of that infantry at that point? Those frontline Royalist regiments had already seen quite some fighting. Prince Rupert’s Regiment of Foot that had not seen yet any fighting only retreated when Fairfax’s Regiment of Foot advanced against them.

Yes, as I explicitly mentioned. The distraction of the Royalist infantry by the Parliamentarian one was decisive.

However, I've also mentioned several other battles- especially Irish ones- where quality pike formations were broken by cavalry without having suffered significant infantry engagement. The Confederate pike formations at Knocknaclashy weren't distracted by Parliamentarian foot like the Crown troop sat Naseby; they were by most accounts sliced apart by Parliamentarian cavalry charging at unusual angles that they weren't prepared for. The Habsburg/Imperial cavalry at Grembloux dealt the fatal blow to the Anglo-Dutch troops more or less on their own, driving the cavalry on the way and then cracking the infantry's cohesion with attacks from the rear. This was clearly not unknown, and the OP's broad statement that infantry were more or less invulnerable to cavalry is false by a significant margin.

So the idea that Naseby was the only time when cavalry shattered Pike blocks and that it only happened because it was being engaged by infantry and worn down is not true. Though it is by far the strategy I would recommend when dealing with this.

In terms of gameplay tactics, you can see in this youtube clip that cavalry can still defeat infantry. Of course the AI can also succeed in the same way, especially with enough numbers.

Ah yes, this video. I honestly have to chalk this up more or less in the same vein as the OP or maybe the second post. A noble effor tand far more accurate, but I think it might have some problems.

Where do I start with it? Firstoff, the number difference. The Video description and the video itself can't seem to agree about who is actually outnumbered. Which poses all kinds of problems. Especially since it raises the question of if the video is actually proving what it claims it is at a glance (and what is it claiming if it contradicts itself, we might ask as well?).

I trust your word and I could probably independently confirm if I studied the video itself long enough. But it is still a hinderance.

Secondly: the deployment of Polish Winged Hussars. It contaminates the use of it as a good generalized example anybody can emulate.

Using a faction-specific unit- and particularly what's likely the single best lance/charge cav in the mod- to try and prove that infantry are not malbalanced and can be defeated by a skillful player is not nearly as helpful as it might seem. Even if they only made a minority of the unit and most of the cavalry were general, it leaves the door open that what works for Poland and its' uber lancers isn't for Der Groß Duchy of Generikwald and its' standard unit roster (Hesse, I'm really looking at you in particular...).

Thirdly- and this is less of a severe issue- but while normally charge-recharge is the best way to maximize your shock value and the Harquebusiers are nor good at charge or meel, I'm not so sure about how the cavalry was handled. The Harquebusiers standing right in front of a musket line shooting back and forth strikes me as an issue, since- as we've rightly mentioned and it's something I agree with the OP on- musket infantry have a firepower advantage to cavalry. Standing up and shooting each other is going to benefit the enemy infantry on the whole. While the Harquebusiers are going to suffer in CQC, the same can be said for the musketeers. And at least it keeps them from shooting- which is their strength- and lets you charge.

As for the charges, I'm not sure if the charge and recharge would be worth it against the musket troops, even if it is the best for every other charge accentuated cavalry unit. Again, while you can use the charge stats more to deal more damage in a quick amount of time, it lets the musketeers get out of melee and get back to doing what they do best: get shots off. And if allowed, that will probably do more damage than anything else barrign letting the pikemen get close.

Which is why I tend to let the cavalry cut down the musket units even after first collision, though again: that's me and more subjective. I don't know the inner mechanics as well.

Still, that is mostly Devil's Advocate. The rest of it I have no quibbles with.

Regarding the OP being a good reference to introduce people to a new method of warfare and give advice on how to play the games, I honestly think it isn't quite as helpful. It gets alot of the essentails right, but it gets a lot of them wrong as well, or makes it misleading in game. The OP tells us that cannon were most useful in sieges and I agree that was the truth in reality. But it also tells us that they overwhelmingly fired at point blank range and did nto arc, which I disagree with. But above all, here's the thing: I *NEVER* use artillery in sieges any more. I never even do siege stormings (and that's a common part of my strategy) on this mod because the city/fortress walls are so hugely buffed it makes them largely useless, while I find they make valuable long range fire support on field battles. The direct inverse of both what the OP says, and what it advises.

Yes, I know that a lot of cities and fortresses of the era were phenomenally defensible and resilient to artillery shelling. But I also know that A: not all were, and B: trebuchets/catapults didn't break open castle walls in five seconds flat. That doesn't mean they weren't vulnerable or that I had to bring half a dozen artillery and fire them until they're empty in order to crack open one breach (and not even secure all the defenses).

It tells us that pikemen served a different role than they did in history and weren't there to fight cavalry. In truth they did serve the same roles, and a player- or RL general- who just focused on having their polearms fight infantry would probably find his baggage train and camp shot to pieces when he got back. If he got back.

It tells us that there were "virtually no" successful attacks by cavalry on infantry in the English Civil War when we have Naseby, Rathmines, etc etc to look at.

On the whole, it just mounts up so much that it is problematic. It undercuts the purpose of this thread badly, and that is a shame because it contains some real gems.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

To quote from the OP:

"In this period cavalry was no match for the infantry. The musketeers had more firepower and range and the pikemen had more and longer pointing sticks. Even the heaviest cavalry rarely attacked any type of pike and shot formation. The battle of White Mountain is possibly the only example where cavalry was placed opposite infantry. In most situations, cavalry fought cavalry or was used as a deterrent to enemy cavalry or to chase routed units. The exception were the Polish Hussaria and a few other special cavalry units (Prussian demi-lancers and Ottoman Sipahi) that could attack line infantry".

Pikemen were not there to fight cavalry. If they were, they would be placed opposite the enemy's cavalry. Pike and shot formations were not attacked by cavalry in the outset, head on, while unbroken. Cavalry was also not deployed opposite infantry or attacked unbroken infantry head on, as in medieval times, (e.g. as the Hungarians, Turks, Arabs, etc did). At Naseby, Cromwell used tactics not far from those recommended by Cruso. He attacked on favourable ground for his cavalry, with support from dragoons and indeed while the enemy infantry was engaged by the Parliamentarian infantry - so he attacked their flanks and rear when they could not respond. The AI in that situation would probably do the same.

There are practically equal numbers of cavalry and infantry in the youtube clip. The Hussaria attack the infantry sometimes head on (which is what the OP says) and the Cuirassiers attack their flanks and rear. You get similar results without Hussaria, as long as you do not attack unbroken infantry in good order head on.

If there was a practice to switch from long shots to point-blank, Cruso would have mentioned it. You are saying perhaps they did not start firing long shots at their maximum range, so let's say they began to fire long shots at 500m. The point-blank range for the heavier field cannon was 360-380m (similar to the maximum range of muskets). Infantry on a firing march (countermarch) 8-ranks deep (Dutch formation), with each rank at 2m apart and the musketeers firing one shot per minute, could cover the distance from 500m out to 380 m in about 7.5 minutes. The demi-culverins and sakers needed about 10-15 minutes to reload, so in that time they would just manage a single long shot. Then they would have to be connected to their horses, repositioned onto flat ground to fire at point-blank and reloaded. The distance from 380 m out to within pistol shot was another 300m or so. That would take the approaching infantry on their firing march about 20 minutes to cover. Almost certainly the cannon that had been set to fire long shots would not get in a single shot at point-blank. The general might as well never had brought them along with him. Just because something can be imagined does not mean that was actual practice in real history.

The walls of the star forts are totally indistructible not because we wanted them to be that way but because the modder who was working on them went back to real life before he could finish what he had started. So we limited the artillery unit roster to field pieces because those walls are indistructible anyway. Cannon can be used effectively against the medieval walls of the smaller towns. If you find the indistructible walls of the large cities not to your liking, you can revert to the standard M2TW large cities that have destructible walls.

[Turtler]

Sorry for the delay.

To quote from the OP:

"In this period cavalry was no match for the infantry. The musketeers had more firepower and range and the pikemen had more and longer pointing sticks. Even the heaviest cavalry rarely attacked any type of pike and shot formation. The battle of White Mountain is possibly the only example where cavalry was placed opposite infantry. In most situations, cavalry fought cavalry or was used as a deterrent to enemy cavalry or to chase routed units. The exception were the Polish Hussaria and a few other special cavalry units (Prussian demi-lancers and Ottoman Sipahi) that could attack line infantry".

Yes, I know what the OP said. Considering we've spent several days and a lot of virtual ink debating about it, I trust both of us know at the OP says a great deal. Which is still why I mention that the claim "cavalry of this period were no match for infantry" is a gross over-generalization. Shot infantry unprotected by cavalry or pike infantry and something less than excellent protection would be vulnerable to being run down because they could not break the cavalry before it ran into them. Pike infantry unsupported by cavalry or shot could at least be seriously damaged by harassing fire and other ranged skirmishing. On occasion that would cripple or destroy enemy formations. Underestimating those capabilities was a major mistake in game and spelled misfortune for plenty of others.

It was one of the reasons why Gallas's retreat from the North was so catastrophic, because in a landscape where pickings were already scarce anti-Imperial Reiters crippled Gallas's foraging capabilities (which as per the normal standards often included infantry as well as cavalry). With the supply situation going from bad to worse and even the infantry being unable to beat off the harassers, the terrible supply situation fell apart completely, followed soon by the army.

It proves that if the cavalry do not let themselves be caught, they can do a huge amount of damage just taking potshots at the enemy- especially unsupported infantry. But if you read the OP, it doesn't illustrate that. On the grand scale of things I see it as one of the less problematic things with the OP, but it's still worth mentioning.

Pikemen were not there to fight cavalry.

Yes, they were. They were not the primary target any more, but they were certainly not much below second place after other infantry. The reaosn the pike remained in widespread use as opposed to other weapons was to deter cavalry and fight it if the allied cavalry failed and they began to attack the footmen. That is borne out by the primary sources and their use, and it certainly is the wise to use them as such in the mod because that is certainly what they need to be used for when the AI tries it.

If they were, they would be placed opposite the enemy's cavalry.

Which ignores the value of maneuver and repositioning on the battlefield. Soldiers were not limited to engaging only those troops they were opposite of it.

As I mentioned before, Grembloux The Imperial cavalry was set up opposite of the Anglo-Dutch cavalry. They attacked them, drove them off the field, and then *turned and fought the infantry from the rear.* A large part of the reason why the pike walls were not positioned across from the cavalry was because by this point, it was obvious that the cavalry could and would maneuver away from them in due time. Which was why the shift towards lining up against like units was developed: to pit them against units that could actually fight against them or catch them up to it equally.

At which point if they achieved success, they could then redirect and consider going after other hostile units.

Pike and shot formations were not attacked by cavalry in the outset, head on, while unbroken.

Agreed absolutely, but I was never claiming otherwise. Charging a wall of sharp strikes from the front is pretty unhealthy in general, and doing it with cavalry is even moreso.

Cavalry was also not deployed opposite infantry or attacked unbroken infantry head on, as in medieval times, (e.g. as the Hungarians, Turks, Arabs, etc did).

Agreed except in the rare exception of unprotected shot/light infantry (like Ottoman swordsmen) And I do think that change is very valuable and worth noting in a setting like this. Which is why I still think this is a very worthwhile thread. I just believe it has serious issues that would be better served with fixes.

At Naseby, Cromwell used tactics not far from those recommended by Cruso. He attacked on favourable ground for his cavalry, with support from dragoons and indeed while the enemy infantry was engaged by the Parliamentarian infantry - so he attacked their flanks and rear when they could not respond. The AI in that situation would probably do the same.

Agreed absolutely, with the point of order that he did not know the Dragons would be supporting him in the main attack. Their decision to charge was something that was fairly out of the blue. But beyond that, I do agree that his attack was a masterpiece and a very good demonstration of Cruso's principles. My problem was if anything that the OP doesn't go through that. I've already pointed out some of the inconsistencies in the excerpts of Cruso and the rest of the OP, and how I do think the former. If anything, I would say that drawing more on Cruso would probably fix a lot of the problems I believe are in it.

There are practically equal numbers of cavalry and infantry in the youtube clip. The Hussaria attack the infantry sometimes head on (which is what the OP says) and the Cuirassiers attack their flanks and rear. You get similar results without Hussaria, as long as you do not attack unbroken infantry in good order head on.

I am not surprised, and that's why I'd be crazy too throw out the baby with the bathwater and say it isn't a valuable demonstratio nor proof of concept even with the WHs. That doesn't mean I don't think the case is somewhat weakened by their use as opposed to generic units that almost any faction can emulate, but it is still very useful.

If there was a practice to switch from long shots to point-blank, Cruso would have mentioned it.

A: It's not like pamphleteers with a point to prove weren't known for slanting things to prove a point or try and get people to adopt their methods. Military pamphleteers of the era were no exception, and there's a reason some geniuses a few decades later thought that the Deep Formation of Rome didn't even need gunpwoder. There's also a reason why Cruso is known msotly as a translator of other peoples' books rather than a military laeder or theoretician in his own right.

B: I think he might have. In the excerpt you quoted and which I dissected, he talks of cannon being a major threat to infantry even before they began their offensive. He only refers to engagement by firearms well down the line. He never refers to the two shooting at the same time. It indicates they were firing at different ranges even if he doesn't referene to them adjusting the ranges in the sentence. Even if he did not approve of it himself, the fact that he talks about it in a generalized abstract about enemy action says something.

The fact that it's also backed up by actual battefield events and the acconts of them also says something.

You are saying perhaps they did not start firing long shots at their maximum range,

I'm saying that they fired at different times, many and probably most of them being at significantly shorter than max range. The fact that gunpowder weapons of the era were smoothbore and thus inaccurate also meant accuracy at maximum range was "if the stars line up." It's also why in a few decades, musketeers would compete over who would get to fire their first volley at shorter rangel.

There probably were shots at maximum range, but they were mostly at easy targets or with abundant supplies. Neither of which were probably common.

so let's say they began to fire long shots at 500m.

A bit on the short side for a clear day and unobstructed view according to the French, but it seems reasonable enough.

The point-blank range for the heavier field cannon was 360-380m (similar to the maximum range of muskets). Infantry on a firing march (countermarch) 8-ranks deep (Dutch formation), with each rank at 2m apart and the musketeers firing one shot per minute, could cover the distance from 500m out to 380 m in about 7.5 minutes. The demi-culverins and sakers needed about 10-15 minutes to reload, so in that time they would just manage a single long shot.

A: These figures are a bit excessive. In particular, cannon drills had begun to speed up the process significantly, and the advance of the average pike and shot formation (which was notably not the Dutch formation; but the Imperial Tercio) as significantly slower. Especially on poor ground. The number of shots were not massive, but they were significant. Give it 2 shots spread about over the average small battery. That's a lot of unpleasant metal spheres roaring down at formations that were still dense even for Swedes, Danes, and Dutchmen.

B: This is also why the cannon emphasis was largely by those fighting people Not using Dutch style formations. Especially for the French, Dutch, and to al esser degree Turks and Swedes. They knew that the Imperial Tercio was far heavier and far deeper. Multiply the time for the unit to cross the gap by a bit, factor in the ranks, and you get maybe 3-5 shots.

Viola; we have the reason why Rocroi happened, and the Dutch city defenses helped write the book on artillery.

Then they would have to be connected to their horses, repositioned onto flat ground to fire at point-blank and reloaded.

Or like the French did, you would press the cannon barrel down by human muscle power and readjust the shots. Or simply load grapeshot and fire without the need for the finer angling and accuracy. Is it perfect? Absolutely not But i can work.

The distance from 380 m out to within pistol shot was another 300m or so. That would take the approaching infantry on their firing march about 20 minutes to cover. Almost certainly the cannon that had been set to fire long shots would not get in a single shot at point-blank. The general might as well never had brought them along with him.

At best, this explains why the Imperials and other Tercio uses tended to undercut the use of artillery in field battles. The rest of the assumptions rest on rocky ground, like assuming they're going up against Dutch-style thin formations, assuming the cannon were undrilled to a degree that even the normal "heavy" pieces usually weren't, that the only concievable way to adjut sights was to bring out the hores, and that you had to re-angle the guns in order to have any effect (as opposed to the wonders of grapeshot). None of these always hold true, and the Habsburgs and Swiss learned both painfully.

The walls of the star forts are totally indistructible not because we wanted them to be that way but because the modder who was working on them went back to real life before he could finish what he had started.

I thought I remembered reading something like that, but I didn't remember the details. Thanks for the heads' up.

Just because something can be imagined does not mean that was actual practice in real history.

Of course, but we're talking about apples and oranges. It's one thing for something to be imagined, like the "order profound" with no firearms that some French "geniuses" came up with. But its another where events have happened. Again, i point back to Wimpfen. Where we have either a long distance shot, an arced one, or both. Likewise the vulnerability of thick pike (or pike and shot) units to repeated artillery fires while they advanced. As they saw at Marignano, Brietenfeld, and Rocroi. Clearly, this is not merely an Imagined Event.

So we limited the artillery unit roster to field pieces because those walls are indistructible anyway. Cannon can be used effectively against the medieval walls of the smaller towns. If you find the indistructible walls of the large cities not to your liking, you can revert to the standard M2TW large cities that have destructible walls.

Thanks for the hint. I didn't notice the smaller forts were useful. I appreciate the thought, though I'd probably stick ith them. It'd be a shame to let them go to waste

That said, if people could figure out how to edit it, it would probably help things.

But in any event, the reason why I mentioned it goes back to the OP. Cannon were most useful for sieges, as the OP says an I think it is true. But in this game, the major sieges see them reduced to impotence. Which is a glaring fly in the ointment, especially since the vast majority of this mod is so amazing.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

I am still not sure if we argue anything differently or we do not understand each other. Pike and shot formations were pike and shot formations. Just because pike and shot can get separated in the game because of the unsuitable game engine does not mean this is what happened in battles. Pikemen would not be unsupported by musketeers and musketeers would not be unsupported by pikemen. When musketeers were not needing pikemen for support, they were in trenches or behind walls, etc. Generally speaking, musketeers in good order that had any sense in themselves should not at the outset of a battle be vulnerable to cavalry charges. In battle, cavalry was normally deployed opposite cavalry and infantry opposite infantry because infantry fought infantry and cavalry fought cavalry. If you think that is not what the OP says, it says that. If you do, I do not see what are we arguing about. What happened at some point when lines had broken down and the battle formation was shattered, if that was what happened, is a situation where cavalry is beating up shaken units and rounding up prisoners.

It should be a welcome change that players have a mod that does not decide all battles with those pathetic cavalry encirclements – capable real life generals would be protecting their flanks - and a mod where a player must think of ways to win a head-on battle with other tactics. It would be ridiculous if, in the pike and shot period, pike and shot units were dispensable units you can just encircle and destroy with cavalry or long-distance artillery bombardments.

More likely what happened at Wimpfen was either an accident with a lit match or else a shot was fired by a cannon set at point-blank, but because of the curvature of the slope it kept flying longer than expected and went further than a normal point-blank shot. It does not prove that the Imperialist cannon had been set up to fire long shots.

It does not matter if you are firing at a deep tercio formation or a shallow one, with a point-blank shot you keep killing as the ball flies, so the effect on a deep formation would be more devastating.

I will briefly be at home in a couple of weeks and will look into my references for any suggestion that artillery could be fired at long range then set to fire at point-blank and how it was done. I have read nothing of that sort except that it was risky to try to do that. Wooden wedges and digging holes in the ground had been suggested in the mid-late 16^th C but that does not mean they were used in battles. Sakers and demi or full culverins weighed over 1.5t, so manhandling them is out of the question.

Editing the star fort walls would also require new animations for when the walls are breached. It is not likely to happen. It is too big a project and the know-how is not there. The other issue is that star forts were generally approached by infantry that tried to scale the walls or else there were attempts to place demolition charges. The former works well in the game (ladders), the latter does not seem possible unless siege rams can be imagined as placing demolition charges in gates.

[Turtler]

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Firstly, I feel like an idiot for a mistake in my prior assessment. In the original version, it seemed to indicate that cannon focus was by those *not* fighting in the Dutch style. When in reality it tended to be.

What I meant to say was that the nations and militaries that made canon an emphasis tended *not* to be those fighting units organized in the Dutch style. Especially the Habsburg Tercio. But somewhere along the line my wires crossed. So I apologize for that and hope it wasn't a problem

I am still not sure if we argue anything differently or we do not understand each other.

Likewise, but my concern hasn't particularly been on this discussion. It's mostly been about what I believe are serious, serious flaws with the OP and its' analysis and advice, both on a historical note and in gameplay.

Pike and shot formations were pike and shot formations. Just because pike and shot can get separated in the game because of the unsuitable game engine does not mean this is what happened in battles. Pikemen would not be unsupported by musketeers and musketeers would not be unsupported by pikemen. When musketeers were not needing pikemen for support, they were in trenches or behind walls, etc.

The last sentence undermines the first couple, by pointing out that shot did indeed operate separately at times.I agree that pike and shot formations were meant to act as a single, integrated unit. Tercios did not refer to the pike of the Imperial formations like they do in the game, but to the entire unit, Pike, Shot, and Artillery. If one part of the whole was caught isolated, it was generally Very Bad News and proof that something was wrong. Like it is in game to be honest. But that doesn't mean they never were.

Dismounted dragoons operating without pike support like those at Naseby or the ones who seized part of the guns at Brietenfeld are a particularly good example of this because they'd be the units setting ambushes or the like well ahead of the front. They did not always or even commonly operate without it, and a lot of times they were dismounted and integrated into the pike and shot formations. But it was not unknown for them to be alone (certainly moreso than for pike ot be operating alone). And the risk that accompanied that was very real and very known, hence why pike and shot came into style in the first place.

In a lot of ways, musketeers were just the latest heirs of the missile troops in the average land formation. This is a lot more evident and true in the Total War games than it was in reality, but they still played the role that Anglo-Welsh longbowmen, Italian crossbows, and Turkish archers played to their own polearm infantry. And like any other formation of those, they could get separated. For the Longbows it happened at Patay, for units like the pikes it happened at Villlilar (where the rain and rebel incompetence in protecting gunpowder turned most of the firearms into awkward clubs), and

Generally speaking, musketeers in good order that had any sense in themselves should not at the outset of a battle be vulnerable to cavalry charges.

I agree. The problem is that as the battle developed, things did not always stay so conveniently. The traditional battle lines were traditional precisely because they minimized the risk of that happening from the word go. But as that order of battle got disrupted by normal combat and even more serious problems that could change if the troops and officers were not careful. Grembloux being one of the best examples of that.

In battle, cavalry was normally deployed opposite cavalry and infantry opposite infantry because infantry fought infantry and cavalry fought cavalry.

And also because infantry placed opposite cavalry could not move foreward to engage cavalry with the pike easily. Because unlike infantry *especially other pikemen*, cavalry could and did simply wheel away. Probably while pelting the large infantry formation with bullets in the process. That was another reason why cavalry moved to fight cavalry so frequently; because without cavalry support it was hard to actually trap cavalry and force them to stay and fight against pike and shot infantry. Especially because most cavalrymen in their right mind knew it was suicidal.

If you think that is not what the OP says, it says that. If you do, I do not see what are we arguing about.

The reason we are arguing is because the OP is at best seriously lopsided. As are the reasons it presents for why things we agree happened, happened. The reason the OP gives for cavalry being mostly used against cavalry was because cavalry had "no chance" against infantry of the period, because "The musketeers had more firepower and range and the pikemen had more and longer pointing sticks." At no point does it mention that cavalry also had more firepower (on average) than pikes, and had significantly more protection and CQC prowess than musketeers.

At no point does it mention that another reason why pike and shot infantry didn't fight cavalry that frequently might've been because cavalry would and could (and did) simply wheel away from walls of pikes trying to push into them, shooting all along the way. Which was a major reason why the Protestant Union horse had such a higher survival rate in the early war (Wimpfen, White Mountain, etc) than the infantry. When the Imperials almost inevitably (for that period of the war) broke the army their infantry couldn't run fast enough to escape the Imperial Tercios, let alone their cavalry pursuit. And so generally got massacred both during combat and after it. The cavalry on the other hand would turn and run, and outside of poor maneuvering or the people shot to death while trading shots with pursuing cavalry there wasn't much the Imperials could do to catch them

Likewise, this also meant that pike and shot infantry unsupported by cavalry tended to have little recourse against harassing fire from cavalry besides returning fire with their own shot (not always the most convenient when you're on the march and they're able to shoot from longer distances than you can because you're such a bigger target than they were). Another reason why the emphasis on removing the cavalry protection from an enemy army in battle existed. The Unfortunate Sir/Herr Matthias and his retreat demonstrated how seriously your army could be mauled if enemy cavalry had free reign to take potshots.

These are things that should be noted because they help understand how cavalry in the game work, and moreso cavalry in history fitted in to the historical pike and shot balance. The OP does no do this.

And this is before I even get into material like "In the English Civil War, Cuirassiers were used only against cavalry (practically never in that war cavalry successfully attacked infantry except against bands of armed peasantry on the march early in the war)." Which is not only misleading or not well rounded, but flat out false as I have demonstrated. Especially since we have been talking about Naseby so much, you admit it was a major example of this, and it wasn't even the only notable or the purest example.

Everything else aside, there is No Good Reason why that segment Still Exists.

What happened at some point when lines had broken down and the battle formation was shattered, if that was what happened, is a situation where cavalry is beating up shaken units and rounding up prisoners.

Agreed. As was proper for their abilities compared to the severely weakened ones of disordered enemy formations.

It should be a welcome change that players have a mod that does not decide all battles with those pathetic cavalry encirclements – capable real life generals would be protecting their flanks - and a mod where a player must think of ways to win a head-on battle with other tactics.

I for one am very glad that it is so, but this sounds oddly particular.

Yes, cavalry abuse is rampant, especially in vanilla and mods close to it. Particularly if you are playing on a mod that does not feature major counterbalances to it like the Mongols or pike. But just going off of experience, even in Vanilla the Mongols will react to attempts at cavalry encirclement by shooting you all the merry way to the bank and trying to do the same themselves. The Timurids are rarely even that polite. Italian and Scottish pike will probably make hay of most but the very heartiest cavalry even if somebody encircles them. And that's just vanilla.

As for mods in Medieval II/Kingdoms just from my own experience....

* Almost all units in Ruschi are so weak and cavalry is so rare that a cavalry encirclement would be costly at best. And likely would be at a a major disadvantage against heartier infantry. Before we even talk about a frontal charge.

* The Warhammer mods have abominations from darkest Chaos that will place frontal cavalry charges on the tier of "good jokes to tell your friends/closest enemies" alongside "gravity" and "sanity." Even the Order factions tend to have significantly stronger ground pounders than they do cavalry.

* The Italian Wars takes place at the foundation day of pike and shot, and it is a pretty close relative to a polearm/gunpowder fan's dream. Since most infantry in this mod has a species of polearm and most of the rest that don't have quality gunpowder, frontal charges are a Bad Idea in general. Only the most powerful and/or best used cavalry can stand above the fray (Hell France), and even those will find it harder and harder as the campaign goes on.

* Outside of a few factions in Third Age Total War (Rohan, Rhun, etc) there isn't a lot of cavalry that shines in comparison to the infantry. The High Elves in particular get along virttually without cavalry because they can hoof it so fast.

* With Fire and Sword 2 again makes charging your cavalry against an intact pike formation *even from behind* Pretty Unhealthy. Hence why you need something that can soften it up before you can consider that.

I could probably go on because there are more out there, but I'm citing the ones that I personally have the most direct experience with. But on the whole this makes me believe that Cavalry Spam is far less worthwhile and common than it might seem.

It would be ridiculous if, in the pike and shot period, pike and shot units were dispensable units you can just encircle and destroy with cavalry or long-distance artillery bombardments.

Even if those things actually happened?

That if anything seems to be what we're really arguing about here.

I agree it'd be ludicrous if that were a no brainer or common strategy. That just did not happen for very obvious reasons. The Pike and Shot formation was a good and strong one against threats like that. But this seems to be overcompensating so hard it goes out the other direction. My issue isn't even that this mod is balanced in one way that makes those things even less feasible than they were in reality. It's that the OP and comments like this make it seem like battles like Grembloux or Rocroi never happened. When they most certianly did. Look back at the content of the OP and tell me that this reads more like "Yes X, Y, and Z happened but they were very rare and because of what we're aiming for we'll balance it this way" rather than, well....

"In this period cavalry was no match for the infantry."

Pike and shot units could be encircled and on occasion even destroyed by cavalry, and it was the mark of an amazing cavalry unit and commander that such a thing was even feasible. The French built an empire largely on long range artillery bombardments doing Very. Bad. Things. to Imperial Pike and Shot. To discount these things on this era is like going over the hundred years' war while discounting the value of pointy stakes.

These are certainly worth noting, especially in a mod where the intended and most prominant role of cannon against major fortifications is even less prominant than it was in history and that we both agree it should be. Strategies such as this should not be common, easy tactics that anybody should be able to win with. They should not be equally usable by all factions because of how the different sides are geared and the different strengths involved. And ultimately just riddling with fire and then sending in the pikes is far simpler and more often far more appropriate.

But this seems to be the idea that they shouldn't be viable tactics at all.

This makes me wonder how Turrene's Ghost would react. But even if we conceded this point, that it is not worth factoring in the actual mod game balance...

it still seriously mars the purpose of the OP: to provide historical education.


[QUOTE=Geoffrey of Villehardouin;14180324]More likely what happened at Wimpfen was either an accident with a lit match or else a shot was fired by a cannon set at point-blank,

but because of the curvature of the slope it kept flying longer than expected and went further than a normal point-blank shot. It does not prove that the Imperialist cannon had been set up to fire long shots.

A: The accounts- especially the rare firsthand ones- are all pretty unanamous: Habsburg counterfire sending a shell into the magazine caused it. Though I can understand on some degree because just about anybody who would've lit a match or been in a position to see it would've been dead, the fact that many people do describe the shell going in makes me believe that is.

B: Let's avoid mincing words.

Even if we assume for the sake of the argument that it was indeed set up and fired at point blank range, that explanation means that the Imperials were prepared by design or accident to put down arced fire with their artillery. This is something the OP tells us was rarely done and was a major risk for the recoil knocking the gun out of action. And since an arc is by definition shooting at a distance and/or elevation that is long enough for gravity/weight ot kick in, that would be evidence of the gunners and guns being able to preform either a long range shot, or something with equivalent difficulty and stress to it.

Which is why I go back to it. Either we are looking at a long range shot, an arced one, or both to explain the Wimpfen explosion. One or the other might be more likely than that (and personally your explanation seems the most convincing to me), but that still points to familiarity with artillery making arcs during combat. Even field combat. Which in turn undermines the OP.

It does not matter if you are firing at a deep tercio formation or a shallow one, with a point-blank shot you keep killing as the ball flies, so the effect on a deep formation would be more devastating.

This is misunderstanding what I was saying.

To clarify: *any* shot keeps killing or at least wounding as far as the ball flies. Point blank shots just have less force burned off, hit the formation with more, and so will keep flying (significantly) longer than distance ones on the average. But that doesn't mean that it'd be healthy to be the second guy from the front when a battery's long range shot takes off the head of the guy in front of you.

But as you yourself pointed out, deep pike-shot formations take more punishment from a cannon hit than thin ones. They also cover ground far more slowly, as the famously lumbering Imperial Tercio epitomizes. Therefore a force fighting thinner Pike and Shot formations (like the enemies the Imperials/Habsburgs often were, like the Dutch/Swedes/Danes/English) would get a lot less mileage out of their cannon on the field of battle than forces *fighting* the thick tercios were. Like the Habsburg's enemies the Swedes, Dutch, French, etc.

Which is why it's not surprising that the latter two in particular were massive cannon adopters and innovators.

The slowness of the Imperial Tercio coupled with its' thickness means that the slowness of reloading and firing would be balanced against the gait of their targets, meaning they would have more time to get off one or even two extra shots before contact. That is what I meant by it.

I will briefly be at home in a couple of weeks and will look into my references for any suggestion that artillery could be fired at long range then set to fire at point-blank and how it was done. I have read nothing of that sort except that it was risky to try to do that. Wooden wedges and digging holes in the ground had been suggested in the mid-late 16^th C but that does not mean they were used in battles.

For starters, almost any- And I Mean Any- source that deals with the Dutch, French, or Tortensson confirms that they were used in battle and many of the pieces were specifically meant to be so (because they were too weak to have much hope of hitting through a Star Fort). So for you to say this makes me believe there is a major blind spot in the research done. Here's a quick reference about Tortensson and the events surrounding the Battle of Jankau. http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-en...gus--2ep.shtml

Please note that if anything, Imperial accounts of it tend to be even more hysterical about the effects of the arty.

Most of the sources I have directly on hand/have looked through the most tend to be very generalist. Especially since I am not a math savant and a Lot of these are math heavy. But I do have quite a few references.

But the first and foremost by far would be Siemienowicz's The Great Art of Artillery/Artis Magnae Arillerie, which was published just two years after the end of the Thirty Years (and unsurprisingly used the same tech), and was sor tof viewed as the holy grail of artillery study for decades (not sure about the "century" reference a lot of people throw out though). If a lot of the other artillery books tend to read like a math textbook, this thing is probably closer to a Chemistry or Engineering one. But it has plenty of stuff for all comers, including math. So it'll probably take a while to dig through it. but it's well worth it.

I can try and get more juicy snippets when I have more time. But if you've got Google Play and can handle massively archaic English you can get the full book for free on here. https://play.google.com/store/books/...AAAQAAJ&rdot=1

Secondly, I'd suggest Bynkershoek's The Lordship of the Sea/ De Dominio Maris Dissertio. Be warned that it's first and foremost a work of legal philosophy (which is interesting in its' own right but not what we're talking to); what makes it interesting for us is the measurements of cannon ranges. He fired them out to sea in order to formulate the range and distance for which a nation could effectively control the coastal sea, and came up with a distance of 5.6 km (or three nautical miles) for the most powerful cannon of his time (which was in 1702, using roughly the same technology and equipment avalible in the Thirty Years' War, as it was prior to the great artillery revamps of the 18th century).

This is valuable to us because it gives us a solid upper limit. What range the most powerful and reliable artillery of the time could reach under ideal conditions. That's important even though these ranges were almost never achieved in actual combat on land because reality got in the way, and it also tells us about techniques on arcing for effect. So this can tell us something of the sort of stuff we could expect to happen at shorter ranges on the field of battle.

And as a general note, I'd probably say a lot of Imperial memoirs from those who fought in Jankau. Where they usually accuse the Swedish artillery of being almost singlehandedly responsible for the Imperial catastrophe there and chalked up quite a few remarkable claims about it. I don't actually believe they are actually being accurate about that and think the opposing claims (superior infantry fire being a huge one) have more merit. But I do think the fact that they made claims like this in the first place is of interest for study.

Those are all more or less contemporary sources dealing with the true advent of artillery on the battlefield and how it had come since the French in the 1400's, and they're worth checking to see what contemporaries thought of its' impact on fighting. Which seems to be significantly different then what the OP claims.

In terms of references from more contemporary times that deal with Thirty Years' War artillery tend to be even harder to track down. And when they exist, they rarely are dedicated to dealing with artillery. However, there are a few that do deal with it.

A couple of the ones that do are the generally excellent "The Later Thirty Years' War" by Guthrie, and the less sterling "The Thirty Years' War" by Bonney. Both of which do deal with artillery from both sides as well as a host of other things, and which are highly interesting, though I am far more skeptical of Bonney because he makes a number of claims that I think are excessive and worthy of skepticsm. However, they both do have some interesting morsels about the artillery capabilities of both sides and even more.

I've found some excerpts that are avalible online and might give some estimation of it, but I must emphasize that these don't really do justice to them (Especially Guthrie's).

http://books.google.com/books?id=iar...%20war&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=3U0...page&q&f=false

There are doubtless a lot more out there, thoughI am skeptical about Bonney's claims about the Swedish m ilitary.

Sakers and demi or full culverins weighed over 1.5t, so manhandling them is out of the question.

If that were completely true, it would be pretty much impossible to reposition from recoil, which was a standard part of firing just about any cannon from the era.

In truth trying to manhandle them into an entirely new position or even to make significant corrections was impossible without overwhelming human musclepower or the help of animals, but it was possible to shove cannon of that size back foreward and even more to push down on the barrel (which would be risky depending on how hot it was, but desperate times for an artillery crew could call for desperate measures). As a few artillery manuals dealing with guns of that size made clear. But that in no way meant you were prepared to hoof them from one side of a battlefield to the other just by pushing really hard.

Editing the star fort walls would also require new animations for when the walls are breached. It is not likely to happen. It is too big a project and the know-how is not there. The other issue is that star forts were generally approached by infantry that tried to scale the walls or else there were attempts to place demolition charges. The former works well in the game (ladders), the latter does not seem possible unless siege rams can be imagined as placing demolition charges in gates.

I understand the issues and I saw them addressed otherwise, but it's still worth keeping in mind. Especially when we talk about the writing of the OP. If it's impossible to have them be much use in the actual sieges that saw them come to the fore, it probably means the average gamer playing this mod will be looing for more guidance about how they were used in the field. As things stand, that is simply not there in the OP. If this reflected history like the OP and you claim, this would be understandable. But as I hope I have established, it really does not.

It seems like the key statement behind all of this is the reference to making 1648 "different", where a simple cavalry charge cannot carry the day and artillery cannot pound pike and shot with impunity. This is something I Support and believe this mod has done a good job representing, because it is an integral part of the balance in a pike and shot mod and one that should be protected.

But now it seems like this has resulted in overcompensating. Including claiming that cavalry and artillery were Significantly less potent on the battlefield than almost any source gives us reason to believe. This is something else. That is something I cannot support or justify, especially in a purely historical reference like the OP was intended as. The problem is that even if a couple of the points the OP and you raise in these areas were true, it would not come close to explaining the other issues.

There is No Justification To Include Claims like the English Civil War inaccuracy, it should not have been present in the first place with the like of Naseby. It should be Removed. There is little justification to claim that artillery and cavalry crippling pike and shot infantry is "ridiculous" when there are well documented cases of that happening, including at one of the greatest battles of the era in Rocroi. No matter how noble the intent, That sort of rhetoric unsuitable for an analysis of the historical record and tactics of this era.

It would be especially inaccurate if this mod is to cover the Two Towers era between Vienna and Constantinople, where the power of cavalry and siege artillery was if anything even more evident than in these conflicts (since the Turks did not really do Pike and Shot). And it does not help many of those whose only exposure to this era is through this mod and the things attached to it.

This was a noble idea to help and educate people, it is generally spot on in a lot if not most of its' content (especially the stuff on muskteers and pikemen), and with just a relatively few edits it could be made even better. But it seems like glaring roadblocks like this are in the way, and if anything that seems ot be what we are disagreeing about.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Guthrie says culverin and demi-culverin had an "effective" range up to 1500m. He states the point blank ranges I think somewhere and some of the info in the OP comes from him. I will check what he says about actually firing long shots in battles since there is nothing on the online text regarding that. Please send me a reference, if you have one, where a primary contemporary source claims artillery was not being fired in battle at point-blank or that it was fired at long range and then switched over to point blank. It does not matter if it is in Dutch or French. Just no Polish.

The other general assessments of the effectiveness of artillery or that they played an important role in a battle, is just idle talk. If artillery is fired at point blank, the math take over.

Since you have some accounts on Wimpfen about how the magazine exploded, I would like to read them. Cannon were normally set at a single angle to fire horizontal shots and that's it until I get back to my books. Bynkershoek's coming up with a theoretical limit (in 1702) does not mean a cannon was ever fired at that range in 1618-1648.

Cavalry was armed with pistols that were fired at 25m on the charge and therefore were far outranged by arquebuses and muskets. Cavalry was not so foolish to come near unbroken infantry. At Naseby, Cromwell's cavalry only attacked infantry that was engaged at the front, when it was about to break anyway - they surrendered themselves to Oakey's dragoons in the thousands for God's shake! They were no longer fighting. The battle was over by then. I had a battle yesterday when the enemy pikemen were hard pressed and shaken. When I brought a troop of harquebusiers behind them they all routed.

But in the outset, at Naseby, when everyone was in good order, cavalry attacked cavalry and infantry attacked infantry. Cromwell's cavalry could not do anything to Rupert's regiment that had been in reserve precisely because the infantry had longer pointing sticks and longer firing range and probably firing rate since it must be harder to reload a firearm on horse rather than on foot. Musket fire could kill a horse or its rider which are big enough targets. Also collectively, a troop of horse is no smaller target than a company of foot.

By Cuirassiers, in the OP I was referring to proper Cuirassiers, like Hasselrig's. In any case I do not consider the attack of the Ironsides on infantry at Naseby as a proper attack on unbroken infantry, which is what the OP states and even then it says normally, because I had Naseby in mind, just in case someone said "but at Naseby ..." Naseby is also not an exception to the rule that cavalry was placed opposite cavalry and infantry opposite infantry because cavalry fought cavalry and infantry fought infantry.

By the way, there are numerous attested cases when cavalry on being fired at by musketeers in hedges or from behind stone walls gave up the chase of enemy cavalry it had routed. Your prediction would have been that they would have attacked the musketeers but it did not happen. I can try at some point to list a few contemporary quotes.

That assessment, that cavalry generally only attacked other cavalry and not unbroken infantry, is not challenged by anything I have read so far anywhere or anything you have claimed. You are making a mountain out of an anthill, because Parliament won Naseby and there was still some cavalry around that started collecting prisoners.

Perhaps you should wait for a bit until I can have access to some books. I only happen to have a pdf of Edward Hythe’s (lord Clarendon) history of the English Civil War. For want of anything better I checked some parts, especially of the major battles of 1643 from chapter 7 and append some passages. There is a clear picture that cavalry attacked cavalry and infantry infantry. There are some desperate attacks by cavalry on infantry in good order, as a last expedient, that were generally unsuccessful. There is no indication that artillery was being fired at long range. In one passage, armies were deployed at demi culverin shot, i.e. at a 380m distance opposite each other. In another they were deployed at musket shot. Not 500m away, etc.

In the battle of Chewton there were some cavalry skirmishes. No infantry was involved, although there was infantry down the way on both sides. The earl of Carnarvon [a cavalry colonel] “with incomparable gallantry charged the enemy, and pressed them so hard, that he entered the lane with them, and routed the whole body of their horse, and followed the execution of them above two miles.”

Later on the same day: “The earl of Cararvon, being a stranger in the country and the ways, pursued the flying enemy into sir William Waller’s quarters and till himself was pressed by a fresh body of horse and dragoons; when he was necessitated to retire in as good order as he could …”

Next to Lansdown: “Sir William Waller sent his whole body of horse and dragoons down the hill, to charge the rear and flank of the king’s forces; which they did thoroughly, the regiment of cuirassiers so amazing the horse they charged [so, they charged the Royalist horse], that they totally routed them; and standing firm and unshaken themselves, gave so great terror to the king’s horse …”

But the Parliament horse was forced to retire when fired at by musketeers, who gave the routed Royalist horse the opportunity to rally: “Nicholas Slanning, with three hundred musketeers, had fallen upon and beaten their reserve of dragooners. Prince Rupert and the earl of Carnarvon, rallying their horse, and winging them with the Cornish musketeers, charged the enemy’s horse again, and totally routed them.”

The Parliament musketeers were behind earthworks when unassisted by pikemen – at least pikemen are not mentioned. “On the brow of the hill there were breast-works, on which were pretty bodies of shot, and some cannon.”

At several points Hasselrig's Cuirassiers charged downhill partially successfully the Royalists. The account does not say whether they charged the Royalist horse or foot. However, in the end the Parliament cavalry gave up: “the musketeers fired so fast upon the horse, that they [i.e. the Parliament horse] quited their ground”.

The two armies regrouped at demi-culverin shot (that can only mean the point blank range of a demi culverin, about 380m, not miles apart): “the enemy retiring about demi-culverin shot, behind a stone wall …” They had their cannon with them but were not firing them, probably because they were smaller cannon and could not reach the point-blank distance of demi culverin. The two armies were effectively out of range.

Note also they retired behind a stone wall not out in the open to be charged at by cavalry.

Roundway Hill:

The two sides stood at musket shot. Both sides had cannon but the cannon were not being fired. “William Waller … put his troops in order upon that ground to expect the enemy’s charge, who were somewhat more than musket shot [about 300m] off in order of battle.”

On Roundway hiil, the Parliament cavalry was routed. The Parliament foot were only charged by the horse when “their hearts failed”, being assailed by cannon, foot and with the Royalist cavalry all around them: “The foot stood still firm, making shew of gallant resistance. But the lord Wilmot quickly seized their cannon, and turned fire upon them, at the same time that the Cornish foot, who were by this time come from town, were ready likewise to charge them, upon which their hearts failed”. Note also Wilmot did not charge the Parliament foot with his cavalry while they stood in good order, rather opted to fire at them with the cannon and wait for the Royalist infantry to arrive. And until then the infantry was resisting, without cannon, so presumably they fired back with their muskets.

Here’s an attack by cavalry on some women, one of the few examples where horse attacked foot in good order. Sorry for being silly, but it is a rare exception. Some women were protesting

“… with a petition for peace. Thereupon a troop of horse, under the command of one Harvey … behaved themselves with such inhumanity, that they charged among the silly women as an enemy worthy of their courage”

Newbury, 1^st battle

“The king’s horse, with a kind of contempt of the enemy, charged with wonderful boldness, upon all grounds of inequality; and were so far so hard for the troops [cavalry] of the other side, that they routed them in most places, till they had left the greatest part of their foot without any guard at all of horse. But then the foot behaved themselves admirably on the enemy’s part, and gave their scattered horse time to rally, and were ready to assist and secure them in all occasions”. Troops refers to troops of horse. The Royalist cavalry attacked the Parliament cavalry and routed them but did not touch the foot. Another passage reasserts that: “The London Trained Bands … kept their ground so steadily, that though Prince Rupert himself led up the choice horse to charge them, and endured the storm of their small shot, he could make no impression upon their stand of pikes, but was forced to wheel about”. And “though the king’s horse made the enemy’s often give ground, yet the foot were so immoveable, that little was gotten by the other [foot, i.e. the Royalist foot]”. Also Clarendon claims the Royalists did not use their cannon at all, even though they had cannon with them. The Parliamentarian army was on high ground. Does that not suggest a fear of knocking the cannon barrels off their carriages?

We are conditioned by movies, folk legends and patriotic mythology to expect various things. Novels and movies are made by people who had little understanding of the actual tactical situation. The OP attempts to dispell some common myths using contemporary historical sources.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Battle of Wimpfen

I have found no contemporary accounts of the Battle of Wimpfen. In the two accounts of the Battle of Wimpfen by later authors that I could find, neither explicitly mentions a cannon shot as the cause of the explosion, let alone a long shot.

"… suddenly, so suddenly that afterwards it was attributed to a miracle, the Margrave’s cannon ceased their murderous fire and the troops fell back in disorder. A white-robed woman, half-seen in the smoky air, floated above the heads of Cordoba’s men, and one of them, dumb from birth, cried out “Victory, victory!” and urged his wavering comrades back to fight. Thus the legend: the white-robed woman was a cloud of smoke from George Frederick’s arsenal blown sky-high by a random shot"

On the battle of Wimpfen, Victoria Wedgewood, The Thirty Years War, 1938.

"His [Georg Frederick, Margrave of Baden] infantry were still stuck behind their wagons, too far away to assist. Meanwhile, Cordoba’s musketeers had worked their way round the far end of the line and were threatening its rear… The infantry launched a final assault around 7 p.m. on the wagon line. At that moment some powder wagons to the rear exploded, sending more smoke into the sky and creating the myth of the white-robed woman urging the Catholics to victory"

On the battle of Wimpfen, Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy, 2009.

Were muskets not fired beyond pistol shot?

"A musket carireth but point blank 200 Geometrical paces with that force as to serve the killing of a man"

Sir Balthazar Gerbier, The first Publique Lecture … Concerning Military Architecture, or Fortifications, 1649.

A geometrical pace was apparently equal to 5ft, therefore a musket must have had a killing range of a bit over 300m. That range was similar to the point-blank range of cannon and of the range of the arquebus a-Croc, a very large arquebus that could be fired from the walls of fortifications.

"Being within distance of Cannon to the Towne, we were saluted with Cannon, Hagbuts of Crocke, and with Musket."

Robert Monro, His Expedition. Part II, The fourth Dutie … New Brandenburg

There is no information in Cruso on how the infantry should advance beyond the paragraph included in the OP. James Turner, an Englishman who fought in Europe, wrote a similar passage that sheds some light on our question:

“Your advance upon an Enemy, in what posture soever he be, should be with constant, firm and steady pace; the Musketeers (whether they be on the flanks or interlin’d with either the Horse or the Pikes) firing all the while; but when you come within Pistol-shot, you should double your pace, till your Pikes closely serr’d together charge these, whether Horse or Foot, whom you find before them. It is true, the business very oft comes not to push of Pike, but it hath and may oft come to it, and then the Pikemen are very serviceable”.

The first phase of the battle of Breitenfeld involved firing from a distance:

“For seven hours on end, through clouds of blinding dust, Tilly was to hear the regular, unceasing chatter of the Swedish musketry”.

Battle of Breitenfeld, Victoria Wedgewood, The Thirty Years War, 1938.

Robert Monro writes in his account of the Battle of Breitenfeld that the artillery fired two salvos and the musketeers another one from where they had stood ranged just as the battle commenced. Then his brigade advanced on the Imperialists:

“our small Ordinance [light artillery] being discharged twice among them, and before we stirred, we charged them with a salvee of muskets, which was repaied and incontinent our Briggad advancing unto them with push of pike, putting one of their battailles in disorder, fell on the execution, so that they were put to the route ”.

Robert Monro, His Expedition, 1637.

From these and Cruso’s passages it can be assumed that the place where the cannon was ranged was within musket shot, so that the musketeers could fire before their advance, and also according to Turner during their advance, stopping at pistol shot only to fire from a stationary position as the pikemen double-paced into a push of pike. A firing march was the standard practice introduced by Maurice of Nassau:

“Now the Pikes being advanced, the ranks closed forwards to their due distance of order, the Musketeers are to present, even with the Front, every rank successively moving forwards, until they come to be even in ranke with the first ranke of Pikes, there to give fire, and to wheel off to the right and left, trooping file wise, down close to their own divisions: and taking their places in the Reere. The first ranke of Musketters having fired, and wheeled away, the next Rankes are to move forwards at three Morions [the three Morions being Blow your coale, Open your Pan, Present brest high], into their places, and there to give fire after the same manner”

William Barriffe, Military Discipline, 1643.

and

"Advancing to an enemy not being disbanded but in one bodie, they give fire by Rancks to Rancks, having made readie alike, they advance ten paces before the bodie, being led by an officer that stands in even Front with them, the Cannon or mouth of their muskets of both Rancks being past his bodie. The second Rancke being close to the back of the foremost, both gives fire alike, priming and casting about their Muskets they charge againe where they stand, till the other two Rancks advance before them, and give fire after the same manner, till the whole Troope hath discharged, and so beginneth againe as before, after the order of the through-counter-march; ever advancing to an enemie, never turning backe without death or victorie. And this is the forme that I esteeme to be the best: as for the rest, they are not to be much used; but this order can be used winning ground, advancing, or losing ground in Retreate."

Robert Monro, His Expedition. An Abridgement, The Manner to exercise a body of Musketiers

Could cannon be aimed in battle to fire long shots?

In the section on artillery, Cruso shows a cannon and its accessories. Among the accessories are “crow levers” that could be used to rotate the wheels and possibly adjust the traverse of the cannon. Only point blank ranges are stated for artillery, given in paces. The publisher of Cruso’s first book assumes in a footnote that paces as mentioned must mean steps (two steps to about 1 yard, i.e. 1 m), rather than Geometrical paces (5ft per pace) (p. 108). The full cannon, according to John Cruso, has a point blank range of 600 paces, i.e. about 300m if so and the culverin of 800 paces, i.e. about 400m, which ranges agree with those by other authors. Cruso does not mention any other ranges for artillery, such as the effective or maximum ranges nor does he indicate anywhere that cannon were fired beyond their point blank range except that the ranges he has for some of the field cannon are higher than the point-blank ranges that would be expected from the length of their barrels. But he still calls those point-blank ranges.

Robert Norton in his Arte of Great Artillery (1628) says that should a gunner wish to fire beyond the point blank range, he may use a table he has in his manual to calculate “the number of degrees that the Peece must be mounted onto, to reach that marke”. So in principle cannon could be fired beyond their point-blank range but how? The problem is that the cannon barrel, that could weigh as much as 1.5t or more in the case of the saker and demi-culverin, would have to be lifted for wedges to be inserted under the trunions or at least pushed over wedges placed on the ground. It is doubtful this could be achieved in the heat of an open battle.

At another place, Robert Norton proposes how the cannon could be raised by up to 20 degrees, which he states as the maximum angle, except for mortars

"by sapping the breech of the Peece, that is, by making a trench for the tail of the carriage to be reserved in, being descended thereinto, the wheels standing aloft"

Robert Norton, The Art of Great Artillery, 1635

which would seem to imply that the rear part of the cannon would be lowered into a ditch at a given angle. Alternatively, he proposes:

"or by preparing a Timber-frame, so that the taile may be suncke, as between two Timber-legs squared, the wheels reserving upon them, any Peece may be so mounted to shoot at a mark out of sight, further than any Mortar Peece can reach, or by taking a Peece out of her carriage, and mounting her accordingly upon skids at pleasure to the elevation desired ..."

Robert Norton, The Art of Great Artillery, 1635

Probably none of these techniques would be of use during a field battle. The gunner would be the first to be shot, by the hand of his own general. In a battle

"According to the distance I would choose a Peece that in a straight line can shoot home, if I may, be it with Demy Culvering, Saker or Falcon, and plant.my Peece as neere parallel to the champion Plaine as I can, that the shot may range, and shoot at girdle height, unlesse the ground be stony, for then I would place my shot short of them, that grazing amongst the stones, the stones may doe them more spoile then the shot of it selfe can doe, by farre; but in no case would I shoot wide, or over them, for that were both losse and a shame also."

Robert Norton, The Art of Great Artillery, 1635

This is the way the mod models artillery, including firing short occasionally, although the engine does not seem to cause any damage from ricochetting of the shot and stones.

In his section on sieges, Cruso recommends that cannon fired at the ramparts should be level with the ramparts, whereas cannon fired at the lower part of the walls should be at ground level, therefore, he was assuming that cannon were fired within their point blank range even in sieges:

“The place of the Artillerie intended to batter the high flanks and parapets must be raised so high that it may command them; but that which should make the breach and beat down the walls must be sunk into the counterscarp, battering the wall between winde and water (if there be any) or at a fathom height above the superfices of the ditch, if it be drie”.

John Cruso, the Arte of Warre (Chapter VII), 1638.

There is one eyewitness account of being fired at Cannon shot from the walls of a town during a siege. It is clear from the discription that the defenders' cannon were being fired horizontally, not at an arch:

"His Majestie finding nothing could effectuate in this manner, retired with the Musketiers, leaving us and our Briggad in the former stand, to attend the enemies out-coming, to make us acquainted with the thundering of the Cannon; where no man, were he never so stout, could be blamed to stoope, seeing the Cannon in the night fireing in a right line before him, he that would not shift his body to eschew the grasing of a Bullet was not to be pitied, if killed through ostentation."

Robert Monro, His Expedition. Part II, The 30^th Duty … Engolstat

The use of artillery in sieges

A passage from Monro describes a situation in a siege of a star fort, where the Imperialists used their artillery not to bombard the wall but to create a smoke screen for their infantry to storm them.

"All being in readinesse, his Majestie having a number of Cannon greate and small charged on the batteries, caused to give notice at all postes, that when the Cannon had discharged the first salve, in the midst of the smoake they should advance to the storme, as they did, where, in passing the graffe, we were over the middle in water and mudde, and ascending to storme the walles there were firm pallessades, so well fastened and fixt in the wall, that if the enemy had not retired from the walles in greate feare, we could not, but with greate hazard, have entred".

Robert Monro, His Expedition. Part II, The seventh Dutie … Francford on the Oder, April 1631

This passage illustrates two things: First, the cannons must have been quite close to the walls, if the smoke from their firing could serve as a smoke cover to the infantry attempting to storm the walls. The other is that even at that short distance, the cannons were thought useless in damaging the walls of a star fort, so the infantry had to be sent in. In another passage Monro writes about the inability of the Swedish artillery to damage the walls of a star fort:

"The whole day our Cannon played on the Skonce so fast as they could be charged, but to no purpose, the earthen wall being so thicke and so well set together that they scorned us and our Cannon both".

Robert Monro, His Expedition. Part II, The ninth Dutie … Laudsberg on the Wert

In another battle, the Imperialist infantry was sent in to undermine the walls that could not be breached by the cannons. A ravelin, is an outer bastion, placed in front of the main wall of a star fort.

"Notwithstanding of this sudden feare, our Souldiers valiantly and bravely defendeth the Ravelin with Pikes and fire-workes, the enemy having advanced bravely to the cutting of the Pallessades, pressing also to undermine the Ravelin by working under it, which our folks did hinder by counter mineing".

Robert Monro, His Expedition. Part I, The 18^th Duty … Trailesound [Stralsound]

All three passages illustrate how difficult it was to breach the walls of a star fort with cannons.

[Srmanuel]

Isnt it possible to add some characteristic from the ranged cavalry to make it possible to shoot while advancing?

Also, I heard that tercios also included infantry in their ranks to fight with the pikes helping in their backs. In tho case the musketeers should move behind the pi

[Srmanuel]

Isnt it possible to add some characteristic from the ranged cavalry to make it possible to shoot while advancing?

Also, I heard that tercios also included infantry in their ranks to fight with the pikes helping in their backs. In tho case the musketeers should move behind the pikes and stop firing. Is this correct?
Thanks

Edited

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Isnt it possible to add some characteristic from the ranged cavalry to make it possible to shoot while advancing?

Also, I heard that tercios also included infantry in their ranks to fight with the pikes helping in their backs. In tho case the musketeers should move behind the pi

Clever idea. I think we looked into that. What is happening with cav is that it is a combination of two animations, one for the horse and the other for the rider. As the rider does not have to move, he can shoot all the time. However, there is no such animation for infantry.

It may be possible to do by changing the fire-by-rank animations in some way but no one has worked it out yet. Creative Assembly could probably do it, if they wanted to. I guess they were not thinking about pike and shot formations when they were making the game.

Yes, the tercios had arquebusiers/musketeers on all sides. We did not consider that because it would mean wasting 5 unit slots just for a simple tercio, more for a bastioned tercio. Since the AI cannot use such formations anyway, if the player wants to, they can form their units in that way. It is mostly superfluous in the game because cavalry does not skirmish much around the tercios. It might have been superfluous even in real history.

[oorestis]

For some reason we can't see the pictures on the first post..

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

For some reason we can't see the pictures on the first post..

Photobucket recently began to ask for a charge for linking to pictures stored there. I will have to find an alternative image store and migrate my images there and update all the links. I also need to find the time to do this.

[Jurand of Cracow]

An interesting video about the 17th century sieging system is here.
In general, the chanel containts many interesting information related to this mod.