Bayonets

[jackx]

You're right, "fairly widespread" is probably too much for the 1650s, where they'd mostly be associated with fortified positions (and then often as improvised abatis), but the larger percentage of pikes meant that these were still the main means to deter cavalry attacks.

They were pretty much standard practice when going up against "the Turks"  in the late 17th/early 18th century though, as the number of pikemen in western armies declined rapidly.
I know the Russians used them as well in their campaigns against the Ottomans in the early 18th century, but other than that, I simply don't know if/how they were used in Eastern Europe.
If various historical movies are anything to go by, then the Cossacks might have used wagons to much the same effect, but that's based off movies, so it could very well be wrong...

Nox: Whatever. I'm not even sure what you're referring to, but by the turn of the century, pikes had virtually disappeared from western european battlefields, and musket+bayonet had taken over. The Nine Years War of 1688-97 was the last major conflict in which pikes were used in any quantity in western armies, and they were viewed as ineffective and phased out by most belligerents during the course of the war, and where they were retained, it was often only for lack of muskets (the high proportion of pike in Irish regiments in 1688/89, both Catholic and Protestant, comes to mind...).

And the lines between "melee" pikemen and strictly "ranged" musketeers were being blurred heavily much earlier still...

None of that really is relevant to WFaS though...

 

[nox]

You're right, "fairly widespread" is probably too much for the 1650s, where they'd mostly be associated with fortified positions (and then often as improvised abatis), but the larger percentage of pikes meant that these were still the main means to deter cavalry attacks.

They were pretty much standard practice when going up against "the Turks"  in the late 17th/early 18th century though, as the number of pikemen in western armies declined rapidly.
I know the Russians used them as well in their campaigns against the Ottomans in the early 18th century, but other than that, I simply don't know if/how they were used in Eastern Europe.
If various historical movies are anything to go by, then the Cossacks might have used wagons to much the same effect, but that's based off movies, so it could very well be wrong...

Nox: Whatever. I'm not even sure what you're referring to, but by the turn of the century, pikes had virtually disappeared from western european battlefields, and musket+bayonet had taken over. The Nine Years War of 1688-97 was the last major conflict in which pikes were used in any quantity in western armies, and they were viewed as ineffective and phased out by most belligerents during the course of the war, and where they were retained, it was often only for lack of muskets (the high proportion of pike in Irish regiments in 1688/89, both Catholic and Protestant, comes to mind...).

And the lines between "melee" pikemen and strictly "ranged" musketeers were being blurred heavily much earlier still...

None of that really is relevant to WFaS though...

What did I say that was insufficiently clear? 

The french are largely credited with the common use of the first ring bayonets in the mid 1600s, which led to the evolution of musketmen from a mass ranged fire component to a main infantry component because the muskets could be fired while the bayonet was attached, which led to the troops being more versatile.

Is there some disagreement about this?

I don't know about the period before that, admittedly.  I originally thought that plug bayonets were in use as far back as muskets but I have learned that this is not the case.  WFaS specifically is historically about the transitional period between the widespread adoption of the musket, and the further development of firearm infantry - which makes it historically interesting in that perspective.

 

[Trithemius]

Those actually saw fairly widespread use with the "western" (Habsburg/Imperial) armies fighting the Ottomans, right up to the early 18th century, as they were seen as a cheap and effective answer to the threat of cavalry.

Eastern Europe often appears as a military "backwater" at this time, and while some units and equipment were somewhat outdated, on the whole the reliance on cavalry, and the subsequently larger number of pikes among the infantry, which were kept in use far longer aren't so much a result of any backwardness but of the vastly different operational conditions.

It makes a big difference whether you're waging war on the open steppe, or in the low countries, where you can't go 5km without running into a fortress/fortified town, a river, or both.

Those being swinesfeathers?

I know that they show up in arsenal records for quite a while, but that seems like a bit of creative accounting really.

 

[jackx]

Yep, those being swinefeathers mounted as chevaux-de-frise (the swinefeather is just the spear) and other obstacles to deter cavalry of the same type.


Nox: Sorry, didn't mean to come across as rude, guess it was a bit late when I posted. There's no argument about that development, it was the "hundred years later" that put me off, as it occurs within the second half of the 17th century, and thus is almost contemporary to WFaS (more so the full trilogy).


Back to the original purpose of the thread, while bayonets are out of the question, what'd be really nice to have with regard to muskets in melee is their being actually used as a club, i.e. reversed so that you hit people with the butt, not the barrel. Not sure how much effort that'd involve, though...

 

[wannyboy]

It's a balance issue then though. Musketeers should have a hard time of melee.

guy are you serious? Swedian musket mercenaries are already quite well outfitted for melee you know...