The Loose Association of Wargamers

Umm drop their guns, when reversed they became a big heavy club?

I always thought, if you were a pike bloke and going to attack, you wanted to be skewering musketmen, while your shot reduced his pikes to three blokes with sticks.

Didn't they carry a sword or a knife? I guess that is the idea, but I sort of see that turning into muskets hiding behind pikes and pikers trying to charge them being flanked by the other side's pikes. It all sounds complex to do in the din of battle.

The Warlord plastic musketeers come with swords

The moment his muskets hide behind, you have 2 shot wings firing into his pikes, and if the break, your pikemen ready to charge. Losing the firefight was a bad idea.

Jeremy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 8:21 am The Warlord plastic musketeers come with swords

They are hardly a good historical resource, they put fairfax on a beige horse!

Presumably, the shotte wouldn't run until the pike had committed to charge. I am guessing that the shot fire around 100-150 paces unless they are holding fire in defence. If they are rotating fire by ranks, presumably they keep shooting at the other shotte, unless the pikes charge them.

FreddBloggs wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 8:32 am

Jeremy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 8:21 am The Warlord plastic musketeers come with swords

They are hardly a good historical resource, they put fairfax on a beige horse!

Very true Fred. I was just waiting for someone to respond!

grizzlymc wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 1:12 am Were there two factions in ECW renacting?

Yes, the ECWS who were a bit roundheaded & the Sealed Knot Society who were a little more cavalier..

FreddBloggs wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 8:30 am The moment his muskets hide behind, you have 2 shot wings firing into his pikes, and if the break, your pikemen ready to charge. Losing the firefight was a bad idea.

Most casualties appear to have occurred when one side broke and ran.

grizzlymc wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 8:18 am Didn't they carry a sword or a knife? I guess that is the idea, but I sort of see that turning into muskets hiding behind pikes and pikers trying to charge them being flanked by the other side's pikes. It all sounds complex to do in the din of battle.

Most infantry (especially pike) seemed to run to a cheap 'stretcher' sword,( edit: oops, hanger was the usual term) probably used as much for firewood as for a weapon. More badly equipped soldiers and raw recruits may not have had one. Contemporary drill manuals (eg https://archive.org/details/militarydis ... rr/page/n6 ) showed sword drills for pikemen