Thank you! Most descriptions of muskets replacing the arquebus don't really explain why/when they would coexist, and I missed the idea that the square would part to admit more mobile troops from the bastion
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I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, but the distinction you are treating as vital is made in secondary sources, not primary ones. Small firearms are of varying sizes. They mostly take 12 bullets to the pound of lead, except when they don't. Musketeers *in general* are still quite mobile.
Thanks for the insight! Would there have been a doctrinal difference behind the labels instead of a physical one (date given "c. 1600")? I ask because I thought the "arquebusiers" in the bastion look vulnerable, especially to fratricide, but clearly I don't really know how they were used
I'm not sure I'd call the distinction 'vital,' just 'extant.' I'm also not saying musketeers were immobile, just that their primary weapon was heavier.
But you've got scholarship saying this distinction doesn't exist at all, I'm happy to read it. I still see the distinction show up regularly.
I'm saying that numerous words exist in the primary sources and the idea that guns should be a standard size is a hundred years off. Nevertheless, you can walk swiftly with the fork and the gun in the same grip
Absolutely, I understand these are not weapons with standard calibers and didn't say others, but do we ever see in the sources efforts to group heavier firearms in one tactical sub-unit and lighter firearms in another tactical sub-unit?
No I don't think so. I think standard-like weapons, like clothing, are a byproduct of something completely different, supply. Who's making them, and how many are a time
Also, wouldn't even a fairly small difference in overall 'reaction time' (ie time to shoulder your equipment) and movement speed be really important when you needed to get behind a pike to resist a cavalry charge?
Based on having read Bret's various posts about formations and spacing, I don't think the square would have to "part". They'd just walk through the normal gaps between files. But the post also references early modern gunpowder formations being tighter, so maybe there is actually more tactic to it.
That's just what I want, to visualize how this worked - thank you. Why are the bastions useful, if they are just armed with similar firearms? Are they supposed to fire across the in front of the main square? Are they less vulnerable than they look?
Their position offers the widest field of fire and if the square is pressured from only one side, the opposite side's bastions can keep firing in support even as the others pull back within or behind the square.
Yeah, if the enemy closes into contact, the troops in the 'bastions' are going to retreat inside of the square. That's how the pike square serves to protect its firearm troops from cavalry, in particular.
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But you've got scholarship saying this distinction doesn't exist at all, I'm happy to read it. I still see the distinction show up regularly.
That's really the key question here.