Late 17 Century pikes

[urbancohort]

Dear all, do any of you historians know how armies in the late 1600s ACTUALLY use pikes in battle? Depictions usually show blocks of pikes interspersed with blocks of muskets. Great as far as it goes, but I imagine the idea of pikes is to repel horse? So how would that work? Did the pikes form around the muskets? A musket with a bayonet grounded obviously would repel cavalry, but I can't see how this arrangement works?
Cavalry would simply be able to wheel around the pikes and slaughter musket equipped troops? Or am I missing something?

[Ithoriel]

I've always assumed it looked something like this with pike and shot intermingled in an all round "hedgehog" defence. Others may know better.

[urbancohort]

That makes much more sense! It isn't what tends to get shown though. So when basing my new LoA army should I intersperse the two infantry types?

[FierceKitty]

My new desktop background.

[Ithoriel]

That makes much more sense! It isn't what tends to get shown though. So when basing my new LoA army should I intersperse the two infantry types?

I imagine that sort of formation was only adopted when cavalry were in the offing - similar to forming square in later periods. For normal manoeuvre I presume more traditional pike flanked by shot would the order of the day.

Any LOA devotees around to comment?

[Fenton]

I remember reading the Danes had abandoned the pike altogether by this time

[Leman]

The musket was more adept at saving their bacon!

[Zippee]

My understanding is that the pikes could be deployed in any number of ways within the unit.

they could form a central block - the typical artistic impression, maybe representing a default deployment.

they could form on the wings, they could form in handfuls throughout the line, the could form as a front rank

I even think they could even be 'converged' into larger pike units - though how those were then deployed is an open question.

None of this do I 'know' but I have read or been told by persons or online entities that seem to know [believe / are convincing] 

At the end of the day our wargames units are static representations or a unit that could be in any number of forms of deployment (this is true for every period), so all we can do is pick one and glue the figures down. Personally I think that if a central pike block with musket wings was good enough for contemporary artists to depict units, then its good enough for me.

[Hwiccee]

They used the hedgehog idea, squares and other all round defensive formations but usually in special circumstances. The most common was the square but this was not usually done by a single battalion but was multiple battalions joining together to make a big square or rectangle with the individual battalions in normal line in the square. These all took a long time to form and so were not an 'emergency response' when charged like later on. Usually they were only used in effect after the battle was over, either the full battle or in a particular area. Basically intact infantry would form a large square and attempt to retreat off  the battlefield in this when the army or their part of it was defeated and their was no friendly cavalry around to help them.

There were occasions when squares featured in ongoing battles but they were rare.

The other thing that was sometimes done was 'fraising' the battalion and similar. 'Fraising' involved deploying the pikes as, typically, the whole of the 2nd rank and maybe some/all of the 3rd. So instead of being in a central block they were spread across the frontage in a relatively thin line (or 2). A similar idea (which I am not sure was ever actually used) was having two smaller pike 'blocks' deployed on each end of the line - so say 60% of pikes in a central block and two sets of 20% at or near each end. Once again this was not something usually done during the battle but the 'fraising' at least was used. Basically you did this BEFORE the start of the battle and when your side was hopelessly outclassed in cavalry - not just outclassed but very outclassed.

Again this was rarely used as in most occasions the units just fought in standard central pike block flanked by shot. But as already mentioned the Danes and others didn't have pikes.

On the face of it the central pike block wouldn't be able to protect the musketeers but the thing to remember is that the cavalry need to keep in order and they would be in big tight groups. If they were in small groups they could certainly nip in and cause problems but for Western cavalry this was out of the question. The Ottomans did this and pikes were not used against them. The Western cavalry would be in squadrons with a frontage 50% or more of the frontage of an infantry battalion and so it was difficult to avoid even small numbers of pikes. The infantry would close up if possible, they normally fought with a gap between files and they would bunch up to make a dense front.

The other thing to remember is that having pikes, even large numbers of them, did not make a unit immune to cavalry attack. Having pikes maybe gave you a better chance of deterring an attack and also of repulsing an attack if it happened. But we are talking of a difference in % chances compared to other units and not immunity. I think it is like a game of 'chicken' and pikes just change the odds.

I hope this helps.

[d_Guy]

Fascinating question for which I have no answers and only opinion.

As Leman said firepower was coming into its own - pikes were becoming vestigial - but likely (as in any age) conservative officers were loath to give up the system they knew.

We think of pikes as defensive against cavalry but they were often used in the offense - and against similarly armed infantry.

Pikes and muskets throughout 17th c were organized in mixed companies - but massed together for combat formation. I seem to recall in the later part of the century the pikes were place behind musketeers (and sometimes spread out in front)

Oops! more knowledgeable posts have now come in - but load - fire😀

[Orcs]

The 17th century Pike wore woollen hose of claret and blue on a regular basis. This was to pacify his Mum who did not want him to get cold on the battlefield.
She also said that he was not allowed to have a musket as it was dangerous as it regularly exploded.

17th century pike was looked after on the battlefield by his "uncle" Artorious who rented rooms from Pikes Mum.

[Subedai]

The 17th century Pike wore woollen hose of claret and blue on a regular basis. This was to pacify his Mum who did not want him to get cold on the battlefield.
She also said that he was not allowed to have a musket as it was dangerous as it regularly exploded.

17th century pike was looked after on the battlefield by his "uncle" Artorious who rented rooms from Pikes Mum.

Apart from that I have nothing really constructive to add.

MickS

[urbancohort]

 

[Techno]

You stupid boy, Orcs ! 

Cheers - Phil

[d_Guy]

Left leg was claret
Bluet was right
Three cheers for Orcs
High as a kite