Granada War - Tactics and Technology

Tactics and Technology

The most notable facet of the Granada War was the power of bombards and cannons to greatly shorten the many sieges of the war. The Castilians and Aragonese started the war with only a few artillery pieces, but Ferdinand had access to French and Burgundian experts from his recent wars, and the Christians aggressively increased their forces. The Muslims, however, lagged far behind in their use of artillery, generally only using the occasional captured Christian piece. The historian Weston F. Cook Jr. wrote "Gunpowder firepower and artillery siege operations won the Granadan war, and other factors in the Spanish victory were actually secondary and derivative." By 1495, Castile and Aragaon controlled 179 pieces of artillery total, a vast increase from the paltry numbers seen in the War of the Castilian Succession.

Primitive arquebuses also saw use in the war, though only to a small degree. Heavy cavalry knights were a much smaller factor in the Granada War than seen in earlier warfare. Light cavalry jinetes took on a more prominent role instead. The open-field battles in which cavalry were the most important were rare; the Granadans, badly outnumbered, generally avoided such battles. The Castilians also employed a large number of supporting men; a huge force of workers were mustered in 1483 to destroy crops and pillage the countryside rather than engage directly in battle. Coordination and logistics was difficult given the mountainous terrain, but the Christians diligently built a series of roads through the mountains to supply their troops with food and supplies.

Politically, many nobles insisted on controlling their own forces, but Ferdinand and Isabella were still able to exercise a large degree of control in directing the army as a whole. The Granadans, meanwhile, were beset with the civil war, preventing the establishment of a unified command. The army was almost completely Castilian; Aragonese and foreign mercenary participation existed, but was minimal. Of the Castilian army, Andalusia contributed far more troops than the other territories, with much of its population conscripted into the war. The nobility provided the majority of the expensive cavalry.

The Granada War would prove to be valuable training for Castile's participation in the Italian Wars, where the Castilian armies and tactics such as the tercio would acquit themselves well.