Infantry Tactics - Renaissance Period

Renaissance Period

As firearms became cheaper and more effective, they grew to widespread use among infantry beginning in the 16th century. Requiring little training, firearms soon began to make swords, maces, bows, and other weapons obsolete. Pikes, as a part of pike and shot formation survived a good deal longer. By the mid-16th century, firearms had become the main weapons in many armies. The main firearm of that period was the arquebus. Although less accurate than the bow, an arquebus could penetrate most armours of the period and required little training. In response, armor thickened, making it very heavy and expensive. As a result, the cuirass replaced the mail hauberk and full suits of armour, and only the most valuable cavalry wore more than a padded shirt.

Soldiers armed with arquebuses were usually placed in three lines so one line would be able to fire, while the other two could reload. This tactic enabled an almost constant flow of gunfire to be maintained, and made up for the inaccuracy of the weapon. In order to hold back cavalry, wooden palisades or pikemen would be in front of arquebusiers. An example of this is the Battle of Nagashino.

The introduction of the bayonet turned all musketeers into pikemen. Generally, in battles, two sides lined up and fired a few volleys at each other before one side charged with bayonets fixed. Due to the high cost of professional armies, a typical battle-line consisted of two or three lines of musketeers. These basic principles dominated warfare in the 18th Century. The drilling of soldiers, introduced by Prince Maurice of Nassau, was precisely exercised and documented, each movement involved in loading a musket practised repeatedly, which proved a great advantage on the battlefield. Later, Gustav II perfected the infantry formations and made good use of the power of volley fire, by adopting (more reliable) wheel-locks, taking away their armor to make them more mobile, and increasing the numbers of musketeers (which the wheellock enabled him to do) by having them do double duty as pikemen (by way of the plug bayonet), well as by adopting the paper cartridge (with a consequent sharp increase in rate and volume of fire) and streamlining the musket reloading procedure.

Battle formations became more and more important, especially where infantry was being attacked by cavalry, thanks to the carré (square), where the wounded, provisions, and officers were protected at the centre. Cavalry could not break a well-held square.