"Mixed Pike & Shotte-how'd they really fight, how to game?" Topic

While I happen to be thinking especially of the ECW, I guess the question could be asked of any period that mixes P&S together.

Some games I've played put the pike and shotte into one regiment with the pike in the center and the shotte on the wings. They then give them melee factors based upon the ratio of pike and shot (ie higher value v. cavalry the more pike you have). Other rules have the pike and shot in separate units altho the same regiment. This of course gives opponent the opportunity to charge just the shotte and then they must have a reaction system since the shotte must "fall back onto" the pike when charged by cavalry. Perhaps they fall back on the pike when they're charged by infantry, also? After all, isn't that why those guys drag those long sticks all over for?

So my question is, what's the best way to handle them based upon both historical usage and the way the commanders themselves would think about it?

Thanks!

Pike and shotte did fight separately at some points.

That being said I'm not sure that the best way to handle it is to have units of each unless that is how they were fighting at that battle.

I would usually have the pike and shotte as one big unit, it being assumed that the troops were trained to fight and, unless disordered or caught unawares, move into the protective wall of pike when threatened by cavalry.

There could be some rules allowed them to get caught out but it would be more of a formation change than a movement of units to form that defensive formation.

That being said some units did fight with the being two distinct groups.

For historical situations where that occurs just make them units of pike and then units of shotte.

It doesn't have to be an either or thing completely.

There is no 'one' best way. It differed over time and place. The only thing I can recommend in study the conflict you are interested in and model what they did.

What was being done in England in 1642 wasn't was being done in Bohemia in 1618, etc…

From all that I have read, P&S are best treated as a single formation. In ECW terms a battalia reacts and fights as a single unit. I've yet to come across a single contemporary account where Sir Marmalade Highanmighty cunningly gets a troop of horse to pin down the pikemen to his front, allowing the others under his command to ride down the hapless musketeers. This complex interplay of troop types and sub unit tactics exists only in the wargamers' minds.

Yes, musketeers were allocated independent roles, but these were decided before an action took place and were not a result of tactical decisions during an action.

RNSulentic++

The interaction of Pikes and Shot differed, from the appearance of pikes, without shot yet, to the disappearance of pikes (thanks to the bayonet). This spans roughly 250 years.

How you model it also has to do with the scale you armies and units within.

On regimental size, the units should be modelled to behave like their predominent weapon (though sometimes regiments were split into units dependend on weapons before an actual battle). If you have differently armed stands or models, you need special rules for their interaction (like "lying down" for muskets when assaulted and next to pikes, or being allowed to part from their pikes when these are assaulted).

I do not think there are systems our that model these interactions consistent with historical sources from 1450 to 1700. The Italian wars of 1520 are different from the French battles of their WoR in 1580 are different from the battles of the TYW at 1630. Apart from Pike&Shot, both cavalry and artillery played heavily into these interactions on the battlefield.

As Puster says above and…

You could/should allow for pike to shelter among the pike in any 30YW/ECW game. This could be done by allowing the infantry formation to do this as part of a move or as part of a reaction to a cavalry charge. It is not likely that they would have done this as a reaction to an infantry charge. This is for more tactically detailed games.

If you are playing a game with a higher level of abstraction then youcan just use single formations similar to what Baccus 6mm said. That's how Polemos ECW works.

John

At least in the ECW, when pike/shot came in contact with each other, musketeers would swing the musket by the muzzle using the iron butt plate as the business end. (If you think about this, it makes since to swing something heavy already in your hand, rather than drawing a short, poorly made tuck.) The pikemen, on the other hand, often times dropped their pikes and used their better quality swords in the melee.

I am not convinced how much authority commanders outside a regiment had on their men when it came to melee. These were passionate soldiers fighting hand to hand. Just guessing, pikemen against pikemen would probably be less vulnerable to attack from each other, assuming they were armored, then from an iron butt plate from a swinging musketeer (who were also more numerous.) Thus, this COULD suggest the musketeer(s) (as a group) were at an advantage in melee over the pikemen, at least against other infantry.

ilodic.

Treat formations as organic units that shoot and fight as pike & shot (avoid rules that treat the components separately).

I'm with Baccus for any wargame scale involving more than a regiment … it is entirely possible to deduce from a battle like Naseby how many casualties were suffered in a given exchange of action between formations of both sides (see the breakdowns in Glen Foard's book). But it is not clear in any way how many of those casualties result from firing or push of pike, nor how they break down into pike or shot casualties respectively (i.e. the data on which treating the pike and shot components separately does not offer itself) …

However, this does not present a problem as there is no evidence that it mattered to the commanders of the time: the action describes units fighting organically not in component sections.

Regiment-to-Regiment systems (battaglia to tertiae, or however you choose to term it) give exactly the right feel for multi unit historical English Civil War actions, I believe.

Phil
ECW Battles

Yes, I tend to the Baccus thoughts posted above – it seems unlikely that a brigade or regimental commander could perform such tactics as pinning the pike while attacking the musketeers. Special situations like flank attacks normally already take into account the surprise, disorder, etc.

Pike and Shotte throws me off a bit with the separate units. I understand from reading that there were different ways to place the shot in relation to the pike, but I'm uncertain if they did it. I vaguely remember someone posting somewhere that the standard wargame presentation of pikes in the center with wings of shotte was not historically accurate.

I also recall diagrams where the formations that really mattered were not regimental formations but Brigade formations.

Overall, I'm _inclined_ to all the shotte to move around in relation to the pike, or perhaps form up in different ways, and not just base them "pikes in middle", but feel it is realistic to only give them few and difficult opportunities to change formation once deployed.

One of the reasons I've not gamed much in the P&S era is that I've never found a satisfactory way of handling the mixed units. For a while I was based up for Principles of War for that period with Italian Wars armies.

For 15mm a Pike and Shot unit was on a single 90mm x 30mm base with the left and right 30mm carrying the shot and the centre 30mm the pike. A Spanish Tercio was on 90mm x 90mm with shot in the four corner 30mm x 30mm and the pike in the centre 30mm square.

They fought as a single unit. It worked after a fashion but I was going off the POW family concepts.

As a side note, Wargaming: An Introduction by Neil Thomas handles mixed units surprisingly well and in a very simple way. When shooting, shot take casualties first. In melee, pike take casualties first. It works because usually you don't stand off and blaze away with infantry. You shoot once and charge. The idea still falls in line with Baccus above. No special formations etc.

Aside to the aside … that's where I think the Neil Thomas game breaks down – fine you lose musketeers in firing exchanges but losing pikes first in combat means your regiments end up fighting out their final melees without any pike: a last stand of musketeers! What good is that (it neither looks nor feels historical)?

Quick, entertaining rules but that bit needs a rewrite …

Phil

I had the same problem as the OP about targeting just shotte but liked the Forlorn Hope approach about Pike to musket ratios; shame I didn't enjoy the rest of the rules.
Currently use FOG Renaissance and really like the way Pike provide protection to shot and if you hit just the shot in a charge the whole unit moves to conform to maintain the P&S formation.
As far as shooting casualties go they are removed in proportion to the numbers of pike or shot so the most numerous type, on the whole, takes most casualties.

I'm still trying to learn how Pike and Shotte were used in the GNW!

thre first thing to consider is the different tactical roles the two parts of the foot regiment carried out. then you need to consider the scale of the game you want to play especially the figure ratio. This will impact the level of detail you would want the rules to model. assuming that the scale you are working at allows for multiple stands within a regiment i would suggest the following concepts.

1. separate stands of pike and shot.
2. stands must remain in base contact with each other but can be in one of a number of pre set formations.
3. Casualties are taken evenly across all figures in the unit. (not ideal if you want ultra detailed rules but it works)

This allows some different formations to be used such as the traditional pike centre and shot sleeves. I'd use some kind of formation change rule to add a bit of tension when trying to get to the best formation for a given situation. It also makes units act like an integral whole while allowing some differentiation between the two arms roles.

I haven't found any rules that do this in the way I like so I ended up writing my own. One of these days I might get them finished.

when pike/shot came in contact with each other, musketeers would swing the musket by the muzzle

It's often funny to watch ECW or League of Augsburg War re-enactors doing this just after they've been firing many shots.

They juggle with their muskets because it burns their hands :-)

@Elenderil

yep, that's where I think I'm going with this for my ECW.

Each stand represents a "division" of either shotte or pike. This seems to be the lowest level of ordering and command, and to contain from 50-100 men, about right for a wargame stand.

One thing I haven't figured out for certain – were the divisions able to act independently once they deployed for battle? So for example, if I have a regiment on the flank of a battaglia with a pike division (stand) and two shotte divisions (stands) – so three stands total) and the enemy is threating the flank with commanded shotte while enemy cavalry threatening their front, would the pike remain facing forward while a division or two of the shotte face the flank to oppose the threatening shotte.

I tend to think that in smaller battles the answer is definitely 'yes', but perhaps in a large battle it'd be 'no'.

Quick, entertaining rules but that bit needs a rewrite …

I don't disagree with this.

One thing I haven't figured out for certain – were the divisions able to act independently once they deployed for battle?

The newer Dutch/Swedish systems show a surprisingly large amount of tactical flexibility. I would think that commanded shot could easily rejoin an infantry regiment during battle.

Having played and enjoyed dozen and dozen of games of Forlorn Hope where pike and shot are treated as a single body with a ratio I've more recently been less taken with. In Forlorn Hope it is essentially a flawed mechanic that favours small units with a higher ratio of pike to musket over larger units with more musketeers. For instance a unit of 15 figures at 1:1 ratio is far more useful on the battlefield than a unit of 24 figures with a 2:1 ratio in favour of shot, assuming the same quality of troops.

The smaller units have an advantage when it come to melee due to the way the factors are worked out. However when you break the ratio down you discover that the larger unit has more pike than the smaller unit (just) but fights at a disadvantage. Then when you look at the history the armies certainly seemed to be swinging in favour of musket over pike but yet in Forlorn Hope you want the opposite lots of pikemen.

Spanish tercios could detach the "mangas" of shot which would go forth and skirmish and then they could reconnect to the tercio. I like the idea that the Pike block counts as the unit, and it can detach and reclaim the shot.

This is probably a bit late, but I think the best way to handle shot v. pike depends on what aspects of pike and shot warfare you want to duplicate. If you want to be Rupert commanding at Naseby you probably don't want to concern yourself with unit level tactics which would depend heavily on how many troops are shot, how many are pike, how they are deployed and how they are used. A set of rules that treats pike and shot as one unit would probably work better for you.

OTOH the outcome of battles quite often can turn on the performance of specific units which in turn can depend on the specific tactics that unit adopted. If like me you want to explore how these sub-units actually functioned in the battle and how altering their tactics might or might not have an effect on the overall outcome of the battle, a set of rules that treats pike and shot as distinct units would be necessary.