"Pikemen in wss" Topic

Hi. Everybody used pikemen in wss?
And how many were used in each army?

Saludetes

No, not everyone, many armies had by the start and certainly by the end stopped using the pike. I am not at home so don't have the specifics, but Britain and the Dutch Republic stop quite early whereas the French stop fairly late in the day. Mostly down to the introduction of the bayonet and more specifically the ring bayonet.

I believe from memory it starts around third and drops off as the war progresses and as the musketeer gets better able to fend off horse.

jon

Hardly used by anyone by the turn of the eighteenth century. In my WSS armies only the Spanish and potentially Swiss in French service have them. To be honest I don't change the rules, they just add a bit of quaintness.

Pretty much just some of the low countries still had a regiment or two with a pike compliment early in the WSS. Probably something like 80% shot to 20% pike. Generally they were used to stiffen the defense against cavalry attack at the cost of firepower. Then it was discovered that an infantry man with a musket and bayonet could perform the job adequately.

English (not British until after the Act of Union) seemed to have pikes listed on their inventory of stores when sailing to Flanders but never used in the field.

There is a clear distinction made by a lot of commentators that the Swedes & to a lesser extent Russians were at odds to their European contemporaries actually used pikes in battle. so if that distinction is being made it would seem that the Europeans had ditched the pike by at least 1704.

And to continue with the topic another question:

The drummer wear the sane coat of the unit or hace difent colors?

Saludetes

Depends which army you're looking at, but generally speaking drummers would wear reversed colours, or the colonel's household livery, both with lacing on the chest and arms, to distinguish them from the rank-and-file.

For that matter, officers often, and NCOs sometimes, wore uniforms that differed from those of the rankers. For example, in a Prussian regiment the men wore blue faced red, the corporals all blue, the sergeants red faced blue and the officers, all red with gold lace (but black silk stockings rather than the men's red woollen ones).

Have fun!

Musketier is correct in that it all depends on the army. And even then it's not a given rule. I'd heartily recommend Grants two volume work on uniforms as a good starting point.

The French drummer usually (not always) used blue coat with white lace, red dots (well they aren't really dots but that's the way I paint my 18mm) the "royal lace".

The Hall CD states Dutch used pikes till 1708 when Marlborough had to almost order them to leave them at home.

Swedes and Russians used pikes in the GNW 'til almost the end. I put this down to not having the industrial capacity to arm all their troops with muskets.