"Mixed Crossbow and Shot Units?" Topic

I ran across this mentioned when doing a little searching for Renaissance miniatures and army images, on a few blogs.

I knew some armies fielded both crossbows and arquebuses, or handguns at the same time, but always assumed these were kept in separate units.

Some of the blogs seem to indicate that the individual units might contain a mix of both types of weapons in the same tactical organization.

Is that common for all units and nationalities, or does it only apply to some, and for certain periods?

I first ran across mention of this in the Burgundian units from the mid-1400s, but am aware that some armies continued to use crossbows up until at least 1515, or so, and perhaps for another decade beyond that (not 100% sure of that after 1515, in Italy).

Thoughts?

Definitely in Swiss armies, strangely enough fighting the Burgundians. I have come across some references to 'Forlorn Hope' troops being armed with a mixture of all sorts of missile weapons and specialised hand weapons but these troops were all deployed as skirmishers not formed units.

Once you reached the core units you seem to have found blocks of bows, arquebuses, pikes either combined under various names or operating rarely as independent units.

I know I linked to this before, but it says something pretty interesting,
link

The front rank of the infantry were (well armored) pikemen, the second shield-bearers, behind them came the crossbowmen and handgunners (somewhere there's javelin men in there). There's a description of how the infantry of the Black Army were organized that is pretty similar, but I can't find it.

So my question is, how common was it to mix all the infantry together? And when did they stop, and begin fielding them in different more homogenous units?

I was under the impression the forlorn hope troops were armed either just with halberds (earlier period), and/or two-handed swords for the later period (perhaps a mix of halberds and swords).

I don't recall seeing mention of missile weapons too, so that is interesting, and appreciated.

I have read that frequently crossbowmen, and/or gun armed troops might form around the periphery of the pike units, but never really equated them to being part of the forlorn hope group.

>I was under the impression the forlorn hope troops were armed …

"Forlorn hope" (lost band) was a detachement with a special task, either to delay the enemy or to disrupt his formations by a reckless assault.
The name was more a reckon of their chance to survive then the specific task, though.

The soldiers selected for this were often volunteers (though also sometimes convicted) and equipped either with their usual weaponry or with the natural weapons for the task at hand. This often meant helbards and swords for disruption. When the idea of the hope was to delay the enemy, or disrupt from afar, they used crossbow or gun armed troops.

Naturally well armed and armoured troops were better suited to fight, so with Landsknechts Doppelsöldner were often part of the Forlorn Hope as part of their task.

If in doubt, just assume they did what made military sense.

BTW: At Böblingen 1525 the task of the Forlorn Hope was to draw the enemy out of its defensive position, so in this case it was a small part of the army, not armed in any untypical way, marching up to the enemy (under a red "Bloodflag"), skirmishing and taunting. Without success, one has to say, as the peasonts lost 3000 (of 8000) vs. less then 50 in that engagement.