"Infantry frontages for FPPS" Topic

"A question was raised about whether the four infantry brigades of Essex's army at Edgehill would be better depicted in Fast Play Pike and Shot (FPPS) as double width (or two separate bases). To consider this we need to do some simple maths and to make some assumptions. The assumptions are that we only want to depict units deployed in fighting formations. This means that Essex's men are in chequer board deployment with each brigade forming in two lines of battalia. It also assumes a frontage of 1 yard per pikeman and 1.5 yards per musketeer.

Actually, it's not quite that simple though as there are additional spaces in the ranks of musketeers to allow ranks to advance or retire during firing drills. Musketeers were drawn up as several small 'divisions' of between four and six files (also termed a 'corporalship' as each had it's own corporal to keep things in order). Rather than the entire rank filing back through the body it was common for the front rank of each of the sub-divisions to use the spaces left between corporalships for advancing or retiring between shots where firing by ranks. There were also spaces between the two wings of shot and the central block of pikemen. So those spaces need to be taken into account.

Essex's infantry brigades at Edgehill were all between 2,650 and 2,900 men strong. With average sizes for the constituent battalia running around 640 – 650 men formed up in eight ranks. To make things easier lets consider a theoretical battalia of 648 men (excluding officers and drummers stood outside the ranks) which gives 81 files (648 divided by 8). With a ratio of 2 musketeers to each pikeman that gives us three blocks each of 27 files, two of shot and one of pike. Each block totals 216 rank and file. Four such battalia would give us a brigade of 2,592 soldiers plus officers etc…"

Small but Perfectly Formed

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