A. Gallo wrote: |
Could it be that "breaking" the pikes was occasionally an allusion to knocking them out of the pikeman's hands with a downward blow? |
Breaking the pikes might mean disordering the pike formation as in get them all tangled up ?
A. Gallo wrote: |
Could it be that "breaking" the pikes was occasionally an allusion to knocking them out of the pikeman's hands with a downward blow? |
Jean Thibodeau wrote: | ||
Breaking the pikes might mean disordering the pike formation as in get them all tangled up ? |
Joel Minturn wrote: | ||
Its not the pike in front of you that kills you. It the one from 3 people over. |
William P wrote: |
as abit of an aside when it comes to pike warfare, considering that people must have known what happens if gunpowder blows up a barrel either wooden, or that of a cannon, and knowing at least partially, of all the devestation that ensues as a result of the shards of metal flying everywhere. im surprised that people didnt come up with the idea of packing a clay pot with gunpowder and bits of metal scrap, and smalls stones etc , fitting a match or something, and throwing it at the other line of pikes, the result there would have been devestating. |
William P wrote: |
as abit of an aside when it comes to pike warfare, considering that people must have known what happens if gunpowder blows up a barrel either wooden, or that of a cannon, and knowing at least partially, of all the devestation that ensues as a result of the shards of metal flying everywhere. im surprised that people didnt come up with the idea of packing a clay pot with gunpowder and bits of metal scrap, and smalls stones etc , fitting a match or something, and throwing it at the other line of pikes, the result there would have been devestating. |
Timo Nieminen wrote: | ||
They did. Song dynasty in China, so in use by the 13th century at the latest, perhaps a couple of centuries earlier. There's a classic painting showing a very surprised samurai with a grenade exploding at his feet during the Mongol invasions (not a contemporary painting, perhaps Edo period). Used in Europe in the 16th century, perhaps in the 15th. The trick is to make a grenade that you can light reliably and safely, throw far enough (at least from out of pike range!), and do enough damage with. Not the easiest of things to do, if it will be hand thrown. So one can throw by catapult (as done by the Chinese), or by cannon/mortar (as also done by the Chinese, and Europeans in due course). The staff-sling has value as a grenade launcher. |
William P wrote: |
i was referring purely to the europeans of the 16th century era of large pike formations with the the simple idea that, when the pike blocks meet, a few men in the second line, either arquebusiers or pikemen, quickly pull out the pot, light a match and toss it at the other square. even a few small explosions down the line would do wonders for creating exploitable gaps |
William P wrote: |
the japanese experience with gunpowder via the mongols on the other hand is something im acutely aware of. it still puzzles me to this day why, despite also using soft clay projectiles filled with iron fragments and gunpowder thrown from catapaults, they never thought to adopt the mongol idea. |
Quote: |
I believe the rodeleros did enjoy some success against pikeman most notably against the French employed landsknechts at the battle of Ravenn. The rodeleros apparently used the tactic of ducking/rolling under the sea of pikes to engage in close quarter combat and in this battle at least they were able to inflict considerable casualties this way. It does seem though in more cases than not the pikeman mercenaries tended to roll over the Spanish rodeleros. |
Sander Marechal wrote: |
Last weekend was our WMA school winter training weekend. We tried breaking pike formations and it works surprisingly well. We had a 8 wide, 3 deep pike block armed with 3 meter pikes (a bit short, I know) being attacked by two guys with two-handed swords and three guys armed with halberds. They made minced meat out of the pike block.
The two-hander guys wielded the swords almost like a chainsaw, one hand on the end of the handle and the other hand on one of the side rings of the guard. Using large, sweeping arc strokes it's pretty easy to get into the pikes and push a whole bunch of them down with a two-handed swords. One swordsman pushing left and one pushing right. After that it's easy for the halberds to get into the gap and start killing people with downward strokes. There's very little the pikemen can do. All the pikes going down effectively locks you up, making it almost impossible to move and draw e.g. a sword or other backup weapon. I don't know if anyone's made pictures, but if I find them, I will post them here. |
William P wrote: |
[ since the macedonians, and i think the renaissance pikemen as well, with the pikes as long as they were, about 16 feet if i remember correctly. which is about 4.8 metres, if i remember my ancient macedonian armies correctly this allowed about 5 rows of spearpoints to protrude in front of the first line.
this is crucial for dealing with men with 2 handed swords and halberds, if you have only 3 or 4 rows of points in front of you instead of 5, theres alot less points to knock away. and you have to pass a smaller distance to reach the front line with a 10 foot pike waving at you, and you having a 5 foot sword, thats alot less disadvantage of reach compared to a 14-16 foot pike. despite all those reservations though, i still think youve demonstrated a good 'proof of concept' as to how one could use the 2 handed sword to create gaps for halberds and 2 handed swords to exploit a block of pikes, add in musket fire and maybe even a supporting ribauldequen |
William P wrote: |
but considering the great mass of pikes in a formation facing forward., to shift your pike even the angle to reach someone 3 people to your left, then start thrusting, wouldnt that potentially serve to maybe even tangle up your pike line by bumping your pike into the shafts of the pikes of your comrades. potentially pulling them out of alignment.
and as pointed out, a pike has alot of inertia so such a maneuver might be difficult to do. |
P. Cha wrote: |
Okay, I know it's not a historical source, but from doing pike work in some pretty big SCA wars (and our pikes are even more likely to get tangled up having big foam heads and being made of rattan), I can tell you that it's not as big of a deal as you may think. |
Jean Thibodeau wrote: | ||
I could see this working in teams as a pair of two handed swordsmen open up and clear the first few rows of point, another pair enters the gap and does the same to the next few rows of points before those can get to the first pair. Halberds and/or rotella armed swordsmen rushing into the gap before deeper in pikemen can lower their pikes. All this has to be well coordinated and the main idea is to tangle up the pike as one could disorder oars of a galley by ramming into the oars. Aggressive and well timed counter action by the pikemen might be able to kill off the swordsmen before they succeeded in breaking up the order of the formation. Maybe something not used, but I would think that weighted steel nets throw onto the pikes could also make them useless. ;) |