[Dimitris Anagnostopoulos]

Hi all,for a long time im trying to discover if polearms were being used in battlefields in late 16th and 17th century.
As far as i know the main polearm of these centuries was the pike and even halberd and partisan were used only as symbols of low ranking officers.
So halberd and various polearms stoped being used for battle after 1550?

[Daniel Staberg]

[Radovan Geist]

Just to add to what Daniel said: If you see documents such as "Musterungrollen" (muster rolls) from that period (at least from German and German-influenced territories I´m more familiar with), you´d see quite a few people armed with halberds (which is probably a generic name, encompassing several designs). Rarely you´d find also some other pole weapons, such as Federspieß.
See for example here (from 1615): http://www.reichsstadt-rottweil.de/musterung1615.htm
These men did not probably serve only as guarding units in towns, but could have been used also in field operations (such as small wars and skirmishes, mentioned by Daniel). Also, polearms are mentioned in contemporary war manuals and records (Wallhausen 1615, Robert Munro 1620s)

[Neal Matheson]

A bit later but polearms were used by both armies at the battle of Culloden 1746, albeit in a very minority role.
Neal

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

In the 1590s, Sir John Smythe wanted more halberds/bills than pikes. As with his desire for bows, Smythe was swimming against the current of English military practice. But Sir Roger Williams and Humphrey Barwick, both enthusiasts of the gun, considered halberds and/or bills important. Williams specifically asked for halberds/bills made of good steel. Back in 1548, Fourquevaux thought halberds invaluable in the melee and wanted about one in ten soldiers armed with a halberd. (Smythe wanted nearly one in three so armed.)

[Bjorn Hagstrom]

Also meaning there is a somewhat seamless transition from where polearms disappear, but the bayonet on the muskets comes into play?

[Timo Nieminen]

In Japan, pre-1600, other polearms were increasing displaced by spears. Bow and polearm warfare was turning into pike and musket. But there were still polearms to be found, into the 19th century, and they were used in the end-of-shogunate wars.

Chinese warfare was changing from bow, polearm, and cannon to pike and musket as well, and spear was the predominant infantry melee weapon after the Manchu conquest (if not before). But other polearms were still used by Chinese armies, including Imperial, militia, and regional troops, into the late 19th century.

Some Korean soldiers still carried polearms (the woldo, basically the Korean guandao).

All three of these states used the musket as a major infantry weapon (Ming armies were about 25-35% handgunners and artillerymen, and Qing infantry were mostly pikemen and musketeers; Japanese infantry were mostly pikemen and musketeers since before 1600; Korean infantry were mostly musketeers after the early 1600s (from no muskets (but plenty of cannon) before 1590, to sending forces of 75% musketeers to fight the Manchus in 1622).

Non-spear polearms, mostly various glaives, were used in SE Asian armies into the 19th century. Most infantry used spears.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

The Ming loyalist Koxinga apparently used very few handheld gunpowder weapons against the Dutch in Taiwan in the early 1660s. A Dutch source says that Koxinga's archers were his best troops and "very nearly eclipsed" the Dutch riflemen. Apart from a few musketeers, the rest of Koxinga's infantry used either the sword and shield or what the Duch called the sword-stick, which was a roughly 6ft polearm with a long sword blade. Of course, this was in the context of siege warfare. But notably Koxinga won and the Dutch, despite their guns and artillery, lost.

[Timo Nieminen]

Koxinga had plenty of cannons. Artwork often shows a profusion of spears, but I've not seen much mention of them in text. In same ways, a typical Ming army. Not in all ways, since his army was a pirate army (notably deficient in cavalry).

Koxinga's Iron Men (his sword-stick musket-proof armoured force) are notable for the current discussion. An elite force, and only a small part of his army, using polearms as their main weapon.

The Chinese transition to mass use of muskets, and the replacement of (most) infantry bows and crossbows by muskets, only came under the Qing (who kept using bows in large numbers, but mostly as cavalry weapons).