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Elio Pestana




Location: France
Joined: 04 Aug 2020

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PostPosted: Tue 30 Aug, 2022 7:14 am    Post subject: Urban warfare during Antique to Renaissance times         Reply with quote

Hello, and sorry for the big period of inactivity ; i've been quite the busy man these days and couldn't really find the time to find pertinent stuff to actually post or ask about.

While reading about some of the battles of the Great War, i've always found the contrast between fighting on open fields versus fighting in some of the bigger cities interesting, as it always asked armies of the day to change their strategies and use otherwise unconventional tactics in order to advance, on top of making most of the standard weaponry of the era - be it rifles, artillery pieces or even armored vehicles - awkward to use and letting less common pieces of weaponry steal the spotlight.

However, while the British soldiers at Amiens and the Italians at Gorizia could rely on carefully set up machine gun nests, pistols & grenades to gain an edge, when you think about, say, carefully organized ranks of legionnaires, renaissance-era batallions of pikemen, Greek phalanxes or even just norse raiders coming into the bigger cities, you kinda start wondering... well, how exactly did they handle such situations ?
Since stuff like pikes and the good ol' 2-meter long Spanish muskets are obviously very unwieldy for that kind of terrain, did stuff like short swords or dagger take over ?
Were some military forces simply lacking any sort of options in that departement ?
Was there some special troops involved for these situations ?
In short, do any of you know how they handled urban warfare (without sieges) before the Modern era ?
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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Tue 30 Aug, 2022 6:48 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

In much of the pre-industrial period, very, VERY broadly speaking, warfare somewhat favored the defense. This was especially true where the defenders had stone walls. There was a period after the dissimilation of the Roman Empire when forts were mostly of wood, but during much of the Classical era and the High to Late Medieval periods and later, the defenders had an advantage. So usually there was a siege involved and it often was very costly for the attackers. There were exceptions to this, such as when the fortifications were old and the attacking army had a lot of cannon or some other highly effective siege weapons.

There also were battles, skirmishes and fights inside cities without any siege happening, sometimes due to internal disputes, sometimes an enemy just surprised them and got inside before they could close the gate (and sometimes with help from the inside).

Towns often had internal fortifications as well, so getting inside a city didn't necessarily mean the end of the game. Towns even back into Classical times often had a citadel. The acropolis in Athens was originally a citadel for example. In the middle ages the city of Prague had a citadel on Vyšehrad hill. In medieval towns, the different neighborhoods or quarters were often walled off from each other, and may have multiple well fortified buildings and towers within the town. Different sections of town were also routinely divided by canals, which were used both as defense and as a means of moving heavy goods.



You can get an idea of that from this map of Riga by Braun and Hogenberg. You can see a much higher resolution version of that image here


Sometimes invading armies got into a city but were defeated in detail and / or forced back out again. Towns were also built either with cavalry and large scale troop movement in mind, or the opposite. Some medieval towns had broad streets so that ruling nobles or internal factions that relied on heavy cavalry could better control the town. In these places, an invading army was sometimes hit with a cavalry charge on the cobbelstones and if they had lost unit cohesion, they might get annihilated. Other towns were intentionally made with very narrow streets and also often had warrens of hidden tunnels under the streets which could be used for defense. Defenders could wait for invading soldiers to pass them and then come out behind them and attack, and set ambushes at known choke points using artillery and firearms.

Fortifications were always important because it meant that troops were blocked from reaching defenders, and meanwhile defenders could rain stones and javelins, arrows, crossbow bolts and by the late medieval period, bullets and cannon shot down on them. Also nasty things like molten glass and brutal pyrotechnic devices.

So the focus was often more on the fortifications than on the individual weapons. That said, weapons were important too of course, and broadly speaking could be divided into four categories: Crew served 'artillery', high velocity missiles (heavy crossbows, bows and guns), lower velocity missiles (rocks, javelins, pyrotechnic devices), and hand-to-hand weapons (spears, swords, axes, maces). Armor was also very important because armor could protect against most weapons most of the time. Though the ratio was a lot different, (missiles had a much lower rate of fire than a machine gun or a bolt action rifle, so hand weapons were still very important in pre-industrial as compared to modern warfare) they were used in a manner in some ways not that different from early 20th Century weapons.

For crew served weapons, the Romans had their various torsion based devices which could hurl stones, lead balls, or darts. Some people here like Matthew Amt could probably elaborate more on these, though I can say that the Romans did use them effectively in many battles and particularly in sieges. The Roman Legions were in general very good at engineering and this applied very much to their siege warfare methods, which were highly sophisticated and disciplined. One method they used quite a bit was tunneling or mining, such as was also done quite a bit during WW1.

By the 14th Century gunpowder weapons were introduced, and you can find many parallels to modern weapons, especially with crew served weapons.

A couple of examples - a seven barrel pintle mounted volley gun, which were around from the 15th Century, functioned a lot like a gattling gun or a machine gun, just a bit slower preparation between shots.

https://youtu.be/0mKVdMNcG48?t=142

15th Century field artillery being brought up to the battlefield in pieces, assembled, and shot by a trained crew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_bNFUqzo4

This type of field gun, called the Houfnice by the Czechs, dates back to the 1420s. They could be used with ball or shot. These had removable breeches so as you can see, an experienced crew could get a shot off about every 30 seconds. If their position was under threat of being overrun, they could tow it away or dismantle it and carry it away. In many respects not that different from a 'French 75' or some other field gun except no explosive shells, just solid shot.

They did however use mortars. This beast was used in the siege of Rhodes in 1480, (successfully) to attack Ottoman ships.


It shot 260 kg granite balls that you can see next to it, and had a range of only about 200 meters. You wouldn't want to be there when the ball landed, (or on a ship that it landed on)

Medieval armies used wagons to carry crew served weapons, and as mobile field fortifications / cover for hand gunners and crossbowmen. Getting caught by a volley gun and / or a volley of handguns in a tight space in a city could be quite devastating to attackers.

For more details about siege warfare, I wrote a little blog post two weeks ago here you might find interesting getting into some Classical, medieval and early modern sieges, including the siege of Malta which involved urban warfare, and is probably the single most epic siege of the pre-industrial period.

Hope that helps a little.

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Last edited by Jean Henri Chandler on Tue 30 Aug, 2022 7:05 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Tue 30 Aug, 2022 6:57 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Couple of examples of some things I mentioned -

The first shows both war wagons (background) and a war-mantlet being used in a siege, both types bearing small cannon, from the late 15th Century Bern Chronik

The second shows a volley gun similar to the one in the video, but this one has 40 barrels. Below the gun is a towing harness and an ammunition box. That one was from the inventory of artillery by Emperor Maximillian I, circa 1505



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Volley_Gun.jpg


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Siege_Wagons1.jpg


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Matthew Amt




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PostPosted: Wed 31 Aug, 2022 3:19 am    Post subject: Re: Urban warfare during Antique to Renaissance times         Reply with quote

Elio Pestana wrote:
Hello, and sorry for the big period of inactivity ; i've been quite the busy man these days and couldn't really find the time to find pertinent stuff to actually post or ask about.

While reading about some of the battles of the Great War, i've always found the contrast between fighting on open fields versus fighting in some of the bigger cities interesting, as it always asked armies of the day to change their strategies and use otherwise unconventional tactics in order to advance, on top of making most of the standard weaponry of the era - be it rifles, artillery pieces or even armored vehicles - awkward to use and letting less common pieces of weaponry steal the spotlight.

However, while the British soldiers at Amiens and the Italians at Gorizia could rely on carefully set up machine gun nests, pistols & grenades to gain an edge, when you think about, say, carefully organized ranks of legionnaires, renaissance-era batallions of pikemen, Greek phalanxes or even just norse raiders coming into the bigger cities, you kinda start wondering... well, how exactly did they handle such situations ?
Since stuff like pikes and the good ol' 2-meter long Spanish muskets are obviously very unwieldy for that kind of terrain, did stuff like short swords or dagger take over ?
Were some military forces simply lacking any sort of options in that departement ?
Was there some special troops involved for these situations ?
In short, do any of you know how they handled urban warfare (without sieges) before the Modern era ?


There are certainly many accounts of street fighting in towns and cities, but it does seem to be less common than sieges or battles in the open. And I suspect it was more one-sided than modern era street fighting, much of the time, as very superior invaders would be overwhelming a broken defense. As has been said, a fight in the streets means the attackers have gotten through the main defenses, which is very bad. That said, it wasn't always a sure thing, and there could be factional fights in the streets between the city's inhabitants, or riots of some sort, etc.

There weren't any "special troops" or specific weaponry for street fighting. Shields and spears were perfectly good for holding a line across a street, and pikes could do it even better. It's a nice, regular surface to fight on, and the flanks are *really* solid--until you realize that someone has gone around the block and is now behind you. Or the folks upstairs are raining roof tiles and furniture down on your head. (The notable general Pyrrhus of Epirus, who gave the Romans such trouble, was killed in a street battle by a roof tile dropped by a woman.) But I don't think long weapons were *that* much of a problem in the streets themselves, most of the time. You can clear a narrow alley with a halberd a lot more easily than with a knife. Remember that long weapons were designed to be used in dense formations, with very little elbow room, so it doesn't really matter if your battle line is half a mile long, or only four yards. Of course once you start kicking in doors to clear the houses, swords and daggers will definitely be the weapons of choice!

Probably the biggest concern will be having your army fragment into random handfuls of men, probably bent on loot rather than combat, completely uncoordinated and uncontrollable. That's the best recipe for turning victory into disaster. So as usual, your best weapon is going to be good discipline, backed up by things like signal horns. Just like in any other sort of combat.

Matthew
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Anthony Clipsom




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PostPosted: Wed 31 Aug, 2022 5:24 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

As matthew remarked, the circumstaces of the fight varied, and what happened during the fighting following a successful escalade or breaching of defences might be different to, say, a faction fight where both sides might have bases of operation within the town.

This article on 15th century Castilian urban fights contains some useful insights on the tactics of combat in built up areas.

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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Wed 31 Aug, 2022 5:30 am    Post subject: Re: Urban warfare during Antique to Renaissance times         Reply with quote

Matthew Amt wrote:


Probably the biggest concern will be having your army fragment into random handfuls of men, probably bent on loot rather than combat, completely uncoordinated and uncontrollable. That's the best recipe for turning victory into disaster. So as usual, your best weapon is going to be good discipline, backed up by things like signal horns. Just like in any other sort of combat.

Matthew


Thanks for chiming in Matthew!

I think this is indeed one of the challenges for an attacker. There are many cases where an attacking army prematurely loses cohesion and goes into 'looting / pillaging' mode while the defenders are still holding some kind of reserve, and then get attacked, and defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory so to speak.

One factor in this is that defenders in defensive strong points often have better situational awareness. The strong points are almost always on high ground (by the medieval period, they will almost always be up in a tower, sometimes a very high one) which gives them an edge in observation. They also know the city better than the invaders and may have things like sortie tunnels and hidden alleys they could use for counterattacks. I mentioned in another post on here about the use of very high vantage points like Cathedral towers and town hall towers during various battles. The townfolk also used church bells with pre-arranged signals and had pre-determined rally points and so on.

Matthew could you speak a little bit about Roman and Classical era torsion spring artillery? Do you know anything about it's use in sieges or urban warfare?


Fortified towns became less of a 'thing' I believe not because forts don't work, but because most of the older fortifications of towns had been dismantled by their own national governments in the 18th-19th Centuries, so as to prevent the town from becoming a potential strong point for enemies, or from asserting their own autonomy. Urban autonomy was a problem for the Emperor and princes of the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th-16th Centuries, and even into the 17th and 18th and to a much lesser extent even lingering into the 20th. Lübeck, once queen of the Hanseatic League, lost the last of their special privileges as a "Freie und Reichsstädte" in 1937 because had refused to allow Hitler to speak there back in 1932.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_L%C3%BCbeck#Incorporation_into_Schleswig-Holstein

Towns which still had some substantial fortifications did prove to be a problem for attacking armies I believe even in the 20th Century, such as at Metz and Sevastopol

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Sean Manning




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PostPosted: Wed 31 Aug, 2022 10:47 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I think there are references from the 16th and 17th centuries to handing out targets to troops who were about to attack up a ladder, or keeping a rack of two-handed swords, targets, and short staff weapons in a bastion to defend it. But those are alternative to a long pike or a muzzle-loaded gun! Most troops had weapons which worked just fine in close quarters. The ancient writers describe Alexander's men carrying short general-purpose spears as well as their long pikes and using them in duels and attacks on fortifications. Polybius has a story of Romans trying to break into a breach in a wall with a Macedonian phalanx in it and failing miserably.
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Graham Shearlaw





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PostPosted: Wed 31 Aug, 2022 2:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Urban warfare during Antique to Renaissance times         Reply with quote

Matthew Amt wrote:



Fortified towns became less of a 'thing' I believe not because forts don't work, but because most of the older fortifications of towns had been dismantled by their own national governments in the 18th-19th Centuries, so as to prevent the town from becoming a potential strong point for enemies, or from asserting their own autonomy.

Towns which still had some substantial fortifications did prove to be a problem for attacking armies I believe even in the 20th Century, such as at Metz and Sevastopol


Its not just a 19th or 20th century thing, if conditions allow then a star-fort is still ideal.

See there use in north africa by the French 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment


The other reasion to abandon walls was the up keep / loan repayments and the hard limit to urban growth.
You build an expensive wall thats as short as you can and then in few decades the town is crying out for more space to build and grow in.
Rinse and Repeat even when the population falls.[/url]
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Matthew Amt




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PostPosted: Wed 31 Aug, 2022 2:39 pm    Post subject: Re: Urban warfare during Antique to Renaissance times         Reply with quote

Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
Matthew could you speak a little bit about Roman and Classical era torsion spring artillery? Do you know anything about it's use in sieges or urban warfare?


Oh, gosh, artillery is not my strong point, but I can lay out some basics. From what I know, Roman machines came in "small" and "large": the catapulta or scorpio which was an antipersonnel bolt-shooter, like a big crossbow; and the ballista, a larger stone-thrower.

Each century in a legion had one catapulta assigned to it, and they were (apparently) grouped together in batteries for use on the open battlefield. With 59 or 60 per legion, that's a pretty scary force, since they had a range of 300 yards or more, and a decent rate of fire. In sieges or assaults, they would be great for clearing the battlements of defenders.

Each cohort had a ballista, so 10 per legion, and they were usually used in sieges and assaults, not in open battle. They could throw a 3 to 5-pound stone ball, what, 200 yards or so? I don't recall exactly, but it was a frightening distance and they were both accurate and consistent. Once ranged in on a window or embrasure, they could knock the head off anyone who looked out. (The writer Josephus lost a friend that way!) And the Romans could also build much larger machines if necessary, though I don't remember the largest size.

I suspect that once a wall was breached and the troops poured in, artillery wasn't much of a factor. The fight would be won or lost before any significant number of machines could be moved into good shooting positions. They might be pre-sited to suppress towers and other strong points, I suppose, but it would all depend on the circumstances.

Matthew
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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Wed 31 Aug, 2022 5:41 pm    Post subject: Re: Urban warfare during Antique to Renaissance times         Reply with quote

Matthew Amt wrote:


I suspect that once a wall was breached and the troops poured in, artillery wasn't much of a factor. The fight would be won or lost before any significant number of machines could be moved into good shooting positions. They might be pre-sited to suppress towers and other strong points, I suppose, but it would all depend on the circumstances.

Matthew


Right like such as if there was a citadel or some other secondary or tertiary fortification inside the first.

Cities did tend to go down hard once the walls were breached, but there were exceptions to this. Holding out in the citadel was definitely a thing, sometimes for years.

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Ryan S.




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PostPosted: Fri 02 Sep, 2022 2:44 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I imagine that in the days when city walls were the norm, that it would be practically pointless for an attacker to attack a force inside a walled city that would be of equal strength. The fortifications would give the defenders too much of an advantage. This reminds me of the seven years war, where the Prussian and Imperial army are described as trying to out maneuver each other, but as both sides usually had picked out strong positions, neither would attack. The armies, however, were mostly fighting outside the cities. The cities and fortresses were manned by garrisons. Often in accounts of sieges, the prospect of another army coming to relieve the city plays a role. Some cities, however, were not defended. Athens was abandoned after the battle of Thermopylae, and most of the city was razed. That might explain why some armies left the city to meet the attackers.

I get a different idea from the World Wars, where the focal point seems not actually to be cities, but rather lines of defence such as the Siegfried line and where trench warfare played a role. The biggest battles aren’t even named after cities. That is not to say that cities weren’t important, but they weren’t strongholds, like in earlier wars. Rather tactically, cities became a type of terrain that was more valuable, but also had unique challenges to fighting in it.

I think that so far so good points have been made. I think a big difference between medieval urban warfare and urban warfare in WWI, would be that in the Middle Ages, they wouldn’t have had to clear out the houses one by one. In WWI and WWII, a machine gun nest or even a concealed sniper could create a big problem for the attacking troops, and slow down the advance. In most cases, the medieval defenders would retreat to the next level of formal defences, and try to stick together. The walls, gatehouses, and towers are going to be the most important objectives to control. If the defence becomes disorganized and spread out, they will lose their advantage.
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William P




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PostPosted: Thu 08 Sep, 2022 7:01 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sean Manning wrote:
I think there are references from the 16th and 17th centuries to handing out targets to troops who were about to attack up a ladder, or keeping a rack of two-handed swords, targets, and short staff weapons in a bastion to defend it. But those are alternative to a long pike or a muzzle-loaded gun! Most troops had weapons which worked just fine in close quarters. The ancient writers describe Alexander's men carrying short general-purpose spears as well as their long pikes and using them in duels and attacks on fortifications. Polybius has a story of Romans trying to break into a breach in a wall with a Macedonian phalanx in it and failing miserably.


yknow funnily enough ive had stuff like this in my head too, more specifically the use of pikes by much smaller numbers of troops against other smaller numbers, be it in urban warefare, skirmishes out in the wilderness etc im talking max 100 people fightingm, so a few 'squads' of men tussling with various weapons from the period

and to see if theres any text talking about how soldiers used, or DIDNT use their pikes. esp in the age of pike and shot but antiquity would be interesting.
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Ryan S.




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PostPosted: Thu 08 Sep, 2022 9:42 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

William P wrote:


yknow funnily enough ive had stuff like this in my head too, more specifically the use of pikes by much smaller numbers of troops against other smaller numbers, be it in urban warefare, skirmishes out in the wilderness etc im talking max 100 people fightingm, so a few 'squads' of men tussling with various weapons from the period

and to see if theres any text talking about how soldiers used, or DIDNT use their pikes. esp in the age of pike and shot but antiquity would be interesting.


That is an interesting question. I know that there are some sorts of terrain where long pikes actually wouldn’t work well, like forests or cities with narrow streets. I also, think that a pike square needs to have minimal size to be effectively a pike square, that is, to be able to defend from attacks from all sides. I am not sure what the minimum is. I doubt that modern reenactment groups are much bigger than 100 men, so I wonder what types of formations they use. Perhaps you could contact one?

One of the vulnerabilities of the phalanx, was that it could be flanked. So a smaller formation of pikes might be at a disadvantage in where they could easily be attacked from the side. A city could easily create a situation, if they had a wide main street and narrower side streets. A pike column moving up the main street could be easily attacked from the side streets. Therefore, the column would have to be narrower than the street to the extent that they could turn. This is probably why the Swiss Guards have halberds, which are still quite long, as opposed to pikes. Being spears with an axe head, halberdiers could use similar formations as pikemen, but in less space.

Here is a picture of a reenactors using pikes in a city. It doesn’t look nearly as unassailable as a pike square, and I am not sure how it would move:
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Matthew Amt




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PostPosted: Sat 10 Sep, 2022 2:57 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Ryan S. wrote:
William P wrote:


yknow funnily enough ive had stuff like this in my head too, more specifically the use of pikes by much smaller numbers of troops against other smaller numbers, be it in urban warefare, skirmishes out in the wilderness etc im talking max 100 people fightingm, so a few 'squads' of men tussling with various weapons from the period

and to see if theres any text talking about how soldiers used, or DIDNT use their pikes. esp in the age of pike and shot but antiquity would be interesting.


That is an interesting question. I know that there are some sorts of terrain where long pikes actually wouldn’t work well, like forests or cities with narrow streets. I also, think that a pike square needs to have minimal size to be effectively a pike square, that is, to be able to defend from attacks from all sides. I am not sure what the minimum is. I doubt that modern reenactment groups are much bigger than 100 men, so I wonder what types of formations they use. Perhaps you could contact one?


Well, I strongly suspect that small numbers of pikemen were simply not placed in situations where they'd have to fight small actions without support. You wouldn't send pikemen out scouting or foraging, you'd send cavalry or muskets. Or I suppose foragers could be pikemen, but they wouldn't bother with their pikes. (After all, foragers are not supposed to be fighting anyone!) But as I said, that's one of the problems in a city, your whole force is broken up into tiny bits and can't support each other. Likewise, the colonists in Jamestown realized on Day One that their pikes would be no good fighting Indians in the woods, so they simply used muskets and targeteers. Given enough armor, it worked great! They kept the pikes for fighting any Spanish attack, or for jabbing anyone trying to climb over the palisade.

Quote:
One of the vulnerabilities of the phalanx, was that it could be flanked. So a smaller formation of pikes might be at a disadvantage in where they could easily be attacked from the side. A city could easily create a situation, if they had a wide main street and narrower side streets. A pike column moving up the main street could be easily attacked from the side streets. Therefore, the column would have to be narrower than the street to the extent that they could turn. This is probably why the Swiss Guards have halberds, which are still quite long, as opposed to pikes. Being spears with an axe head, halberdiers could use similar formations as pikemen, but in less space.


The Swiss Guards carry halberds today because that's how guard units in the 16th century were typically equipped. Yes, they're meant to be more flexible than a pike block, because their potential duties demand that. But *any* unit can be flanked, either in a city or in the open, whether it's a drunk in a bar with a broken bottle or a division of tanks. Cities DO all something like that to happen much more suddenly than an open battlefield, true, but even cavalry or musketeers can easily get caught up in a charge and not even notice that they're passing alleys or sidestreets. If you're sending pikemen down a street, you can hope to keep them at a measured pace, and maybe just have a few scouts or flankers check the cross-streets for potential trouble. But I think we all agree that it's going to be a mess, and highly dangerous!

Quote:
Here is a picture of a reenactors using pikes in a city. It doesn’t look nearly as unassailable as a pike square, and I am not sure how it would move:


Yeah, it's a good illustration of the potential for using pikes in town, but what this little group lacks is depth and density. If they were in a line and 5 ranks deep, you wouldn't even think about running straight into them. Here, you can see too much space between those pikes, and it's tempting. OR just shoot them! Heck, one whiff of cannister from a 3-pounder, fired low so it ricochets off the pavement and makes a flat oval shot pattern, would riddle at least half of them. I've seen that demonstrated on man-size targets, and it's SCARY.

I remember one particularly good 17th century muster at St. Mary's City here in Maryland, a good 30 years ago. We had enough troops to form a square, and did a little drilling to work out how to form it from column. And it all clicked into place beautifully. Each side had a small "block" of pike, 2 ranks deep and I think only 4 men wide? Maybe 5 or 6. Each corner had 3 or 4 musketeers, colors and officers in the middle. We went to "Charge your pike", and the commander said, "Now everyone stop right there a minute and take a look around at this, cuz you might not see it again!" And it was really cool! But you're talking a total of 50 or 60 troops--reenactments in Europe are MUCH bigger! (We are envious!)

Matthew
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Jean Henri Chandler




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PostPosted: Sat 10 Sep, 2022 7:13 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Matthew Amt wrote:
Ryan S. wrote:
William P wrote:


yknow funnily enough ive had stuff like this in my head too, more specifically the use of pikes by much smaller numbers of troops against other smaller numbers, be it in urban warefare, skirmishes out in the wilderness etc im talking max 100 people fightingm, so a few 'squads' of men tussling with various weapons from the period

and to see if theres any text talking about how soldiers used, or DIDNT use their pikes. esp in the age of pike and shot but antiquity would be interesting.


That is an interesting question. I know that there are some sorts of terrain where long pikes actually wouldn’t work well, like forests or cities with narrow streets. I also, think that a pike square needs to have minimal size to be effectively a pike square, that is, to be able to defend from attacks from all sides. I am not sure what the minimum is. I doubt that modern reenactment groups are much bigger than 100 men, so I wonder what types of formations they use. Perhaps you could contact one?


Well, I strongly suspect that small numbers of pikemen were simply not placed in situations where they'd have to fight small actions without support. You wouldn't send pikemen out scouting or foraging, you'd send cavalry or muskets. Or I suppose foragers could be pikemen, but they wouldn't bother with their pikes. (After all, foragers are not supposed to be fighting anyone!) But as I said, that's one of the problems in a city, your whole force is broken up into tiny bits and can't support each other. Likewise, the colonists in Jamestown realized on Day One that their pikes would be no good fighting Indians in the woods, so they simply used muskets and targeteers. Given enough armor, it worked great! They kept the pikes for fighting any Spanish attack, or for jabbing anyone trying to climb over the palisade.

Quote:
One of the vulnerabilities of the phalanx, was that it could be flanked. So a smaller formation of pikes might be at a disadvantage in where they could easily be attacked from the side. A city could easily create a situation, if they had a wide main street and narrower side streets. A pike column moving up the main street could be easily attacked from the side streets. Therefore, the column would have to be narrower than the street to the extent that they could turn. This is probably why the Swiss Guards have halberds, which are still quite long, as opposed to pikes. Being spears with an axe head, halberdiers could use similar formations as pikemen, but in less space.


The Swiss Guards carry halberds today because that's how guard units in the 16th century were typically equipped. Yes, they're meant to be more flexible than a pike block, because their potential duties demand that. But *any* unit can be flanked, either in a city or in the open, whether it's a drunk in a bar with a broken bottle or a division of tanks. Cities DO all something like that to happen much more suddenly than an open battlefield, true, but even cavalry or musketeers can easily get caught up in a charge and not even notice that they're passing alleys or sidestreets. If you're sending pikemen down a street, you can hope to keep them at a measured pace, and maybe just have a few scouts or flankers check the cross-streets for potential trouble. But I think we all agree that it's going to be a mess, and highly dangerous!

Quote:
Here is a picture of a reenactors using pikes in a city. It doesn’t look nearly as unassailable as a pike square, and I am not sure how it would move:


Yeah, it's a good illustration of the potential for using pikes in town, but what this little group lacks is depth and density. If they were in a line and 5 ranks deep, you wouldn't even think about running straight into them. Here, you can see too much space between those pikes, and it's tempting. OR just shoot them! Heck, one whiff of cannister from a 3-pounder, fired low so it ricochets off the pavement and makes a flat oval shot pattern, would riddle at least half of them. I've seen that demonstrated on man-size targets, and it's SCARY.

I remember one particularly good 17th century muster at St. Mary's City here in Maryland, a good 30 years ago. We had enough troops to form a square, and did a little drilling to work out how to form it from column. And it all clicked into place beautifully. Each side had a small "block" of pike, 2 ranks deep and I think only 4 men wide? Maybe 5 or 6. Each corner had 3 or 4 musketeers, colors and officers in the middle. We went to "Charge your pike", and the commander said, "Now everyone stop right there a minute and take a look around at this, cuz you might not see it again!" And it was really cool! But you're talking a total of 50 or 60 troops--reenactments in Europe are MUCH bigger! (We are envious!)

Matthew


I largely agree with your assessments here Matthew, and with the notion that the pike would be of somewhat limited use in urban conflict; however I'm not certain you could rule them out. Much would depend on the layout of the town - broad boulevards or narrow streets. Either way, pikes wouldn't be used in the same manner as in the open field, and smaller weapons would have certain advantages, but they may have still had some use. It's also worth noting that that pikes and the equivalent 'long staves' of similar length were in fact used in small conflicts and as individual weapons and were routinely carried by travelers as protection in the countryside. They show up in art, they are included in several period fencing manuals (including notably, by Joachim Meyer), people apparently dueled with pikes, and their use as weapons is described in personal memoirs and other records.



This is from Meyer, the two guys on the top are practicing 'long staff' which is for pike training.

I did a paper several years ago looking at combat from two 16th Century memoirs, one by the rowdy Italian goldsmith, soldier and sculptor Buenvenutto Cellini. In his memoir he described carrying a pike while traveling and getting into a fight with some political rivals at a ferry landing.

"....I walked boldly forward holding my pike. Tribolo had stayed behind, huddled on his horse as if he had been frozen, and Lamentone, the courier, was puffing and blowing like the wind itself.

[Cellini argued with his rivals about sharing the ferry]

"I answered, 'If God, and the right that's on my side, and my own strength have anything to do with it, you'll do nothing of the kind.'

And as I said this I jumped into the boat. Then I pointed my pike at them and shouted:

'This'll prove to you how impossible it is.'

The young Magalotti, wanting to put up some sort of show, gripped his weapon and marched forward. I leapt to the side of the boat and landed him such a thrust that if he had not fallen backward I would have run him through. His friends, far from coming to help, began to move away.

I saw that i could kill him, but instead of attacking i said: 'Get up my friend, take your weapons and go away. You can see now clearly enough that I can't be forced to do what I don't want to do, and what i could have done, I didn't want to.'


He also mentions an incident during which he was working on a commission for the King of France, and having been paid, was accosted by robbers (probably in the hire of one of the King's courtiers) on the way home. After fighting them off and retreating toward his Paris compound, he was rescued by some of his servants carrying pikes:

"I shouted at them in Italian; and I kept on thrusting and cutting, coming near more than once to dealing a deadly low. Seeing how wonderfully skillful I was they decided that i was a soldier rather than anything else; and little by little they drew away from me, keeping close together and muttering quietly in their own language. I myself kept saying, very gently, that anyone who was after my weapons and my cloak wouldn't find them easy to take. I began to quicken my pace, and they slowly followed after me: I grew more alarmed at this, thinking that if there were another ambush waiting for me I'd be attacked on two sides. So when i was about a hundred yards from where I lived I took to my heels and started bellowing: 'To arms! To arms! Outside! Outside! I'm being murdered.'

Four young men with pikes ran out immediately: and when they were pursuing my attackers - who could still be seen, I said in a very loud voice: 'Those four cowards couldn't plunder one man by himself of the thousand gold crowns that are breaking my arm. So let's go and put the money away, and then with my big two-handed sword I'll come along with you wherever you like."


If you look closely at this mid-16th Century map of Speyer from Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia, right in the center you'll see a couple on the road, heading to the ferry. The man is carrying what appears to be a very long staff or a pike, about 4-5 meters long. I always thought it was a powerful depiction of where the safety of the fortified town ends and the dire risks of the open road begin.

The use of the pike by travelers seems to be due to the reach advantage, almost like carrying a gun. A robber could still accost them but must risk getting past the point.

We don't have too many artistic depictions of urban warfare, but there are some and we do typically see the use of long polearms. This image of a 1371 weavers revolt in Cologne (a woodcut from a 19th Century reprint of 1499 chronicle) depicts some quite long spears, which you might call pikes.You can clearly see where the advantages of the longer weapons still apply on the streets.

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William P




Location: Sydney, Australia
Joined: 11 Jul 2010

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PostPosted: Sun 11 Sep, 2022 7:02 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Matthew Amt wrote:
Ryan S. wrote:
William P wrote:


.


That is an interesting question. I know that there are some sorts of terrain where long pikes actually wouldn’t work well, like forests or cities with narrow streets. I also, think that a pike square needs to have minimal size to be effectively a pike square, that is, to be able to defend from attacks from all sides. I am not sure what the minimum is. I doubt that modern reenactment groups are much bigger than 100 men, so I wonder what types of formations they use. Perhaps you could contact one?


Well, I strongly suspect that small numbers of pikemen were simply not placed in situations where they'd have to fight small actions without support. You wouldn't send pikemen out scouting or foraging, you'd send cavalry or muskets. Or I suppose foragers could be pikemen, but they wouldn't bother with their pikes. (After all, foragers are not supposed to be fighting anyone!) But as I said, that's one of the problems in a city, your whole force is broken up into tiny bits and can't support each other. Likewise, the colonists in Jamestown realized on Day One that their pikes would be no good fighting Indians in the woods, so they simply used muskets and targeteers. Given enough armor, it worked great! They kept the pikes for fighting any Spanish attack, or for jabbing anyone trying to climb over the palisade.

Quote:
One of the vulnerabilities of the phalanx, was that it could be flanked. So a smaller formation of pikes might be at a disadvantage in where they could easily be attacked from the side. A city could easily create a situation, if they had a wide main street and narrower side streets. A pike column moving up the main street could be easily attacked from the side streets. Therefore, the column would have to be narrower than the street to the extent that they could turn. This is probably why the Swiss Guards have halberds, which are still quite long, as opposed to pikes. Being spears with an axe head, halberdiers could use similar formations as pikemen, but in less space.


The Swiss Guards carry halberds today because that's how guard units in the 16th century were typically equipped. Yes, they're meant to be more flexible than a pike block, because their potential duties demand that. But *any* unit can be flanked, either in a city or in the open, whether it's a drunk in a bar with a broken bottle or a division of tanks. Cities DO all something like that to happen much more suddenly than an open battlefield, true, but even cavalry or musketeers can easily get caught up in a charge and not even notice that they're passing alleys or sidestreets. If you're sending pikemen down a street, you can hope to keep them at a measured pace, and maybe just have a few scouts or flankers check the cross-streets for potential trouble. But I think we all agree that it's going to be a mess, and highly dangerous!

Quote:
Here is a picture of a reenactors using pikes in a city. It doesn’t look nearly as unassailable as a pike square, and I am not sure how it would move:


Yeah, it's a good illustration of the potential for using pikes in town, but what this little group lacks is depth and density. If they were in a line and 5 ranks deep, you wouldn't even think about running straight into them. Here, you can see too much space between those pikes, and it's tempting. OR just shoot them! Heck, one whiff of cannister from a 3-pounder, fired low so it ricochets off the pavement and makes a flat oval shot pattern, would riddle at least half of them. I've seen that demonstrated on man-size targets, and it's SCARY.

Matthew


so the reason i find this question curious is being a reenactor using a 2 handed spear, around 3m like in the image in the link/ attatched
and ive been fascinated by the byzantine kontarion (which is a 4-4.5m pike) as well and have done some minor drilling with said kontaria (with a slung shield much like a macedonian phalangite pelta
http://myArmoury.com/talk/files/95293238_1015..._n_101.jpg
having held some 17th century groups pikes, i noted that.,.. they just feel like my 3m spear used in reenactment, but longer and with more inertia, but i could do my normal spear movements and slide thrusts etc
its like going from a regular 3lb and 4ft longsword to a 6lb and 5 1/2 ft montante

and thus. i question the idea that 'a pike is only for big formations' mentality.. sure itll have limits but i suspect theyre not as bad as people might think,
the quotes about the jamestown residents is a VERY good thing to note. and i might try and chase it up

i almost envision, either macedonian, byzantine, or renaissance infantry, alongside some officers with polearms, dudes with ranged weapons some people with just short weapons and shields etc, fighting in a fairly flexible line, so jabbing the pike, voiding the leg and binding the pikes etc, probing at the person ahead and suddenly striking obliquely at the guys either side of your opposite number when they step into measure. and the other soldiers stopping the big pikes from being flanked etc



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(cannot believe i missed, he tucked in his stomach and the shot fell short by ..an inch or 2)
but thats me with the spear
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Ryan S.




Location: Germany
Joined: 04 May 2012

Posts: 353

PostPosted: Sun 11 Sep, 2022 9:20 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I think that pikes aren’t just for big formations, however, bigger formations offer more advantages. A pike square can defend from all sides, and because pike allow the first few rows to fight, and not just the first row, the more depth one has the better. Two or three pike men can still fight effectively against a small group of men armed with other weapons. One can even duel with a pike. Lindybeige has some videos on spears vs. swords and demonstrates that spears have an advantage against swords, in many situations. The big exception is a sword with a large shield, however this advantage disappears once there are multiple spearmen. I don’t see why a pike would be any different, and as Jean said it was used as a self-defence weapon. Some medieval streets might be narrower than the pike is tall, and one is going to have trouble carrying a pike indoors, so a shorter spear would be more versatile. Which is probably why in the 16th century Swiss halberdiers were hired by rulers as guards, and not pikemen.

It has also just occurred to me, that when marching in columns, gaps could be left between ever 5 or so lines of soldiers. This way, if attacked from the side street, the soldier would have room to move and fewer soldiers would be attacked from the side.
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