Since this was a two-handed operation, the wooden stock had to be gripped under the arm, making it impossible to do more than simply point the weapon in the approximate direction of the enemy. Discharge was achieved by applying a hand-held, slow-burning match-cord to the powder in the vent. The primitive hand-gun had consisted simply of an iron barrel with a vent at the top attached to a wooden stock. The 16th century saw steady improvement in firearms. The arquebusiers, on the other hand, were deployed in depth to maximise fire. The pikemen required depth to ensure a solid enough formation to resist opposing phalanxes when it came to ‘push of pike’.

Generally, the pikes formed a central block, perhaps ten or more ranks deep, while the arquebusiers operated on the flanks, also in great depth.

Numbering 3,000 men – the equivalent of a modern brigade – the tercio was formed of 12 companies of about 250 men each, with the companies divided roughly evenly between arquebusiers and pikemen. The Spanish tercios became the military elite of Renaissance Europe. It was the Spanish who pioneered the new methods of infantry fighting. What were the correct proportions of arquebusiers to pikemen? Where should the arqubusiers be deployed, on the flanks of the pikemen or across their front? How should the arquebusiers operate to maximise the fire of their slow-loading, short-ranged, wide-shooting weapons? A 16th century arquebusier. Archers and gunners were able to shoot many of them down before they could get to grips, and dense, impenetrable blocks of pikemen and halberdiers could then bring them to a standstill.īut as the importance of infantry rose, tacticians and drillmasters found themselves grappling with the problem of integrating firepower and shock-action.

By the 14th century, infantry were gaining ascendancy over heavy horse on the battlefield. The Spanish Army was transformed in the first part of the 16th century into the most formidable military force of its age.

Total war pike and shot