The picture at the head of this blog was painted Sebastian Vrancx and is called ‘Attack on a Convoy’. I chose it because it depicts all the main types of combat featured in the first half of the seventeenth century. On the left, a cuirassier wields a lance, while on the right, a Harquebusier has his arquebus on its sling and is using his sword. Above him a pikeman skewers a civilian, while to his rear a musketeer is clubbing an opponent. So Vrancx has shown all the major troop types, yet his picture shows no-one firing. Perhaps he wanted to emphasise the personal nature of the violence visited on the civilians who made up this convoy and whose possessions are scattered across the road, with wives and children separated from husbands, and lives snuffed out in a moment.

Wargaming the seventeenth century

A fellow wargamer, a member of the Friends of General Haig wargamers group has an excellent blog on wargaming the seventeenth century called The Via Regia. One of his pages is devoted to wargaming rules for the period as shown here. The list is huge yet can be broken down into broad categories:

Original rules: written in the 1970s and 80s, by titans of the hobby such as George Gush (founder of the Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society) and published by WRG (Wargames Research Group) and Newbury Rules. These rules use a low figure scale, typically 1 figure: 20 men, a small ground scale 1: 1,000 and concentrate on the attributes and weapons of the individual soldier. However, the large scale of the game means that only smaller battles can be recreated on very large tables.

Revolutionary rules: appeared in the 1990s in response to demands to fight simpler and larger battles, a trend that continues to this day. The first out of the gate were for their day, revolutionary sets built on the DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis) model and include WRG De Bellis Renationis (DBR), DBA-RRR and FOG-R (Fields of Glory Renaissance). They did away with the idea of figure removal for casualties, preferring a 'bang your dead' approach and folding morale into one overall combat calculation. DBR was adapted from DBMM and used 'elements' of 100 or 400 men as the basis for casualty calculation with formations built up from elements and player incentivised to keep units intact by the use of PIP (Player Initiative Points) which limited the number of units that a commander could move in one turn. FOG-R built on this by fixing formations into defined layouts and adding lots of special rules. The problem with this family of rules was that the effect of firepower is out of kilter with historic. One former play tester said that it produced the "Pikeless and Shotte Era" by overstating long rage firepower, especially unbalancing cavalry.

Field of Glory Renaissance was an adaptation of the earlier Ancients rules

Big bases and brigade rules: FOG-R was big on the competition scene but these sort of rules began to be replaced after 2010 when a new generation of rule designers came on the scene. Designers like Steve Thomas (Twilight of the Sun King and Tilley's Very Bad Day)[Tilly's Very Bad Day - Rules Archives - Steven's Balagan] who wanted fast play rules with which to fight historic battles and so required a large figure scale 1: 2,000 combined with a large ground scale 1: 1,000, using large bases of 80mm or more wide. While these rules eschewed figure removal and book-keeping solutions, nonetheless they did require some element of casualty removal, usually 3-5 levels shown by micro dice on the base or other markers. In effect, limited casualty removal without the figures which was a departure from the 'bang your dead' model and combat returned to the older shooting, melee and morale phases. While they produce a fast game, the combination of a large fixed base width, limited troop types and use of 'brigade' as the basic tactical level is problematic as I discuss below.

Innovative rules: Another group of designers after 2000 epitomised by Sam A. Mustapha adopted the brigade level games but made them period specific by use of clever special rules, such as use of cards and command features. Again these produced very playable rules able to depict large battles yet they add complexity to the game through their special rules and present the player with a steep learning curve.

Together with these broad categories, we can divide rules into those covering a single war such as the English Civil War (ECW) and those covering the entire period from usually 1580 to 1660. The former have an easier task such as depicting the ECW which can incorporate specific troop types and special rules governing them. The rule sets that attempt to cover the whole period face a greater challenge to reflect the great diversity across the period and within the geographic spread of the action, with colonial fighting, Eastern European warfare and the major wars of the period such as the Thirty Years War and Eighty Years War.

Assessment

Over the years I have looked at a great many sets of rules and found most of them wanting.

In the first place many sets are simply adapted from the more popular Ancient and Medieval period with adaptations to include firearms. This strikes me as problematic, as Ancient rules by their very nature are focussed on hand-to-hand combat, while Eighteenth century and Napoleonic rules are focussed on firepower. To my mind the Renaissance is focussed on both hand-to-hand combat and firepower and the interplay between them, the changing balance over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Pikes remained in use in most armies right through the last quarter of the seventeenth century, even though firepower and the use of bayonets was increasingly common, even though the Swedish Army retained pikes into the 1710s and the Russian Army continued to use pikes against the Ottoman Turks as late as the 1730s. Firepower may have been increasing but still had some way to go to reach the levels of the second half of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Secondly, as a historian, I am against 'technological determinism', the idea that an advance in technology brings about an evolution in military methodology or a 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA). The best example of this is the Maxim machine-gun that is supposed to have revolutionised warfare during the First World War and brought about the deadlock of the trenches. The resultant RMA brought about the invention of the tank, military use of aircraft and modern infantry tactics. (See Ellis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. Pantheon Books, 1975.)

In fact, machine guns had first appeared in 1851 and the Maxim in 1884 so by the timer of the First World War the Maxim was 30 years old and had been widely used in many colonial wars, the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War without appreciable effect. In reality the machine-gun affected no such change as has been claimed, the real agent of change was that railways now allowed the mass mobilisation of armies which had grown from several hundred thousand in 1870 to several millions in 1914. The density of troops now exceeded the space to deploy them and trench-lines could be manned all the way from the Swiss frontier to the sea.

Technological determinism has a long history, as Peter H. Wilson points out in his book on the battle of Lützen (Wilson, Peter H. Lützen. First edition. Great Battles (Oxford University Press). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2018.) with it originating with Hans Delbruch who fought in the Franco-Prussian War and then went on to become Germany's foremost military historian. It was he who created the idea of the 'Great Captains of History' with a focus on decisive battles and the idea of military evolution thought technological advancement. His ideas were taken up by Wilson in the 1950s in his two volume biography of Gustavus Adolphus who prompted the idea that Gustavus lightened the musket, introduced paper cartridges and invented military uniforms. Yet archaeology shows that there were a wide variety of weapons used at Lützen with Calivers alongside heavy Muskets, lighter Muskets and Arquebuses and a wide variety of ball sizes found on the field of battle. Clearly not one of these types was showing a marked superiority over the others. (See Raudzens, George. ‘War-Winning Weapons: The Measurement of Technological Determinism in Military History’. The Journal of Military History 54, no. 4 (1990): 403–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/1986064 for some counter-arguments.)

Principle themes of seventeenth century warfare

So what makes the warfare between 1568 and 1685 unique? One feature is that by the end of the period, nation states such as France, are sufficiently well organised and administered to raise and finance large, professional, standing armies which in France's case numbered over 200,000 personnel in wartime. More importantly, they were sufficiently well organised in terms of logistics that they could support this force in the field for long periods and deploy troops world-wide. This is often referred to as the rise of the Fiscal-Military State, where improved methods of taxation and government control of resources allowed those governments to pursue long term military objectives.

The reality of seventeeth century soldiery

Contrast this with the situation in 1632, where non-state actors, for instance the Catholic League in Germany, were raising much smaller armies, of poorly paid, mercenary soldiers, lacking uniforms and standardised equipment with some armies, such as those of Wallenstein, were the efforts of private individuals. This is more typical of the period and we see at the Battle of Nordlingen 1643, a Spanish army joined by an Imperial army and supported by a League army, facing a Swedish army allied to a Protestant Confederation army; five armies which between them fielded only 58,000 personnel. Spain represents the main nation state of the period able to maintain a standing army, which was funded largely by the silver coming over from the New World.

So even though multiple armies are deployed on the battlefield, they field smaller numbers of soldiers than in the last quarter of the century and this is reflected in their tactics, as the proportion of cavalry is higher and armies cannot occupy the open ground between two areas of impenetrable terrain with a double line of troops. So cavalry is more important and powerful, infantry must provide itself with all round defence, reserves and keep a certain proportion of firearms loaded at all times.

This is a key feature of the period, the evolution of tactics, not to respond to some technological determinist driver, but rather as the reaction to a set of circumstances created by the beginnings of the Fiscal-Military State. Armies are growing is size due to population growth, the creation of international markets and better transport routes, yet they are not so large as to dominate the landscape, as they started to do in the early campaigns of the eighteenth century. Gunpowder weapons had incremental improvement over the period from the end of the sixteenth century till the middle of the eighteenth century, yet those improvements were not so large as to be revolutionary. Artillery steadily become lighter, more standardised, with improved manufacturing techniques and more carefully made gunpowder. Calivers, muskets and arquebuses slowly coalesce into a single weapon, the firing mechanism improved with better manufacture and reliability, while new drill methods increased the rate of fire, coupled with improvements in ammunition. At the same time, hand-to-hand weapons decline from their dominant position at the end of the sixteenth century, to become a rarity or restricted to specific events such as sieges, or as a weapon of last resort in the early eighteenth century. The pike declines from its dominant position to finally disappear, a process that takes almost 150 years partly as a result of the rising amount of firepower on the battlefield and partly due to the expansion in the size of armies, coupled with their domination of the landscape. As armies grew in size, the proportion of the more expensive cavalry declined, armies began to fill up the landscape and battlefield became more crowded and in turn this reduced the opportunities for cavalry exploit its strengths of speed and surprise. Having said that, even as late as the Napoleonic Wars, infantry did not possess sufficient firepower to stop a cavalry charge by firepower alone and that was doubly true in the seventeenth century when firepower levels were lower.

Keith Roberts (Roberts, Keith. Pike and Shot Tactics 1590–1660. Bloomsbury, Oxford, 2010.) has argued that the period of the Eighty Years War, Thirty Years War and British Civil Wars saw an evolution in tactics with four distinct types over a period of eighty years. The original Tercio tactics of a massive pike block with supporting wings of musketeers and 'sleeves' of arquebusiers was challenged by a more nimble form of tactics in the Dutch and Swedish tactics which in turn were replaced by the more practical Combined German one. Viewed as a whole, this evolution saw an attempt to increase firepower and manoeuvrability while coping with armies that were fielded with less well trained, amateur soldiers, while retaining significant hand-to-hand capability and defence against cavalry by the use of pikes. This was followed in the second half of the seventeenth century by changes in the way countries were administered, a subsequent rise in their wealth, which gave rise to the professional soldier in larger standing armies. Tactics evolved further into linear tactics with regiments standing close together in a series of lines, flanked by cavalry on the wings or resting on terrain features. Improved drill did away with the need to keep reserves of firepower, as techniques like platoon fire and increased discipline ensured that some part of a battalion always remained loaded. By the middle of the eighteenth century, firepower improved by the move away from the six-deep line to a three-deep one, better drill allowed firing at three rounds a minute and the steady improvement of the weapons with paper cartridges, iron ramroads and socket bayonets, coupled with relatively smaller amounts of cavalry on more crowded battlefields, saw the abandonment of the pike.

Firepower

Can we quantify the changes in firepower over the period? In relative terms, it is possible, especially if we draw on the work of researchers like Hughes (Hughes, Basil Perronet. Firepower ; Weapons Effectiveness on the Battlefield, 1630-1850. Arms and Armour Press, 1974.) and others.

In British service, the Land Pattern Musket became the standard weapon from 1722, although it should be noted that even this standardised weapon would continue to improve until it was replaced in 1839, by the replacement of the wooden ramrod by a metal one, iron fittings replaced by brass ones and the original black powder charge could be reduced by a quarter due to improvements in the manufacture of gunpowder by the start of the nineteenth century. The second factor which determined firepower was the use of drill by the soldier to get the maximum rate of fire from the weapon and the use of platoon firing by professional soldiers reached its peak by the middle of the eighteenth century and there would be little improvement on this later. The third factor is the most difficult to quantify, which is battlefield conditions, muskets fouling after several shots due to material left over from previous discharges, misfires of the musket due to poor flints, improper filling of the frizzen-pan, or debris blocking the touch-hole and the effects of smoke on the shooters visibility. Muskets collected after battles showed multiple charges had been loaded but not fired by a combination of these battlefield conditions. As Hughes notes tests were made at the start of the nineteenth century by firing at targets in perfect conditions by the best troops and they recorded over 50% hits at 100 meters range. However Hughes calculates actual battlefield hits at 5-10% for a number of actual examples, reflecting the effect of real-life on actual performance.

Therefore, the base-line should be a late eighteenth century battalion of musket armed, well trained, professional soldiers numbering 500 men in three ranks who could fire at a rate of three rounds a minute by platoon fire, which would enable them to fire 1500 balls out to 100 meters obtaining an average of 112 hits in a minute of fire, which is the time it would take an attacker to advance over the 100 meters. The second factor to consider is the frontage over which this fire takes place, as the battalion would be three ranks deep and 166 files wide at 30" a file or 125 meters. This means that there would be 0.9 hits per meter per minute as a base-line for the density of fire.

Dutch squadron of two battalions operating as a pair

Around 1600, Maurice of Nassau instigated a series of reforms to the Netherlands army designed to counter the larger and more numerous Spanish tercios which resulted in a Dutch battalion of 500 men with 250 pikes and 250 musketeers in 25 files of muskets, 10 ranks deep. This would fire by the front rank marching forward a few paces, firing and the then returning to the rear of the formation to reload. The 25 files were divided into corporalships each of 4 files with a 6' gap between them, so each man only had to walk 4 files before turning and walking the 10 ranks to the rear to begin reloading. Allowing 15 seconds for the firing, and another 30 seconds for the four men to move down past the 10 ranks and fall in along the back, the battalion could fire 4 volleys of 25 muskets a minute. The first rank to fire would take 45 seconds to shoot and move and then another minute to reload, during which time, seven further ranks would have fired and moved to the rear. The main objective in this sequential method of firing was to maintain a reserve of men who always had loaded muskets to fire at any given moment. The cost was a slight slowing of the firing process, as by the time our original front rank had reloaded, there were probably only one or two ranks left to fire.

How much fire did this method deliver? 4 volleys of 25 balls every minute or 100 balls out to 100 meters but the frontage of the battalion was only 60 meters (1 meter per file, with 25 files musketeers and 25 of pikemen gives a total of 50 meters plus five 2-meter wide gaps between the musketeer corporalships.) Allowed for an average of 7.5% hits, so out of the hundred balls fired, allow 8 hits across 60 meters frontage or 0.13 hits per meter per minute density of fire which compared to our baseline eighteenth century battalion means about 15% of the density of fire.

Dutch battalion (pikes in green, musketeer corporalships in brown)

The Swedish army aimed to improve on this by reducing their ranks to 6, so covering a greater frontage, coupled with an increase in the proportion of musketeers. A Squadron of 504 men had 216 pikemen and 288 musketeers arranged into 36 files of pikes and 32 files of muskets and a reserve of 16 files of muskets at the rear of the squadron. The pikes and the muskets had the same frontage, allowing for the gaps between corporalships for counter-marching with a total of 76 meters frontage. The reserve musketeers at the rear provide for 'commanded shot' accompaning the cavalry or other detached tasks but many provided replacements for the front line to maintain the resilience of the squadron in battle over time. The Dutch system of fire by corporalships was used but clearly there would have been short periods when no one was ready to fire. Alternatively, two ranks marched forward, fired a 'salvee' and retired when another two ranks came forward to fire. Allowing 20 seconds for the firing, in a minute of fire, all 32 files of 6 ranks (192 musketeers) could fire. But with the need to retire and spend a minute reloading, there are probably half a minute when every musket was empty. However, the intnetion was that firing of three salvee was delivered just before charging home and hand-to-hand combat. Given this, the lack of loaded muskets was not too serious a disadvantage. 192 balls over a frontage of 76 meters in a minute gives 14 hits overall and 0.19 hits per meter per minute. This is a result about 35% better than the Dutch system yet it only represents 21% of our baseline fire density, remembering that a reserve had been deliberately held back, so the focus of the commander was on maintaining a reserve of fire for later in the battle and the reserve represented about a third of the overall firepower.

Roberts' Combined German system was very like the Dutch and Swedish systems except that all the musketeers were put into the six ranks facing the enemy without a reserve. Generally the troops are less well trained than the others, so they fired by single ranks in the Dutch method and so could fire 4 ranks in a minute with some 30 seconds spent with every musket unloaded to some degree and no fire reserve for later in the battle. The proportion of musketeers to pikemen had shift more in the formers favour, with a 3:2 ratio and a Squadron of 1,500 men would have 900 musketeers and 600 pikemen. This gave 150 files or 37 corporalships of musketeers usually divided into two shot blocks. A total of 250 files of pikes and muskets, plus 35 two-meter gaps between the musketeer’s corporalships, gave a frontage of 320 meter. Four volleys from 150 files gives 600 balls over 100 meters per minute or 45 hits over a frontage of 320 meters which translates to 0.14 hits per meter per minute. Assuming at this point they would engage in hand-to-hand combat, all would be well, because the second minute of fire was only going to be two ranks or half this rate. An average of 0.10 hits per meter per minute. In effect, it delivers less fire-density than the Dutch method on average or about the same for the first minute of fire. At best this density of fire was 15% that of our baseline battalion.

Later in the second half of the century, the decline in pikemen coupled with the retaining of six ranks, meant that around 330 of the available muskets would fire (four ranks) with a higher rate of fire of 2 rounds a minute delivering 660 balls across 100 meters and across a frontage 83 meters. This would have resulted in 50 hits or 0.6 hits per meter per minute which represented 67% of our baseline fire density. Again a reserve was held back to retain some loaded muskets at all times and to increase the resilience of the battalion. The real change was in simply replacing pikemen with musketeers, which could only be done by larger armies, more densely formed, with a lower proportions of cavalry and the use of some sort of bayonet or small number of pikes to hold off cavalry if they did put in an appearance.

What this does demonstrate is that firepower was a far less influential factor during the seventeenth century and due weight needs to be given to hand-to-hand combat until the last quarter of the century. Of course there will always be examples of a unit running into a full three rank salvee at close range and being destroyed as a result, however it appears that this was the exception rather than the rule.

Conclusion

So after this lengthy essay, what sort of wargame is needed? It has to be one that reflects small armies of unprofessional soldiers, the changing balance between firepower and hand-to-hand combat, high proportions of cavalry and a relatively empty battlefield with units standing in isolated and so adopting all-round defence. More importantly, it has to reflect the level of tactical change over the period and this is at the level of the squadron which is the 'tactical' group of a number of 'administrative' regiments and companies. The Dutch squadron of two battalions of 500 men each, with 250 musketeers and 250 pikemen should be our building block and there is a case to be made that the smallest element should be 250 men as a result.

The 'big base of 2,000 men' concept so beloved of modern wargames designers simply fails to show the granular detail that is at the heart of this period. In the eighteenth and Napoleonic periods, one could argue the same with the use of lines, columns and order-mixe at the battalion tactical level. However there is another level at play in this period, with the use of divisions and corps and the 'big base' concept works well to showcase these and arguably this is the more interesting level of this period. Yet the seventeenth century is different and shows tactical change and development at a lower level, combined with the organisation of armies in their battle formation linked to this. The armies are comparatively small at 20,000 men so that at element of 250 and a squadron of 1,000-1,500 could be fielded on the tabletop as 20 odd units made up of 80 elements. By contrast, the British force at Waterloo with 78,000 in 2,000 men, brigade sized, ‘big bases’ would still need 40 odd units. Whether such rules exist is another matter?

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