Pike & Shot

Some variant on the Spanish Imperial flag

Thanks

>but if that's true why did it get dropped by Napoleonic times?
It wasn't, cuirassiers had... well steel cuirass. Only some specific role had armor though, since they weren't expected to fight in close range and because of the tactics of the day. Squares would attract canon fire, so why bother put armor to the average soldier anyway ? It would have been to costy.

/k/ told me that curaisseur armor was for swords and bayonets in melee since curasiars were for closing in on and fucking up ranks of infantry who screwed up bad enough to leave themselves vulnerable to a cavalry charge.

And it wouldn't stop musket balls.

So you're saying armor that could stop musket balls was available but not issued for economic reasons? That's interesting.

What kind of people/units got such armor in Napoleanic and later times? Were there no heavily armored infantry or cavalry for closing in on musket lines to put pressure on them? It seems like a good way to control the enemy's movement or wipe out a unit caught in the open.

I mean as late as the early 1700s there were still line infantry with curasis and swedes and swiss still had armored infantry shock troops for breaking enemy formations.

Did musket tactics and volley fire just make closing retarded?

Cuirassier's armor was ok-ish on a good day against muskets, it's true that it wasn't mostly to counter musket balls, but in a pinch it could do it. You only have to be protected against one bullet really. But it's true that overall, it was a relic of the old time by that era.
Armor could stop musket balls at long range, but it would've been worthless to infantry who needed to be fast, and yet they were vulnerable against canon fire. Basically, armoring the infantry would have been expensive, would have made the whole army slower on a large scale and during battles, and wouldn't have prevent them of being obliterated by canon fire, so why bother.

Cuirassiers still had their use in the 18th century up to the napoleonic wars, but it's true it was their last shot really. At that time, you could still hope for the best with an armored cavalry, they could make infantry and lighter infantry flea or break them. By the time better hand weapons were developed, it was finally over for them.

>go all-gunpowder
>get raped by cavalry

>go all-cavalry
>low numbers, expensive as fuck
>see a tercio
>can't go near because pikes, can't stay far because muskets
>wat_do.jpg

So basically, was rifling of barrel invented in the 1500 or something?

So basically, all thru these years you technically could have accurate rifles, but mostly hunting weapons of the nobles were sort of like that(and of course hunters, depending on the country)

.. and weren't the first "sharpshooter" units founded in a 1600's?

Infantry WAS armored for most of this period (16th/17th century).
Pikemen often wore 3/4 armor, not all, but front row was usually well armored.
Contrary to popular memes armor doesn't really impede your mobility that much, and these units fought in formation.
Of course they mostly used armor of lesser quality.

Why didnt they just combine the guns with pikes?

Also, musket ball will do heavy damage if it hits you close, i mean it's a ball-shaped object going thru you, instead of a needle-like object of a bullet.

But on longer ranges it tends to lose it's speed quite fast, so if you get hit from a faraway bullet, your leather buff coat might stop it and you only get bruises.

Rifles were hard to produce, hard to load, hard to supply properly because if your bullets aren't fitting closely, it didn't do much good.

Something like that, but until mid-to-late 19th century it was a lot cheaper to arm a regiment with muskets rather than rifles... plus muskets were a lot quicker to reload than early rifles.

The problem with rifling was the fact that the guns were muzzle-loaded rather than breech-loaded. And it's quite difficult to ram a ball down a rifled muzzle, which significantly lowers reload speed, and therefore fire rate. For that reason it was impractical to issue line infantry with rifled barrels before breech-loading was made possible. The difficulty of reloading would mean that they were at a serious disadvantage after the first volley, when the enemy advanced into range. The accuracy advandage would be nullified by the smoke that covered the battlefield after the first several volleys, and made it quite difficult to aim at anything except the general direction of the enemy formation. They would also be at a disadvantage while being charged, as the number of shots they would be capable of landing upon the advancing enemy would be much lower. All in all, it was impractical. However, rifled muskets were used by specialized skirmisher formations, like the jaegers.

Someone can tell you about the first bayonets

>Infantry WAS armored for most of this period (16th/17th century).
I was talking specifically about late 18th century though.

Line infantry were issued with rifles before breech-loaders with the minie ball.

Isn't this like the period right before shit started to get sort of modern? I mean like, franco-prussian war times

Breech-loading rifles and fairly accurate artillery were in use before the franco-prussian war and the french had a prototype machine-gun during it. Bolt-action was after franco-prussian.