Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Warfare/Pikes
A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear used by ground infantry. In the 14th and 15th centuries the infantry spear lengthened to become a pike, in this form it continued to dominate infantry warfare until well into the 18th century.[1] Unlike many similar weapons, the pike was not intended to be thrown. Pikes were a long-established weapon, and their adoption depended on organisational factors: the existence of disciplined units able to use pikes effectively in attack, and on the conscious decision to employ the pike. [2] The pike was initially employed as an offensive weapon, however by the second half of the sixteenth century the pike became primarily a defensive weapon. [3] The pike was most valued in conjunction with the use of a firearm, the pike provided a boundary or barrier between the attacker and gunman allowing him to reload his gun without being attacked.[4] In that sense the value of pikemen related not only to their role in attack but also to their ability to sustain a defence. They could provide protection against cavalry, as the pike outreached the lance. Furthermore, they provided arquebusiers with the defensive strength otherwise offered by walls or field entrenchments. [5] The introduction of the bayonet and the flintlock musket at the very end of the seventeenth century created something of a mini-revolution, because the flintlock musket increased three or four times the volume of fire, and simplified the deployment of infantry rendering the pike rather useless.[6]
References:
- ↑ DeVries, Kelly Robert. Medieval military technology. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1992, 17..
- ↑ Tallet, Frank, and Trim, D.J.B. European Warfare, 1350–1750, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P. 2010, 28.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Black, Jeremy. European warfare: 1494 - 1660. 1. publ. ed. London: Routledge, 2002.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.