Explanation: In the Late Medieval Period, a revolution in infantry tactics and equipment came about, spearheaded (ha) by the Swiss. By getting together a band of highly-motivated militiamen, trusted with their own weaponry and communally trained, they discovered that the knightly elite could be held at a distance - with 3 meter+ long spears (pikes)!
While such pikes were not new, the training regimen by independent groups of Swiss militiamen, gathering disparate militia units together in case of foreign threat, operated much more aggressively than previously. Rather than a purely static formation, Swiss pikemen were trained well-enough that they could maintain a wall of pikes while walking, or even at a trot (‘pike charge’, also the name of one of the holding positions for a pike, ‘at charge’). Swiss pikemen would become the last word in European warfare for some 200 years, and their imitators would eventually form the basis of modern professional armies, replacing the ad-hoc retinues of the warrior-caste of European aristocracy.
Swiss pikemen were trained well-enough that they could maintain a wall of pikes while walking, or even at a trot (‘pike charge’, also the name of one of the holding positions for a pike, ‘at charge’). Swiss pikemen would become the last word in European warfare for some 200 years, and their imitators would eventually form the basis of modern professional armies, replacing the ad-hoc retinues of the warrior-caste of European aristocracy.
Meritocracy … good?
Bullshit nobility… bad?
My god, with these strategies, I could control the biggest contiguous land empire the world will ever know!
Explanation: In the Late Medieval Period, a revolution in infantry tactics and equipment came about, spearheaded (ha) by the Swiss. By getting together a band of highly-motivated militiamen, trusted with their own weaponry and communally trained, they discovered that the knightly elite could be held at a distance - with 3 meter+ long spears (pikes)!
While such pikes were not new, the training regimen by independent groups of Swiss militiamen, gathering disparate militia units together in case of foreign threat, operated much more aggressively than previously. Rather than a purely static formation, Swiss pikemen were trained well-enough that they could maintain a wall of pikes while walking, or even at a trot (‘pike charge’, also the name of one of the holding positions for a pike, ‘at charge’). Swiss pikemen would become the last word in European warfare for some 200 years, and their imitators would eventually form the basis of modern professional armies, replacing the ad-hoc retinues of the warrior-caste of European aristocracy.
BLUEBLOODS REKT
Meritocracy … good?
Bullshit nobility… bad?
My god, with these strategies, I could control the biggest contiguous land empire the world will ever know!
SOMEONE STOP THIS DANGEROUS RADICAL
Ahem… Marignano, Biccoca, Pavia
#team_landsknecht
Hey now, those are all 200+ years after the first great victories of the Swiss! My rough timeline remains correct! XD