League Of Augsburg - Fighting Talk

Hello everybody,

My understanding of the pike being used in the GNW is that the Swedes employed it the first part of the war up til Charles was in exile after Poltava. The Swedes moved away from the pike for a period until Charles' return and he reintroduced it.

For the Russian's is it correct that they used pikes at Narva in 1704? How long did they retain the pike during the GNW?

Cheers

Edward

You'll get lots of different answers on that Edward!

I personally do not have a definitive answer on when the Russians stopped using the pike but I suspect it was well after Narva (1700)


cheers

B

I believe that Tacitus has a post somewhere here on this forum that says that the Russian regulations that were in effect in 1708 provided that every other man in the first rank was to be a pikeman. Since there were four ranks, this means that one in eight were pikemen. I believe that Tacitus says that there is no evidence one way or the other as to whether pikes were used before then, but I may be wrong on that.

Also, some of the Swedish regiments at Helsingborg and Gadebusch had pikes and some were all musket. Tacitus details which regiments had what on his website. IIRC he posted something detailing this on this forum.

Thanks Dfogleman2,

As for the other nations I am aware from other topics on the forum in the 9YW and WSS that the Danes did not carry pikes. What about the other nations in the GNW; the Poles/Saxons/Prussians?

cheers

Edward

The Saxons, Danes and Prussians did not carry pikes, although I believe that the Danish infantry was supposed to have been equipped with pikes late in the war. They did not have them at Gadebusch or Helsingborg. The Polish infantry was usually involved in garrison duty and rarely, if ever, was involved in general field actions.

FWIW, I plan to have majority of my Russian units with pikes in the front rank and some with all muskets.

The new infantry regiments raised in Russia in 1700 did not have pike – at least the available sources show that muskets were issued to all lower ranks.
Those few regimental records we have for early 1700s read that some units had pike. Permsky regiment was issued pike in 1700 – for its 1,073 men they received 1,000 muskets, halberds for the NCOs and 192 pikes which means that the latter was surplus weapon. Troitsky regiment, having lost nearly all its bayonets in the Narva battle, in 1701 received 436 pikes but in 1702 they gave away 120 and in 1706 the remaining 316 pikes.
The Campaign Journal of Field Marshall Sheremetev contains data about weapons actually lost in action by regiments – during storms of Dorpat and Narva in 1704. And out of 25 units for which we know their armament in 11 units pikes were mentioned among their arms.
It is hard to make generalizations on the scarse sources we have, but I would say that pikes were in some limited use in Russian field infantry in early 1700s. Were pikes brought to field? Did they form central section in a battalion? I don't know. Then pike was universally introduced in 1707-08 and used till 1711 and then reintroduced in 1712 - 1715.
‘The Establishment for combat as of today’ issued in March 1708 said that pikemen were to be every second soldier in the front rank, which in the four rank formation gave exactly one eighth proportion.

Boris wrote: ‘The Establishment for combat as of today’ issued in March 1708.

Is this document available somewhere online ?
I speak Russian.

maciek wrote:

Boris wrote: ‘The Establishment for combat as of today’ issued in March 1708.

Is this document available somewhere online ?
I speak Russian.

Let us hope you can read it too as the link on

http://www.peter.petrobrigada.ru/reg/reg_e.htm

leads me to a page that is written in

Its a question of font they used.

"Учреждение к бою по настоящему времени"
http://www.peter.petrobrigada.ru/reg/uch708.htm (page encoding needs to be changed in browser properties, alas)
or
http://mikv1.narod.ru/text/Ucrezdenie1946.htm