barr7430 wrote:Welcome to the Boards TNugent (when I saw your name for a second I thought Ted Nugent of Catch Scratch Fever fame had hung up his semi acoustic and settled down to wargaming as a hobby but I guess you are NOT that TNugent)
I am not in fact new to the forum but a returner who was on the forum in the past. I am not that TNugent or indeed any other TNugent, although I was a bit of a fan of Ted in the past
barr7430 wrote:Great that you have chipped in some info here which I am certain will 'run'. The 'pike debate' caused no little heat a few weeks back in another thread. Although not involved I was a lurker on that one.
I have been lurking for some time and I saw this ‘debate’. I also did not join in as frankly most of what was said by both sides was not worth commenting on.
I am also not intending to debate now as there is little to debate on this matter and little point debating it on a forum like this.
barr7430 wrote:A lot of what gamers believe(and I include myself frequently in this category) is based on word of mouth, accepted myth, sources which are not always primary. We have had several 'students of the period' contribute here and their motivations are not always aligned with gamers motivations. The clash generates some heat but in my opinion this is mostly good natured. No group has the moral high ground.
I think that this is very true and this can be a problem. Much of what gamers believe is not in fact historically correct (in all periods) or only half true. Part of the reason for this is the ‘time lag’ between when our historical perspectives were formed (typically childhood/early adulthood) and now. Wargamers are notoriously ‘behind the times’ in historical knowledge.
I would certainly agree that ‘No group had the moral high ground’ in the last exchange, it was not a debate. But I am not sure that I understand the concept of ‘morale high ground’ if it had been a real debate. A debate of this kind is about what is true or can be argued to be true, not about moral high ground.
The other problem is to do with what answer historians want from information and what gamers want. Historians are looking for the reality of something or answer to something. Sometimes they have to accept that we just don’t know. Far too commonly they don’t though and are tempted into what my old tutor called ‘Baseless Opinion Lacking in Logical, Unbiased, Credible or Knowledgeable Sources’ (he often used ‘BS’ instead of ‘Baseless
). But for a gamer you have to have certainty because you need that in a set of rules/game for it to function. An obvious and uncontroversial example would be say the uniform of the ????? regiment at the battle of XXXX. For historical purposes it is fine to say ‘we just don’t know what the uniform was’. But as a gamer wanting to do the battle of XXXX then you have to have/choose some colour scheme to paint the unit despite the lack of info.
barr7430 wrote:In a desire to prove a historical fact right and 'make a mark' as a serious researcher controversial or counter intuitive points of debate become the focus of the historian.
The problem here is that I am not trying to ‘prove a historical fact right’ and I don’t think Stephen is either, although of course I might be wrong about Stephen.
But yes very true, and of course not restricted to modern historians. All the classic histories we now read were, in their day, 'controversial or counter intuitive'. What you actually mean by 'controversial or counter intuitive' is really 'not what I believe in'. Chandler for example was roundly criticised in his early days for being 'controversial or counter intuitive'.
Also of course this equally true of gamers as it is with historians.
barr7430 wrote:I would be quite happy to believe the home nation's(and other nationalities) were still carrying pike in quantity during the WSS. I think from a probability perspective it is likely to highly likely.
OK so here we have the main point and where I would like to make some points. I think that generally the posts on here about pikes have been rubbish. Often they have not been very clear and frankly some people have not understood them. Equally they and the replies have been full of ‘Baseless Opinion Lacking in Logical, Unbiased, Credible or Knowledgeable Sources’.
So I will start with what a summary of the facts – note here not opinions – on British/English pikes.
1: Unlike with other nations we do not have a document or source that gives an end date for the use of pikes in the British/English army. It would be great if we had something like the French order to stop using pikes issued in 1703 but we simply don’t have this for Britain and it is not likely we are going to get something.
2: We do have (as Stephen and others have noted) a collection of orders, official letters, muster documents, etc, from the official government and army archives concerning pikes in this period, WSS up to 1706.
These vary a lot and can be patchy in coverage but here are the general types (I have used modern style titles, etc, to try to make things clearer).
A: Orders from the Minster of defence or some high official in the defence department to some other official to issue the newly raised Colonel XXXXX with the listed weapons/equipment. The list in my previous post is one of these.
B: Requests by specific military commanders of regiments or small groups of regiments to swap the pikes the unit/units are currently using for other weapons because of a specific reason.
C: Similar to B above but an order to swap temporarily for a specific reason. This is common for a parade or similar.
These are NOT Stephen’s or mine or anyone’s opinions or points for debate or whatever. These are primary source material written by officials, officers & others at the time. They are I think more or less impossible to argue with. For those who wish to try then you are going to need evidence (otherwise what you say is just ‘Baseless Opinion Lacking in Logical, Unbiased, Credible or Knowledgeable Sources’) that the official records are forgeries or some kind of mega conspiracy or something similar.
As Stephen pointed out originally and I later clarified these all consistently point to a ratio of around 1 pikes to 2 muskets in the way I outlined previous. I will repeat again - These are NOT Stephen’s or mine or anyone’s opinions or points for debate or whatever. These are primary source material written by officials, officers & others at the time.
3: We of course know that pikes disappeared at sometime around the WSS period but the date this happened is very much up for debate. There is some evidence for various dates and also the number of references diminishes over time, but that could be for other reasons. I frankly can’t be bothered to debate it here and I think it would be pointless in any case. In my opinion most people who have studied this, as opposed to just relied on Baseless Opinion Lacking in Logical, Unbiased, Credible or Knowledgeable Sources, would put the date somewhere between 1704 and 1708, Certainly not 1697 or 1702 both of which are simply factually incorrect.
barr7430 wrote:Evidence is however required by others to justify such a point of view.
The above misses the point here. It is not a matter of finding ‘evidence’ to ‘justify a point of view’. Stephen, myself and others have been telling you what is in the official archives/primary sources. If you wish to ‘justify a point of view’ that is different to this then the poster has to come up with some evidence. Also this evidence needs not to be Baseless Opinion Lacking in Logical, Unbiased, Credible or Knowledgeable Sources.
To cover the various items in the government/army records would take at least a small book, as would any sensible discussion of other matters. I doubt any of the various posters have the time to do this or inclination to waste their time doing it here. The forum has been provided with plenty of summaries of the facts, not evidence, and information on where to get more. There are also at least 2 books which are on the way and which will talk about this. If forum members can’t wait for the books and can’t be bothered to check up on the information given then frankly I can’t be bothered to provide more details.
Finally I would also point out that much of the standard view of the tactics of this period is based on tiny fragments of completely unsuitable sources and accepted by most gamers & rules. We are unlucky in that not much good quality material has come down to us. So it is very stupid to dismiss what we do have out of hand because of views based on Baseless Opinion Lacking in Logical, Unbiased, Credible or Knowledgeable Sources.
Ginger
