which was the superior land army during the 15th-16th centuries: Spanish Tercios or Ottoman Janissaries?
15th: Jannisaries
16th: Tercios
I saw this same thread in Forocoches last week. Are you the same author?
>>1911779
Were the tercios a thing in the 15th-16th century?
I thought they came later, also the jannisaries were a small part of the ottoman army in those periods while they were complemented by other troops.
just fyi tercios didn't exist in the 15th century, the idea came about after the battle of cerignola in 1503 when an army composed of spanish arquebusiers and landscknechte pikemen were able to set themselves up in a strong defensive position against a significantly larger French army mostly of heavy cavalry and some swiss pikemen. The arquebusiers moved forward to mass fire on the french and when they came to charge the landsknechte moved into the front to form a pike square and stop them. This led to the spanish winning a devastating victory with very minimal casualties.
After analyzing that battle it was decided that forming a mixed unit of pikemen and gunners could make up for the inherent weakness of early gunpowder formations to cavalry charges.
>>1911828
Did the Swiss pikemen end up fighting? How did they fare?