Was musket war the worst time to be a soldier? >marching against

>>31544167
WW1 was worse, imagine being gassed and going blind before dying a slow death.

>>31544167
better that than marching straight into a phalanx.

Sounds fucking terrible m8
Would probably rather risk being hacked to death by Turks fighting for the Byzantine empire.

>>31544190

phalanx was shit and unmaneuvareble
Alexander was smart because he used the Cavalry to protect the flanks and in a good position force the enemy against the phalanx
greeks later just "muh phalanx" and disregarded cavalry and the romans rekt them

well once your line broke you get to run away, so aslong as you are not at the front you are good.

The time before Penicillin sucked

>>31544167
It was a pretty good time if you had a longrifle and enough sense to hide behind something.

>>31544167
Yes
Being a cavalryman would have been the most scary thing ever, charging through musket and cannonfire with orders to throw you and your horse into a square of bayonets in the hope that enough of you dying ontop of them will punch a hole

>>31544430
You didn't charge into a bayonet square, that was the point of them

>>31544219
Not true, well a bit true but not completely
Alexanders phalanx wore less armor, usually just a helm and cuirass/linthorax, and had a shorter sarissa, afterwards they decided to wear more armor, and carry longer pikes, which made them less manuverable and made it harder to keep an effective formation
Pike phalanx really were the shit though, the pikes protected the wielders from range fire from above and when used in combined arms in the right way, proved a truly fierce fighting force

>>31544442
The point of the square was to defend from cavalry charges yes
That does not equate to cavalry not charging squares
There's accounts of it n shit in books, but I can't really be bothered to go finding them and shit

>>31544505
>>31544442
wew I remembered one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Garc%C3%ADa_Hern%C3%A1ndez

>>31544479
>Pike phalanx really were the shit though, the pikes protected the wielders from range fire from above.
A meme that never happened and flies in the face of all available evidence about what happens when pike meets arrows.

>>31544586
They were used against javelins, not arrows you fucking mutt

>>31544479
Oh and one thing I forgot, while macedonian leaders were rash and silly in pursuing "routed" romans over very uneven ground, but the longer pikes and more armor was probably because they were expecting to fight other hellenic people, so the heavier phalanx with the longer pike would be preferable in hot pike on pike action

>>31544586
sauce? genuinely interested, I saw the logic in how weighted pikes held in such a way in formation would cause missiles from above to be caught up and tumble below

>>31544537
That wasn't "orders to throw you and your horse into a square of bayonets in the hope that enough of you dying ontop of them will punch a hole"

That was a riderless horse that ran into a square and made a gap that the Dragoon commander exploited.

>>31544628
You said they didn't charge into a bayonet square, the guy was shot while charging into the square, and his horse continued to crash into it
Bong soldier at waterloo
>The next square to us, was charged at the same time, and were unfortunately broken into and retired in confusion
So yeah, they did charge into squares in the hope that they could get lucky and crash through