From a message of Tim on "Civilisation and Community" in the thread about "1648 Westphalia peace on 3 Nov. 2018.
"1648 though had seen in England a Royalist revolt in the south which had been defeated by Fairfax, the commander of the New Model Army - in theory under the control of the English parliament. It had also seen a Scottish invasion in support of Charles I which had been defeated at Preston by the New Model Army second in command - Cromwell. Following Preston, the army was to move both to take Charles under its control and also to purge parliament of any MPs of which it did not approve."
I wanted not to diverge from the subject of the thread as I many times do, and from now on try to make it separate threads, also to find my subjects easier back.
On several occasions I had the impression that the new model army approach came not out of the blue, but had yet precedents, as I now supposed from my thread about the Thirty Years War, here also on this subforum. And I read also from the Eigthy Years War in the Low Countries that a prince of Nassau formed new tactics against the Spanish Tercios and in fact a new kind of army.
My question of this evening: Weren't this Swedish model of Gustavus and that new kind of Dutch army, not precedents or equals to thes new tactics of both the Swedish and the Dutch?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f3ahk/what_was_new_in_cromwells_new_model_army_and_how/https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6050289-cromwell-s-war-machineAnd now I read that Gustavus had taken mostly the Dutch as model for his new style army:
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/12/20/gustavus-adolphus-and-his-army-i/"Key to Gustavus’ political success was his thoroughgoing reform of the Swedish military. He professionalized the army, changing it from a semifeudal levy whose formations consisted of ill-trained peasants recruited locally to a national force of well-trained regulars secured through conscription. He emphasized drill, military discipline, and volley fire by regiments freed from the old formation of infantry squares and reorganized instead into flexible linear formations. Most of these changes had been advanced already by Maurits of Nassau. Gustavus took the best Dutch innovations out of the waterlogged and canalized environment of the Netherlands to maximize their revolutionary battlefield potential on the broad plains of Poland and Russia. This made the Swedish Army one of the first and the finest standing armies of the era. This well-drilled and disciplined army, infused with a conjoined spirit of martial patriotism and fervent Protestantism, was uniquely able to shift from offense to defense with a speed and efficiency unmatched by any other army in Europe, or the world. Gustavus then elevated Sweden to the first rank of powers by taking his new model army, strategic vision, and advanced and well-drilled tactics to Germany, where he decisively intervened in the ‘Great War’ of the 17th century."
And yes when you read about the Dutch States Army:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_States_ArmyNew tactics in the late 16th century
In the years after 1590 the cousins William Louis and Maurice of Nassau, stadtholders and captains-general of Friesland and Groningen, respectively the remaining provinces, introduced important tactical reforms that would be copied by other European armies, thereby engendering a tactical
Military Revolution in the first half of the 17th century. The problem they tried to solve was that the lack of uniformity in armaments and tactical skills of the mercenary formations they hired on the open market made coordinated fighting difficult. In addition the dominant tactics of the time had been developed by their opponents, the Spanish commanders, and these favored the Spanish troops (who were well-drilled in them) over their imitators. What they needed was a new tactical conception that addressed the weaknesses in the Spanish tactics. Starting in 1596 they introduced a number of reforms that addressed both problems.
[38]First of all, they changed the relative preponderance of pole weapons over firearms. Henceforth a company of 119 men would have 38%
pikes, 25%
muskets, and 37%
wheellock arquebuses, compared with the old formation that had more than 50% pole weapons, like pikes and
halberds. Because the wheel locks were deemed unreliable, by 1609 the arquebuses were phased out and all firearms were to be muskets. In the cavalry the
lancers were after 1596 replaced with
cuirassiers and arquebussiers, both armed with firearms.
[39]The loss of pike men potentially diminished the defensive capacity of the company, as the rate of fire of firearms was slow, and musketeers needed to shelter in the safety of the squares of pike men when they were reloading. To counter this problem the important tactical invention of
volley fire by ranks was introduced, combined with the ancient concept of the counter-march, already used by the
Roman legions. This combined manoeuvre had the musketeers deploy in blocks of five or more ranks and nine files, in which the ranks successively fired their weapon simultaneously. After discharging its weapon the first rank would turn right, turn the corner of the block-formation and march to the rear, where it would start reloading, while the new first rank fired a volley, and so on. This tactic enabled the unit to sustain a relatively rapid rate of fire of sufficient "density" to discourage a charge by the pike men of the opposing square. The manoeuvre had to be executed in a disciplined way, however, to avoid confusion in the ranks, especially as the enemy was not sitting idly by. It therefore had to be drilled into the soldiers. And this drilling of the tactical manoeuvre was one of the mainstays of the reform. It required an attendant organisational reform, because the education of recruits now had to be entrusted to specialists, the company sergeants.
[40] At first the musketeers were placed on both flanks of a square of pike men, as in the conventional formation. But after 1609 the musketeers were placed in a continuous front before the pike men when they fired their volleys, only retreating into the safety of the pike squares when the opposing pike men, or the cavalry, charged them.
[41]The linear formation of the musketeer part of the company (the pike square remained in force) was just part of the total tactical reform. Older armies had divided the total force in three parts (hence the Spanish word "tercio" for each of these parts): a
van, main, and
rear, which in the Spanish conception were little differentiated, though the companies were deployed in a chequerboard formation for mutual support. The two stadtholders tried to improve on this by dividing their army into tactical units of around 900 men (6 companies), called "battalions," that could operate independently. They hoped in this way to gain flexibility and spread the risk of a rout when single units broke under attack. These battalion units were deployed chequerboard-like in three lines, again for mutual support. This method of deployment enabled the commander to rotate companies in a disciplined way, again to avoid confusion. Battalions were combined to brigades as fighting formations. To achieve this tactical flexibility companies had to drill in battalion formation. All units had to drill in the same way. Furthermore, before the campaign the commander-in-chief would communicate his preferences as to the battle formation to his officers by drawing up a battle sketched plan which gave the order of battle in a standardized notation.
[42] These methods were promoted by William Louis' brother
John VII, Count of Nassau, who wrote several works about the techniques that received wide distribution in military circles in Europe. Later, drill manuals were published to illustrate the new tactics step by step, like the 1607
Wapenhandelinghe van Roers Musquetten ende Spiessen by
Jacob de Gheyn II. This helped to engender a tactical military revolution in other countries also.
[43] The new tactics eventually even reached the English army, just in time for the Civil War.
[44]And a Canadian nearly eulogy of the New model Dutch army:
https://caans-acaen.ca/Journal/issues_online/Issue_XIV_i_1993/Haycock.pdfKind regards from Paul.
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