"The Swedish Brigade. How did it operate?" Topic

Probably been done to death already, and I'm guessing that the answer is no one knows for sure.

Looking at the deployment of the three and four squadron brigades used between 1621 and 1632 the period illustrations show musket behind the front most pike block. The two flanking pike blocks have musket along side. The flanking musket can engage the enemy but the block behind the lead pike block can't. This seems wrong as a large part of the brigades firepower can't be brought into action.

So the question is how did the brigade operate in practice.

Arghhh! Admin please delete duplicates

The brigade formation is not static, the period illustrations just show the basic formation that is the starting point. Once the brigade is in action each of the squadrons will adopt one of 6 formations based on the requirements of the situation.(? I think it was 6 but my memory is not good after the stroke and I'm away from my reference library at the moment.)

So the actual formation in the middle of a battle could and would look quite different from the classic images. For example we know from Imperial accounts that at Lutzen at least one brigade advanced with all of their musketeers covered behind the pikemen.

The problem was of course that coordinating 3-4 battalion sized units and their formations was a lot of work and while it could allow for excellent flexibility and performance it did require a lot of training and experience. Turned out that simpler formations were a lot more soldier proof as they could be used effectively with less well trained officers and men. The loss in effectiveness and flexibility was acceptable, particularly when you consider that the same officers and men formed into Swedish Brigades would have performed worse.

Great to see that you are back Daniel!

Daniel S this is pretty much what I suspected thank you for the reply.

On a separate note I'm sorry to hear you have had a stroke but I'm very happy to see you are still in the land of the living! A fair number of us here on TMP have been worried about your health and have missed your contributions on the Swedish Army.

If you feel up to it (and are not bound by contract) at some point I'd be very interested in knowing more about the six formations. Sources for this level of detail seem sadly lacking in English (unless you know of some worth purchasing)

I cannot really comment on the details of the Swedish brigade, but I am also happy to hear that Daniel S is still around.

Welcome back, Daniel.

Sorry to hear about your illness but glad to see you posting again Daniel S. We English speaking TYW guys always look forward to your contributions.

Daniel, it's good to see you back here in the ranks of TMP.

Elenderil, at least a partial answer to your question can be found on page 97 of André Schürger's dissertation, The archaeology of the Battle of Lützen: an examination of 17th century military material culture, (University of Glasgow, 2015).

A link to a PDF of the paper can be found here:

link

As well, in the listing of "Figures and Tables" check out Figures 14 and 16.

Ryan T funnily enough I found that document via a google search and very useful it is too.

Welcome back Daniel, we have really missed you!