First Civil War Part 1

Question 1

What were armies made up of

Answer 1

Cavalry

• heavy
• light

Infantry

• musketeers
• pikemen

Artillery

• cannons
• mortars

Question 2

Pikemen in the civil war

Answer 2

Carried a pile up to 5m long

In battle, pikemen would typically form up in a block six ranks deep (and 20-30 men wide)

The front door ranks would level their pikes at the enemy at chest height

The 2 ranks behind would wait to fill gaps as people well killed or help to push forward and trample the enemy

Question 3

Musketeers in the civil war

Answer 3

Most musketeers used a matchlock musket

It took about a minute to reload the musket, and most musketeers only carried enough gunpowder to fire twelve shots

Musketeers might carry a sword as a back up weapon but most used musket as clubs if necessary

Question 4

Infantry tactics in civil war

Answer 4

When infantry units faced each other, they would generally advance slowly together, stopping to fire volleys occasionally

At 20-30m they would halt and maintain a steady fire against the enemy

Given the slow rate of reloading, the woeful inaccuracy of a smoothbore musket, and the fact that firing one created a dense cloud of white smoke that soon hid the enemy from view. This was usually a lot less dangerous then it sounds

At this point, the other unit would charge them to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
This was the pikemen moment although the musketeers might well joint in with their swords and clubbed muskets

If they’d judged it right, the enemy unit would break and run rather than stand and fight
Otherwise there was likely to be a prolonged and confusing melee with lots of pushing and shoving as well as stabbing

Question 5

Heavy cavalry in the first civil war

Answer 5

Heavy cavalry sore armour and its role was to form up in close formation and charge the enemy to ride them down

Their primary weapon was the sabre

Due to the great expense of full armour they’re were extremely few heavy cavalry regiments in service

Question 6

Light cavalry in the first civil war

Answer 6

Light cavalry was equipped with swords and firearms- carbines and pistols - and had little armour except perhaps for a helmet, breastplate and leather buff coat

Their role was to skirmish, guarding the flanks of the heavy cavalry and harassing the enemy from a distance

Rupert often used Light Cavalry as heavy - to charge the enemies and eventually parliaments armies began to copy this

Question 7

Artillery in the first civil war

Answer 7

Cannons were effective at knocking down the walls of enemy fortresses but played little part in field battles

They were heavy and clumsy, too slow to fire and very difficult to move around to aim at new targets

What commonly happened was that when can army drew itself up for a formal battle, the cannons would be lined up and fire a few shots at the enemy to start the battle, but afterwards would play little role in the fighting

Mortars fired an explosive shell up in the air and then down onto the enemy

Question 8

Battle tactics

Answer 8

The infantry would form up in the centre of the line

The cavalry were then placed on either side of the infantry

The cavalry would normally begin the battle by charging the enemy cavalry, as the slower-moving infantry moved steadily toward

The winner of the initial cavalry battle then had 2 options

They could try to move around behind the enemy infantry and charge them from the rear while their own infantry engaged them from the front

Or they could chase the fleeing enemy cavalry across the countryside, or plunder the enemy baggage train

Meanwhile the infantry should move towards each other firing their muskets when in range and then attacking each other in hand to hand combat