16th-century troops armed with a heavy version of the arquebus called a musket were specialists supporting the arquebusiers and pikemen formations.

The arquebusiers were usually split up in several mobile groups called sleeves ( mangas ) and deployed relative to the cuadro, typically with one manga at each corner.

( Although perhaps ironically or humorously, in at least one version of SW2's raining at Nagashino, Nobunaga responds by ordering his arquebusiers: " Simply use your rifles to beat them to death.

These arquebusiers and heavy cannons scythed down the close-packed ranks of the Swiss squares in bloody heaps — at least, as long as the Swiss attack could be bogged down by earthworks or cavalry charges, and the shooters were backed up by Spanish and / or Landsknecht pikemen to defend them if necessary from the Swiss in close combat.

This is closely related to the increase in the size of armies throughout the early modern period ; heavily armored cavalrymen were expensive to raise and maintain and it took years to replace a skilled horseman or a trained horse, while arquebusiers and later musketeers could be trained and kept in the field at much lower cost, and were much easier to replace.

Formations with a central core of pikes and bills were flanked by companies of " shot " made up of a mixture of archers and arquebusiers, sometimes with a skirmish screen of archers and arquebusiers in front.

Most infantry were pikemen who normally wore some armour, especially the front ranks, and gave protection against cavalry to the arquebusiers.

When the Landsknechts were first formed, arquebusiers composed up to an eighth of the total number of soldiers, but the number gradually grew to be about a quarter.

By 5: 00 in the morning, some 3, 000 arquebusiers under the command of Alfonso d ' Avalos had entered the park and were rapidly advancing on Mirabello Castle, where they believed the French headquarters to be ; simultaneously, Imperial light cavalry spread out from the breach into the park, intending to intercept any French movements.

The majority of Hernán Cortés's troops during his campaigns in the New World were rodeleros: in 1520, over 1000 of his 1300 men were so equipped, and in 1521 he had 700 rodeleros, but only 118 arquebusiers and crossbowmen.

Ieyasu's troops were arranged in a line, so they could make the best use of their arquebusiers.

Of Oda's forces, an estimated 3, 000 troops were samurai arquebusiers ( and they were placed under the command of his horo-shu ( 母衣衆 ), or elite bodyguards.

Between the continuous fire of the arquebusiers ’ volleys and the rigid control of the horo-shu, the Oda forces stood their ground and were able to repel every charge.

The Russian battle line consisted of infantry ( pikemen, musketeers, arquebusiers ), mostly behind the village fences, with a second line of cavalry to the rear and on the left wing ( where there were fewer fences ).

More than 500 arquebusiers and many dismounted bronze cannons were loaded aboard ; Jean Ribault had secured for himself the title of " Captain-General and Viceroy of New France ".

The Spanish Tercios as they were known was a military formation made up of a mixed infantry formation of about 3, 000 pikemen, swordsmen and arquebusiers or musketeers in a mutually supportive formation.

unable to advance, the Swiss were driven back by the Spanish arquebusiers, taking heavy casualties including Chandieu.

The Spanish arquebusiers, who were better armed and trained, peppered the French cavalry.

While the Spaniards were in Tenochtitlan, Velazquez assembled a force of nineteen ships, more than 800 soldiers, twenty cannons, eighty horsemen, one-hundred and twenty crossbowmen, and eighty arquebusiers under the command of Pánfilo de Narvaez to capture Cortés and return him to Cuba.

However, the Scottish army was now stalled and under heavy fire on three sides from ships ' cannon, artillery, arquebusiers and archers, to which they could not reply.

On September 12, the Ikkō-ikki launched a midnight stealth attack with 3, 000 arquebusiers, destroying several of these forts and pushing Oda's army back.

During the war, the Spanish army transformed its organization and tactics, evolving from a primarily pike and halberd wielding force into the first pike and shot formation of arquebusiers and pikemen, known as the colunella.

It included 160 Italian arquebusiers and a thousand landsknechts, German footsoldiers, under the command of Lord William Grey.

* August 28 – Ethiopia – Battle of Wofla: Reinforced with at least 600 arquebusiers and cavalry, Imam Ahmad Gragn attacks the Portuguese camp.

The decline of the combat column of pikemen was starkly displayed at the terrible Battle of Bicocca in 1522, for instance, where arquebusiers contributed to the heavy defeat of a force of Swiss pikemen.

In the end, as proven at Marignano and Bicocca, the pike attack of the Swiss mercenaries proved to be too vulnerable to firearms wielded by Spanish and Landsknecht arquebusiers and the earthworks and artillery of the French.

In addition to its inherent ability to repulse cavalry and other units along its front, the long-range firepower of its arquebusiers could also be easily reorganized to the flanks, making it versatile in both offensive and defensive evolutions, as demonstrated by the success of the tercios at the Battle of Pavia ( 1525 ).

Beyond the infantry — to the far side of it from the river, according to Taylor, or at the end of its line, according to Oman and Arnold — was the light cavalry, consisting of 1, 500 – 1, 700 Spanish ginetes and Italian mounted arquebusiers under the command of Fernando d ' Avalos, Marquis of Pescara.

The quintessential example of this development was the Spanish Tercio, which consisted of a large square of pikemen with small, mobile squadrons of arquebusiers moving along its perimeter, as well as traditional men-at-arms.

By virtue of this combined-arms approach, the formation simultaneously enjoyed both the staying power of its pike-armed infantry, as well as the ranged firepower of its arquebusiers.

The allied fleet was well equipped with cannon, mortars, archers and arquebusiers.

The battle opened with several hours of skirmishing between opposing bands of arquebusiers and an ineffectual artillery exchange, after which d ' Avalos ordered a general advance.

Longbows remained in use until around the 16th century, when advances in firearms made gunpowder weapons a significant factor in warfare and such units as arquebusiers and grenadiers began appearing.

Nobunaga compensated for the arquebus ' slow reloading time by arranging the arquebusiers in three lines.

As long as pikemen fought other pikemen, the halberd remained a useful supplemental weapon for " push of pike ", but when their position became more defensive, to protect the slow-loading arquebusiers and matchlock musketeers from sudden attacks by cavalry, the percentage of halberdiers in the pike units steadily decreased, until the halberd all but disappeared from these formations as a rank-and-file weapon by the middle of the sixteenth century.

They formed lines, combined with arquebusiers and short spearmen.

These three elements formed a mutually supportive combination of tactical roles: the arquebusiers harried the enemy line, the pikemen protected the arquebusiers from enemy cavalry charges, and the men-at-arms, typically armed with swords and javelins, fought off enemy pikemen when two opposing squares made contact.

By orienting all of his arquebusiers into a block, he was able to maintain a steady stream of fire out of a disciplined formation using volley fire tactics that until then had not been utilized in combat.

At the Battle of Villalar, rebel troops lost the battle badly partially due to having a high proportion of arquebusiers combined with the battle taking place in a rainstorm which rendered the weapons nigh-useless.

Amid the confusion, stress and fumbling of a battle, arquebusiers are potentially a danger to themselves.

The 1575 Battle of Nagashino, in which about 3, 000 arquebusiers led by Oda Nobunaga cut down charging ranks of thousands of samurai, remains one of the chief examples of the effect of these weapons.

They formed lines, combined with arquebusiers and short spearmen.

Infantry underwent profound developments during the Italian Wars, evolving from a primarily pike-and halberd-wielding force to a more flexible arrangement of arquebusiers, pikemen, and other troops.

They missed De Vasto's arquebusiers — who had, by 6: 30, emerged from the woods near the castle and swiftly overrun it — and blundered into 6, 000 of Georg Frundsberg's landsknechts.

Francis's precipitate advance, however, had not only masked the fire of the French artillery, but also pulled him away from the mass of French infantry, commanded by Richard de la Pole, and by Francois de Lorraine, who led the Black Band of renegade Landsknecht pikemen ( not to be confused with the Italian mercenary company of arquebusiers by the same name ), which was 4, 000 to 5, 000 men strong.