MUSKETEER

It is assumed that the first units of musketeers, or better - arquebusers, appeared at the dawn of the modern era, i.e. at the beginning of the 16th century. In general, it can be assumed that their main weapon was an arquebus, and later a much more perfect musket with a fuse lock, much less often - a circular one. The muskets of the time were, of course, a front-loaded smoothbore weapon. They were also quite large and heavy. For this reason, in the 16th and 17th centuries, musketeers used forks on which they rested their weapons during the shot. As a side weapon in Western Europe the rapier was most often used, in the east of our continent - the saber. As a rule, musketeers did not use any protective weapons. Due to the relatively low rate of fire of weapons, musketeers in the 17th century often used the caracol tactic, which allowed them to use the maximum firepower of their primitive muskets. In the 17th century, the musketeers on the battlefields worked closely with pikemen, who protected them, inter alia, against the charges of enemy cavalry. However, at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, with the widespread use of flintlock firearms and bayonet, musketeers became the dominant infantry formation on European battlefields.