Pike (weapon)

A modern recreation of a mid-17th century company of pikemen. By that period, pikemen would primarily defend their unit's musketeers from enemy cavalry.

A pike is a long thrusting spear formerly used in European warfare from the Late Middle Ages[1] and most of the early modern period, and wielded by foot soldiers deployed in pike square formation, until it was largely replaced by bayonet-equipped muskets. The pike was particularly well known as the primary weapon of Swiss mercenary, German Landsknecht units and French sans-culottes. A similar weapon, the sarissa, had been used in antiquity by Alexander the Great's Macedonian phalanx infantry.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Verbruggen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).