Force
Landsknechts
German mercenary pikemen and greatsword-wielding doppelsöldner, flamboyant and feared across Renaissance Europe.
The Landsknechts were the German mercenary infantry of the Renaissance — raised from the 1480s by Maximilian I in imitation of the Swiss pike squares that had humiliated Burgundian chivalry, and within a generation the dominant hired soldiery of Europe. Companies formed under contracted colonels, elected some of their own officers, marched with their own courts and camp followers, and fought for whoever paid: emperors mostly, but the flag followed the florin.
Their war was the push of pike: massive squares of five-meter pikes, screened by arquebusiers, with halberdiers and the great two-handed zweihänder swords of the double-pay men (doppelsöldner) breaking into enemy formations at the shock point. Against their Swiss originals the meetings were merciless — the 'bad war' of pike block grinding pike block, no quarter inside the press.
The Landsknecht look became European legend: slashed and puffed clothing in riotous colors, a swagger the sumptuary laws formally excused because life was short. The record runs through Pavia in 1525 — where their arquebusiers helped destroy French chivalry — and the Sack of Rome in 1527, mercenary history's darkest advertisement. By the later sixteenth century the tercio and standing armies absorbed their world, but early modern infantry was built on their pattern.
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Arquebus
The arquebus was the first practical infantry firearm, a matchlock long gun light enough to be fired from the shoulder or chest without a rest. Developed in the second half of the fifteenth century, it used a serpentine lever to lower a burning match into the priming pan, letting the shooter keep his eyes and both hands on the gun. Spanish arquebusiers won the Battle of Cerignola in 1503, the tercios made it half of their tactical system, and conquistadors carried it to the Americas. It was the ancestor of the musket.
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Landsknecht Zweihänder
The zweihänder was the great two-handed sword of the German Landsknecht mercenaries: up to 1.8 meters of steel with side rings, parrying hooks, and a leather-bound ricasso for the second hand. It was carried by the Doppelsöldner — 'double-pay men' — who earned that pay fighting at the front of the pike square, guarding the banner, and hewing into the opposing pike hedge. It is the largest sword ever carried into European battle in numbers.
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Pike
The pike is the longest infantry weapon ever carried in formation: an ash shaft of 16 to 22 feet tipped with a small steel head, used by dense blocks of foot soldiers to stop cavalry and push through enemy infantry. The Swiss made it decisive in the fifteenth century, the German Landsknechts and Spanish tercios copied them, and for two hundred years the 'pike and shot' formation — pikes protecting musketeers — defined European warfare. The plug and socket bayonet made it obsolete around 1700, when every musket became its own pike.