Armies of the Gunpowder Age, 1500 to 1800

The Safavid army began in 1501 with the Qizilbash, Turkoman tribal warriors who were also religious followers of the dynasty. That tribal base brought chronic rivalries and helped lead to Shah Ismail I's defeat by the Ottomans at Chaldiran in 1514. Shah Abbas I then added slave soldiers loyal to the crown, and the reformed army retook lost territory by 1602.

The winged hussars were established by parliamentary decree in 1503, and King Stephen Báthory turned them between 1576 and 1586 into heavy shock cavalry with long lances. Their charge started slowly and reached a full gallop just before impact, which won Kircholm in 1605 and Klushino in 1610 against a force outnumbering them roughly five to one.

The tercio combined pikemen, sword-and-buckler troops and gunpowder-armed arquebusiers and musketeers in one large formation, with shot placed at the corners and flanks. It was decisive at Pavia in 1525, and defeat at Rocroi in 1643 against more flexible linear tactics is often cited as the end of its dominance.

The streltsy were Russia's first standing army units, firearm-armed infantry created by a decree of October 1, 1550 and first committed at the siege of Kazan in 1552. They peaked near 55,000 men by 1681. After their failed revolt of 1698, Peter the Great effectively abolished the corps.

A private company army, the VOC force numbered some 10,000 soldiers by 1669 and could wage war and found colonies. It stormed Jayakarta in 1619 to found Batavia and beat Portuguese garrisons in Ceylon between 1640 and 1659, yet lost at Colachel in 1741 to Travancore. The Dutch state dissolved the company on December 31, 1799.

Shivaji organized the Maratha army under a Senapati, and by his death in 1680 the state was defended by about 300 forts, 40,000 cavalry and 50,000 infantry. Under Peshwa Bajirao I it won at Palkhed in 1728 and Delhi in 1737, but the Third Battle of Panipat on January 14, 1761 broke its dominance.

The Caroleans were Sweden's soldiers under Charles XI and Charles XII, known for closing with cold steel after a single volley. They were raised through the indelningsverket, an allotment system in which farms supported a soldier with land, housing and pay. They won at Narva in 1700 and were broken at Poltava in 1709.

The Asante army grew from a disciplined royal and paramilitary force under Osei Tutu, and its defeat of Denkyira at Feyiase in 1701 opened coastal trade routes. From 1823 it fought five wars with Britain, killing General Charles MacCarthy in the first. Kumasi was burned in 1874, and the kingdom became a British colony on January 1, 1902.