Pike

The pike was a very long thrusting spear used in European warfare from the Late Middle Ages through most of the early modern period, deployed by foot soldiers massed in dense pike squares that could vary from three to seven meters, roughly ten to twenty-three feet, in overall length. Its extreme reach made a well-drilled pike formation extremely effective at holding off cavalry charges and opposing infantry alike, and the weapon became particularly associated with Swiss mercenary companies, German Landsknecht units, Spanish tercio formations and French armies from the fourteenth century onward. Because the pike was too long and unwieldy for a soldier to defend himself in close combat if separated from his formation, pikemen were typically screened or supported by shorter-armed troops, an arrangement that shaped infantry tactics across Europe for roughly two centuries. The pike's battlefield dominance faded with the development of the socket bayonet in the 1680s and 1690s, which let musket-armed infantry present their own spear point without needing a separate pikeman, a change that rendered dedicated pike formations obsolete by around 1700.