Well, I cannot tell you exactly. You see, most of the actions involved small skirmishes with cavalry only so, to say that 12 is enough... 12 bases... that would amount to 2 or 3 BG. If the army goes up to, say, 12 BG, I wouldn't think that's enough, perhaps there should be a 4th BG. Honestly, I would allow a cavalry/infantry ratio almost equivalent to the Moroccans', with these having a bit more cavalry than the Portuguese.rbodleyscott wrote:The Portuguese Colonial list already allows for Jinete type LH in Morocco (0-12 is that enough?).
Sure! In 1513 Duque D. Jaime had "cavaleiros acobertados" (barded cavalry, equivalent to Gendarmes or Fully Armed cavalry). Likewise, D. Sebastião (1578) had a similar unit (go figure! It was almost useless!). They were just a hundred men or so so they should be represented by a standard 2 ou 4-bases BG.rbodleyscott wrote:Should there be any heavier cavalry? If so, how many, what types, and what dates?
By the way, In the Ordenação sobre os cavalos e armas (Rules for horses and guns) of D. João III (1549), people of “condition” should have: high saddle, corselet with gorge, thigh and arm protections, sword and 20 palm lance; they could also have cuirass and [/i]gineta[/i] saddle instead; if they didn’t have the corselet they should have arm protections or an adarga shield instead, plus full head protection.
http://purl.pt/15194/2/res-2790-v_PDF/r ... -R0150.pdf
So, you see, these ginetes would be armoured or at least protected (I don't know if "protected" still exists in FoG:R).
Regarding the use of guns by the cavalry, unlike its Moorish foes, it seems that the Portuguese cavalry seldom used arquebuses or crossbows. Neither the Ordenação sobre os cavalos e armas (D. João III) nor the Lei das Armas (Law of the guns) of D. Sebastião (1569) stipulated the use of guns by the cavalry, although that practice was widespread even in the Spanish army. In 1639, right before the Restauration, all the cavalry in the Kingdom of Algarve (the southern province in mainland Portugal) was equipped with light lance and “adarga” since it was Algarve’s cavalry who, in emergency situations, would support the North African garrisons where that sort of equipment was used.
So, in terms of official regulations, there was no crossbow or arquebus armed cavalry in the 16th century.
However, in 1511, the garrisson of Safim had mounted crossbowmen and there are also some hints regarding gun-armed cavalry in Black Africa:
An ivory statuette of African origin depicts a Portuguese rider using an early type of arquebus. The most interesting aspect of the sculpture lies in a small detail: the man’s pointing finger, instead of being placed where the regular trigger should be, is placed on the stock, right under the fire mechanism. That gives us the precious information that the gun he’s using, and that the African carver saw and accurately reproduced, is an arquebus with the schnapp lunte type of lock, of Bohemian origin, that was used only for a brief period in History, being phased out in the 1530’s or 1540’s (in the Battle of Pavia’s tapestries, the German arquebusiers are using this type of arquebuses). This implies that the statuette was probably made in the first half of the century.
Was this Portuguese "mounted arquebusier" just an eye-catching isolated case or was this a regular sight? Was he a cavalry soldier or a mounted infantry soldier? That I cannot tell, but I would still consider it whan doing an army list...
Anyway, in 1578, as far as I know, there was no mounted arquebusiers in D. Sebastião's army.
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