Slitherine

having played around with the swiss list a bit for an arbedo demonstration game, i'm not sure the heavy weapon classification works for this battle at least. having not yet tried any of the burgundian wars (probably the more popular era) i'll leave that to others to comment on. however Arbedo seems to be providing us with some problems
problem a) the italian men-at-arms felt forced to dismount to fight the halberdiers in the open. no while this may be the case, they seem to fight the halberiers ok when mounted (lance at impact, mounted swordsmen in melee. halberdiers get nothing at impact and heavy weapon in melee, then superior and bigger BG vs 2 dice for knights)
b) when the milanese dismounted they used thier spears to outreach the swiss causing the swiss to fall back and were only held by the swiss foragers being mistaken for significant re-inforcments: this led the swiss to adopt the pike more completely as a weapon of choice replacing many of thier halberdiers: now this is where we get real problems. the Italians dismount as 4-6 heavy foot, heavily armoured, average, heavy weapon. the swiss are 8-12 heavy foot, protected, superior heavy wepaon. the only real advantage the italians get is thier armour, which the heavy weapon counters. on this match-up the swiss are going to win pretty easily. now initially we looked at allowing the italians to dismount as offensive spear, however this actually makes things no better for them, as they are pretty much the same unless disordered in which case they are worse.

this leads me to think the best solution for this era is to make the swiss halberdier blocks offensive spear? this means the italians get a POA for thier armour to match the swiss being superior, and the swiss become vulnerable to being shot to disordered (reported as part of the battle) while being a threat to the knights if they stay mounted.

just thoughts so far, as not yet had a chance to try this out, but any glaring errors i've made here. obviously this is less appropriate in other battles (the mentioned burgundian wars for example?)

Ben

Problem is that then you lose the primary value of the halberd- as a can opener.
This is precisely why 'the old rules' (no names ) had to create the 2HCT, at extra point cost.
You can't stand off a knightly charge with the pointed end of a Viking axe.
The halberd is both a spear and a 2 handed axe.

But knights were not afraid to charge halbardiers in the open. What usually got the knights in trouble is that the Swiss would choose terrain which was less than ideal for mounted. Simply by deploying in rough gave the Swiss an advantage over mounted opponents. Then the only option was to dismount and go in after them.

the point is that the swiss are better than the italians which doesn't work for this battle. The Italians were winning against the swiss
and only retreated when they mistook swiss foragers for reinforcements.
I'm trying to think outside the box a bit. Regradeing the men-at-arms doesn't work but if the swiss are spear they suffer from disruption
noteing that the italians disrupted the swiss formations with shooting (more effective on spear) then the men-at-arms went in and were winning a tough battle. With the swiss as heavy weapon this doesn't happen (knife through butter seems to happen more often) as spear the italians are about evens with the swiss superior but vulnerable to disruption. I wouldn't change the swiss after this battle (the pikemen dominated thereafter) but the results for arbedo work better with spear in my view (possibly medium foot spear? With the number of ambushes prior to this)

Ben

I think Ben's solution is very neat - wish we'd thought of it in fact

But if the Swiss were MF spear the Italians (or at least as sensible Italian player) would not dismount. Unless the MF spear were in rough terrain and the Italians dismount as heavy weapon.

the medium foot was just an odd idea. Though how would they be better mounted. (i have assumed for now the italians dismount as
they currently do. Did try working things out with them as spear and it just makes the MAA worse in this matchup.

Have tried a small run with swiss as hf spear and the knights struggle while dismounted they are pretty even.

Ben

I never realized before but there is something curios about this battle. It was used to explain why the Swiss switch to the pike. But why? Let’s look at it. An army of Swiss halberdiers confronts a Milanese army in the open. The Milanese with a lot of mounted Men-at-arms. The Swiss with the halberd found themselves at a disadvantage against mounted Knights so form in square. Carmagnola them dismount his men-at-arms. And after having a near defeat against dismounted Men-at-arms the Swiss change to the pike because it was better against mounted troops! I’m not at my best today but did i miss something?

from what i have read, the italians used thier lances as long spears while dismounted, since these would be longer than the swiss various polearms, they used better reach and armour to slowly wear the swiss down.
since the swiss did not have the economic or industrial base to match the armour production they voted to outreach their opponents. so switched to pike.

there is probably more to it than that, however my German is only good enough to get the gist of original sources and my italian much worse
history is so much easier for natural linguists.

Ben

Yes that was what I have always thought (and read). But what I mean is that it was hardly a success for the dismounted Milanese men-at-arms. They have the Swiss surrounded and an overwhelmed numerical superiority, but were unable to destroy them and with the arrival of the foragers, the Swiss finally escape. (Or give the Milanese an excuse to let them go). I think that we must look at the beginning of the battle, to understand the Swiss decision to switch to the pike. The Swiss with the halberd found themselves at a clear disadvantage, unable to move in the open in face of mounted Milanese superiority. (And if they want to operate in North Italy they would have to move in the open). In the final part of the battle the Swiss follow the normal tactic, moving to high ground where they were more than a match to the dismounted Milanese. That’s what I like about wargaming, (and Fog is good at that) when you put some accepted fact to the test and found that it can’t be.