The Armies of Europe Professional Eyes

In the 15 hundreds, it's the muskets are screening the pike formation, which does the fighting. By the 16 hundreds, the pikes are protecting the musket who do most of the work. As the firearms a technology, andta get better, you need to train your soldiers from boyhood. These need to be aristocrats. You cannot trainis, but you can train someone to fire a musket in an afternoon,. Once you've trained him, he now has a marketable skill. And so this motivates a return to professional soldiers.