7 Pike Squares That Dominated Warfare
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Over time various rectangular or square infantry formations dominated the battlefields of the world. From the Macedonian Phalanx which was one pillar of Alexander the Great’s success, to the Schiltron as a decisive factor in the Scottish struggle for independence, to the Spanish tercio, the war machine helping the Habsburgs to control Europe, these formations shaped the warfare of their time decisively. In this video we will look at some hand-picked examples, work out some of these formations' most central characteristics - and look at several of their most famous battles as well.
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Chapters:
00:00 - 00:52 Intro
00:52 - 06:26 Ancient Greek Phalanx
06:26 - 08:02 Scottish Schiltron
08:02 - 09:05 Nord VPN
09:05 - 10:46 Scottish Schiltron part 2
10:46 - 13:16 Swiss Pike Square
13:16 - 15:43 Landsknecht Pike Square
15:43 - 18:04 Spanish Tercio
18:04 - 21:17 Dutch Battalion
21:17 - 23:15 Swedish Brigade
Further Reading:
Baumann, Reinhard, Landsknechte, Ihre Geschichte und Kultur vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Dreissigjährigen Krieg, München 1994.
Burckhardt, L., “Phalanx”, in: Brill’s New Pauly Online, Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider (eds), last visited 05 February 2022 (dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_b....
Campbell, B. J., “Legio”, in: Brill’s New Pauly Online, Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider (eds), last visited 05 February 2022(dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_b....
Rogers, C. J., Tactics and the face of battle, in: Tallet, F., Trim, J.B. (Ed.), European Warfare 1350-1750, 2010, p. 203-235.
Kloosterhuis, J., s.v. “Infantry” in: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit Online.
Lopez, I., The Spanish Tercios 1536-1704, 2012.
Mallet, M., Shaw, C., The Italian Wars 1494-1559. War, State and Society In Early Modern Europe, 2012.
Nimwegen, Van, O., The transformation of army organization in early-modern western Europe, c. 1500-1789, in: Tallet, F., Trim, J.B. (Ed.), European Warfare 1350-1750, 2010, p. 159-180.
Ortenburg, G., Landsknechte. Waffe und Waffengebrauch (Heerwesen der Neuzeit, Abt. 1, Bd. 1) Koblenz 1984.
Sikora, M., s.v. “Tercio” in: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit Online.
Tallet, F., Trim, ‘Then was then and now is now’: an overview of change and continuity in late medieval and early-modern warfare, in: Tallet, F., Trim (Ed.), J.B., European Warfare 1350-1750, 2010, p. 1-27.
Wijn, J. W., Military Forces and Warfare 1610-48, In: The New Cambridge Modern History Volume I, The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War 1609-48/59, 1971.p. 202-225.
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Imagine if the Bronze Age had access to the Pike-and-shot warfare and technologies Humanity would be much less aristocratic and more democratic
@@christiandauz3742 The ancient democracy is very different to classical democracy that lead to 20th centuries democracy & the joke that is the 21st centuries democracy. Even with said Pike & shot how would they govern half way across the globe? Arms alone are not enough to enforce the governance of a political system. Ancient democracy was the founding but has little in common with it's much better later alliterations. Aristocracy's from former feudalism's grip was mandatory to give raise & response of true democracy now called classical democracy that also unfortunately laid the foundation communism in predominantly the third French revolution & the consequence lead to many dire results such as Marx's in works between the 1850 to 1860 . Marx's worked would lead to communism & in response extreme nationalism would result as fascism occurring from notably the combination Maurrasism with Sorelianism just before 20th century leading to Benito a former communist turned fascist forming fascist Italy in 1929 as a response to the USSR formed in 1922 with soviet Russia as the head formed in 1917 after the collapse of tsar Russia. Even the USA is flawed democracy according to the global index. Ironically my land of the Union of the kingdom's great Britain & Northern Ireland is considered a full democracy as a 'parliamentary monarchy'. You can't make this up even if you tried, the world is a ridiculous place!
@@arnijulian6241 There wouldn't be a warrior class though. Spartans wouldn't exist. Priting Press and Paper vastly improves literacy Large stable-ish nations would be the norm not small city-states. Tribed and Horse Nomads wouldn't be a threat to civilization.
@@christiandauz3742 Warrior classes existed before Spartans, Why are you on about Sparta anyway!
@@arnijulian6241 First warrior class to come to mind. They wouldn't exist had the technologies of the 1600s existed during the Bronze Age
I love how you connect the dots, many people go straight from phalanx to tercio to Gustavus, sometimes mentioning the Swiss, but skipping the Scottish and Dutch influence. Great video!
Thanks man. But to be honest, we did that as well in some of our older videos. That's why we felt we need to make a broader overview video!
The role of Scottish is quite overstimated. In Italy at the begging ot the 14th century we can find spears of 4 or 5 meters.
@@ElPavesaroTergestin True, in Giovanni Dall'agocchie's treatise the instruction on how to set up infantry formations IS a pike formation, and doesnt even explain why the pike is used, its just considered obvious. He goes into some detail over how to place armored vs unarmored pike men (use a couple of rows of armored pikes in the front row, etc) This treatise is from ca 1570
I just checked; is is from 1576. And regarding "dry pikes" (unarmored pikemen) he says that you always put men armored in corselets in front and behind them, half in front half behind. And if theres an odd number, put one more in front than behind. Hes very specific in regards to the numbers, which is derived through square root, f.ex if you have 1200 pikemen and want to arrange a field square,then select the closest number 1152 (48w 52d) and use the 48 leftover pikemen where the sergeant sees fit.
Also polearms are underrated. Movies make it like they break with one sword hit. Or if you get inside the tip you won. Getting stabbed by a quarter staff is jarring.
A video exploring where eastern formations like janissaries, cossacks, haiduks, and streltsy fit in all of this would be very interesting.
Indeed. But we're afraid of making too many mistakes when covering so many different historical periods / units; especially if it's eastern history, which remains more difficult to do because of the language barrier.
@@SandRhomanHistory I understand. Hopefully, some more sources and books will be translated in the future. I guess I could help you regarding haiduks, cossacks and streltsy but I am sure you'd prefer working with some actual historians and professional translations.
@@SandRhomanHistory maybe hire somebody who does it?
@@gabrielvanhauten4169 that's probably too expensive for us but more of a problem is that if we did that, we wouldn't be able to doublecheck whether the person who read the books, did so carefully enough. That's why we're quite hesitant to do that.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 Well, I would say not necessarily. If we trust people then we gladly work with people who are outside academia. But then again, our budget is quite limited, so that's gonna be problem I guess. Maybe we could write it and then find people to doublecheck our text. That might be a good way to do it.
i really appreciate that you mention all your sources in the description. i wish more channels had this professionalism
Hey, thanks man. We're trying to do it all the time. As a side note and in defense of everybody making similar videos: Sometimes it happens that one just forgets to add the sources while producing the video (has happened to us countless times as well). Also, often KZheadrs simply lack the time or determination to go back through the script and add them to the video. Usually you write the script quite a bit before the video is being produced. But, in general, yeah it would be nice if more people would add their sources. I guess many channels think it's to academic to put them in the description or on screen.
100 percent agree. Not only does it show a certain level of academic foresight but allow us needs the ability to read up on sources used to make this video happen. Personally starting a ancient history channel myself and think presenting your sources is the way I want to go. Your animations are great as well. Any tips for someone getting into this field.
Can you please cite a peer-reviewed source that indicates channels on KZhead are considered "professional" if they cite their sources in the description?
@@SamSchlimpert just did. i am a source, i said its professional to do so, im a historian, fellow historians from the channel agreed, so its a peer reviewed source. now, to touch on your comment from another angle, the term "professional" isnt academic nomenclature, so it can be subjective. if we count something as "professional" when its done to make money, (as opposed to a hobby from an amateur), then all channels that have a patreon and try to live by their income there are to be considered "professional". the way i implied it, and i believe it was pretty clear in how i meant it, is that professionalism shown here relates to how close the presentation of a video documentary is to an academic paper, like we do for our universities and articles. a historian, like with all scientists, is required to provide proof for their claims, according to the relevant science. someone that doesnt do so, can be forgiven only if they're approaching it as a lay person, a hobbyist.
@@SamSchlimpert not saying the channel is cited I was saying the guy cited papers in his video. Doubt he’s professional in anything other than KZhead just if people wanted to explore it more that video showed some academic papers examining this in sports. Originally didn’t think my comment even loaded. KZhead crashed on my phone and forgot I even commented on this but the video I was referencing does cite a few papers. Not sure their veracity or peer-reviewed just surprised there was even research on the topic this early on. Hope that clears it up.
Just a slight clarification. The Scottish schiltron was more oval shaped than circular, for the simple reason it would be very hard to maintain a perfect circle. What made it so effective at Bannockburn was that Robert the Bruce had trained the soldiers extensively, so they could move in all directions and still maintain formation. This meant that a previously, predominantly defensive formation that would stand its ground, could now advance and manoeuvre. This caught the English completely by surprise and enabled the Scots to drive the enemy back across the boggy ground and the Bannockburn itself, were many were trapped or drowned.
Training is the most important part of battle
Proof
"Dit is klote" 19:15, very dutch response, very proud. Wiser words have never been said.
We're always happy when the Dutch crowd returns for some of our videos :P There's no other language in which everything sounds hilarious and serious at the same time.
This was brilliant and gave me a good laugh
@@SandRhomanHistory Our language can only be described by the word: "knullig"
When he said the Swiss formation wasnt invincible I wasn't expecting the vulnerability be: 'they got shot to death'. I feel like that's a weakness of most infantry formations
True, but the Swiss had a tendency to charge and run enemies over (which was their main strength. The historian Clifford J. Rogers calls this “the Swiss steamroller”). Failing to adapt to the gunpowder revolution might have been a better way to put it I guess.
Got to consider the perspective of those times, their track record up to the Italian Wars was close to impeccable and it had been that way for the better part of two centuries, then in a couple of decades, from Cerignola onwards, the myth was shattered. If those changes seem quick and abrupt even for us, that have the advantage of hindsight, for the people back then were probably completely unexpected.
The Swiss formations in also tended to be pretty light on guns, leaving them unable to respond in kind to heavy gunfire. They either had to find a way to flank the enemy or to just charge right into them.
@@Sealdeam I wouldn't say completely unexpected as 20y is still a long time in the life of any single person then or now, but I agree the decline was quick compared to the period of high effectiveness... and even when you notice that something is going wrong recently, coming up with a new system for battle isn't a quick or easy task.
@@Heroesflorian I agree that any (human) process that can be measured in decades cannot be called sudden nor unexpected, I think is more correct to say that the changes brought about by the conflicts around that time, 1400s and early 1500s (the Hussite Wars, the final stage of the Hundred Years War, the Conquest of Constantinople, etc,) were so profund and broke away with so many practices that have been established for hundreds of years that once that wave caught up to them the Swiss went from one of the foremost military powers of the age to a place of fringe importance very quickly. Although is very important to mention that this was aided greatly by the internal divisions that the Reformation created internally for them, centuries of them presenting an united front against all comers were no more, so them dropping from the map does not mean they were made complete obsolete since they started pointing their pikes at each other also.
This video is a summary jewel in terms of the evolution of the formation of pikes, although for my part I would have liked to see some example of real application of the Spanish Tercios, such as the Battle of Fleurus in 1622 (traditional use) or in the Battle of Jemmingen 1568 (flexible use with companies at their highest tactical level). Also regarding several comments that I have read that affirm about the tactical invincibility of the new formations with respect to the previous ones, I have to say that in practice it was not 100% true and it can be seen in Battles like Cerisoles of 1544 (where Swiss pikemen fighting for France defeated the Tercios in Italy) and at Nördlingen in 1634 (where the supposedly invincible Swedish Brigades were decisively defeated by the supposedly decadent Spanish Tercios of the Thirty Years' War), which shows that these formations well applied, could beat their respective updates; I do not say the same about the Dutch Battalions, since their unwillingness to fight in the open field leaves us short of examples of their total effectiveness against the Tercios.
The Byzantine thematic armies made considerable use of formations somewhere between a class Greek phalanx and that of Macedon. It's an interesting segue between the discipline of professional armies of antiquity and the feudal armies of later centuries
Also I'm really enjoying the artwork!
Yeah they had quite complex form o infantry formations. I've seen some stuff where they had the majority of the infantry use spear and shield and the front rows use a long two handed spear when facing cavalry. It's hard to grasp sometimes (Meanvilon)
This is a pretty interesting fact--thanks for sharing it. Are there any reasonably accessible sources on the subject? I have pretty good overall background knowledge.
Cool choice of topics lately.
he always covers pike content ^^
Los Tercios españoles. Honor, disciplina ,fidelidad a su rey. Revolucionaron el arte de l guerra.
Awesome video! I like how you looked on evolution of millitary combat through the ages, how new formations destroyed the old ones!
Thanks! If you allow me a little nit-picking: I would say it's a better to put it this way: how one formation improved upon the previous formation's strength or adapted the previous formation's tactics to new demands of the battlefield :P
Square defensive formations are some of the sexier things of history, just like a good heavy cavalry charge
Well, the tercio's numbers were in theory. They never reached those numbers. There's a man working in Spain's archives,. I think specifically Simancas, and he did discover new interesting details about the Tercios. Do you want me to give you his Twitter account for a collaboration?
I think this was published by Geoffrey Parker. Well, the strength we give is the ideal strength not the actual strenght. As far as I remember Parker did research in the quite a few Spanish archives and he said that their strenght decreased over time. But I'm not sure whether he was the guy who published it. By the time of the Thirty Years War, the Tercios were only around 1500 men but than again the Dutch Battalion started out as 800-900 men and decreased in number as well (about 500 man by the 1630ies, if memory serves). Also, I think we don't have good sources for the 1530 and 1540s, where it is most likely that the Tercios would have been as big as ~2500 men. So, you're right in pointing out the numbers are theoretical but the comparison to the Dutch and Swedish formations still holds, I think.
Or as they all ought to be called, block and stick warfare.
stick bois at war is the correct way to put it
Stick and stone war Nowadays we have sticks that throws stones really fast
Castillon was the first battle won with gunpowder in Europe, 50 years before Cerignola!
Best history channel!! Thank you for your work, keep it up!
Thanks :)
I just found your channel. It is a great delight to know that this quality of storytelling, art, edition, voice, and overall effort is out there for us (the community) to enjoy. Thank you
The quality of the video and the historical accuracy is astounding! Great work!
This video explains warfare from these times very nicely. Great job.
Really loved this particular video essay. Please do more of these types of overviews!
Such a great channel, man. Thank you for all the amazing content you produce.
Hey, thanks for the comment! It's always nice if we can deliver content that people seem to enjoy.
The evolution was awesome to see in this video, great job!
13:22 Emperor Maximillian's face added to the mix is a humorous touch.
Amazing content. Loved the part about the Ancient greeks as I just love that Era and I'm Dutch myself.
Informative AND entertaining! As a student of history, I appreciate these breakdowns.
great work man, keep it up
Well done. The composition of the vid was exactly what I hoped for when I saw the title.
Brilliant video, it’s great to see a history which shows the development of tactics.
One of the best channels on yt. Thanks for making these videos
Really insightful video, appriciate the research and time it took to put this up, cant wait for more!!
I Just discovered your channel and it became quickly my most favoured Source for Military History (and Contexts), especially for the time period of 15th C. - 18th C. (there's not much out there)! Very Good Work, thank you!
very well made video with cool information! always wanted to learn about different battle formations throughout history
Wow, what a great video again. Congrats.
I really loved this video! One suggestion for an upcoming video: a Video about the lineformation in the 18th century and the transition to the column formation of Napoleon. This would be really interesting! Thanks for your content :)
This channel is outstanding. One of the best. I love it!
7:03 love the grim looking scots. Wouldn‘t mess with them
Also cheers for getting in the mix in comments! Lots of channels seem to phase out such audience engagement once they've got stuff cresting a million views, which is understandable for a variety of reasons, but sucks all the same. Having a realistic chance to ask questions helps get a bit of that symposium energy in a youtube video :D
Interestingly enough, the legion practically came back in the modern world in the form of the brigade combat team.
Well, my prof once said that most Roman things are timeless. He's probably right as they really do tend to come back (sometimes in the most unexpcted of ways, though).
Good point Napoleon I Bonaparte
But unexpectedly, yet.
picking hairs a bit but the BCT was more inspired by the German kampfgruppe or American late ww2 "combat commands". But in general yes, the Roman way is still the basis for so much in modern armies.
Other than being in the same approximate ballpark of total personnel, a BCT is nothing like a roman legion.
Excellent as usual. Thank you.
Awesome video! But even better was that transition for more VPN lol that was the smoothest one I've ever seen.
This Channel is a blessing
Great work as always.
Excellent video!!! 11/10. Nuff said.
Thanks again for a great video
It always amazes me how we know so much about what happened in specific battles that happened 2 millennia ago. Imagine being one of the generals of those battles and watching on proudly because their tactics are still remembered and studied to this day.
Some additional notes on the German terminology: 11:00 Gewalthaufen as "crowd of force" is the nice translation. The crude modern understanding would be more like "pile of violence". 14:30 "Sold" is the German word for a soldier's wage. The word for "Söldner" for mercenary is directly derived from that and can be understood as someone who receives a soldier's pay. A "Doppelsöldner" therefore can be understood as someone who receives double the pay of an ordinary soldier.
Great video keep it up man
Something that intrigues me about the pike and shot era is that formations often contained various troop types. This meant reforming during engagements, e.g. arquebusiers moving into a pike square as cavalry neared. Hundreds of men reforming must've been messy at the best of times, imagine them pushing and shoving each other, then trying to produce a solid line of pikes while under fire or under threat of a cavalry charge.
Outstanding summary!!
Very informative and interesting! I like that you are so thorough with sources and accuracy. Especially at 5:57 I like how you just admit that we don't know what happened on the flanks of the battle. I'm pretty sure I've seen one or two of those animated battle-videos where the creator has just made something up to fill in the blanks, in order to present a "cohesive narrative" or whatever. But at 9:54 I'm not sure what. you mean? I thought it was known that Brian Cox taught Mel Gibson about classical greek and roman history, so he would have known about the phalanx before the battle of Stirling?
Amazing video! great job!! Thank you
Wow, connecting thousands of years of history through a common thread is really interesting
Absolutlly awesome video ! Really great work. Keep going like this. Channels like yours and PIKE and SHOT Channel deserve more subs and views. Have a Nice day
Man I always ended up making early pike and shot (crossbowmen instead of muskets usually) formations in Age of Empires when I was 10 and thought I was a military genius, now I realize I was sorta on the right track
Cool video man, thanks!
Really killer illustrations.
Glorious!
Great work. You got my subscription
Fantastic video!
Very nice video, thank you!
Your efforts to pronounce all the various language words and names correctly is very much appreciated. I actually laughed a bit when you pronounced "tercio" with the slight lisp. Very good work!
Glad you enjoyed it!
A golden military history channel, perfect
i love your videos dude!
Very interesting thank you.
Good stuff !!!
There were good reasons for not mentioning it in a video that had to cover such a long period of history so this isn't a criticism, but there was an important transition between the classical Greek phalanx of the 5th century and the Macedonian pike-armed phalanx. In the early 4th century, an Athenian general named Iphicrates experimented with lengthening the spears of Athenian hoplites while also lightening their equipment. Although the sources of this period are a bit patchy, it seems that there were other examples of experimentation in the first half of the 4th century which were taken up and refined by Philip II. If you're interested in the details respond to this post and I'll give you some references. Or if you look up Iphicrates and dig around in the internet for a bit, you will probably find some information.
great information
Excellent and informative video, as always. Hopefully I can make pike and shot tactics work in Warhammer.
try the dogs of war mod. might not be out for wh III though!
@@SandRhomanHistory I was more speaking of the tabletop but thanks for the mod suggestion. I'll check it out.
amazing explication
i suspect that even if one single guy managed to get past the points of the pikes he would cause mayhem as the pikemen would suddenly have to react to a swordsman in their midst , essentialy having to drop their own pike to defend themselves
Masterful - in particular i never knew that the swiss pike formations had other types within there bodies
great work
Thanks!
Looooong pointed sticks!!!!
This is the way.
did you watch Professor shads video about the power of the mighty stick?
I love pike & shot but there isn't much of it on youtube. Thanks for filling that niche sandrhoman
There is ancient Pictish art in Scotland that looks like it may depict Schiltrons. If so, then the Scots were potentially using the schiltron as far back as the 7th or 8th century AD.
Excellent Job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11:16 kings and generals talked about the Swiss pike square and it’s history, but never did a good job at visualizing. Thank you for that.
games such as Age Of Empires 2 with their various historical factions and tactics are perfect for pulling off these moves across time and cultures. I've used and seen several tactics such as the Macedonian phalanx with civilizations such as the Britons or Japanese. once you know the tactic and how to use it, if you pull it off right on time and place, it's a game changer. WW1 fire-and-move tactics, with Teutonic crossbowmen and trebuchets.... or, amphibious commando strikes with Greek swordsmen.... like... what!? crazy gambles at the time, but they paid off!
Great video, but do you think you could please do a follow-up centered on the tactics of Colonial America from around 1600? Over the past few months, JYF Museums has released a series of videos on the weapons and tactics of pre-Revolution America, including a variant of the pike and shot formation that relied on mail armor, shields, swords, and pistols; I'd love to see if you could expand on that.
Fantastic video.
Thanks!
that was the smoothest ad transition I have ever seen
An idea from this video, please can you do a video on how horse and pike 'competed' for primacy of the battlefield?
I was thinking of this for the last year
already exciting title
I love that the last knight fights with his Landsknechts ^^
there is one more formation that changed history and is still in use today and funny thing yis die mention the weapon but not who started it: The bayonet. It was the Russians who made the big change, they had those big 8 shot muskets. 4 barrel shots from 1 side then they'd flip their musket and fire another 4 shots. Then they would affix bayonets and charge. This new kind of warfare worked bedcause they would decimate the enemies front ranks by firing those 8 shots far faster then the enemy could reload and once they charge their 8 shots would have punched holes in the pikemen defences and the rifles men still stuck reloading who didn't have melee weapons would simply get decimated. Those 8 shots muskets were the very first version of a machinegun. Today we still use bayonets because you never know when you'll run out of bullets and in trench warfare a gun converted into a spear can still be very effective.
Surprised you didn't mention sumerian/akkadian spear-bearers. the art looks rather phalanx like to me.
Imagine being on a battle field fighting hand to hand with thousands around you smh, must have been hectic
Seems fun
Smoothest end of a video ever.
Good quality content
absolutely loving the roman swords accurate to the period, it's exausting to see only the gladium!
Something mentioned but not emphasized in this video was the value of prepared positions in Pike and Shot warfare. Having even light fortifications where you could set up artillery and gunmen was enough make an attacker pay a heavy price for attempting to attack. Fortifications made the possibility of attack by cavalry too costly to consider, forcing the the use of infantry to assault the positions. Circumventing prepared enemy positions was an important tactic to consider, as shown when the Swiss defeated the Duke of Burgundy several times. Once by marching through difficult terrain to flank the Burgundian positions and once somewhat by luck catching the Burgundia positions under-manned, allowing the Swiss to overwhelm them much more easily.
I recently found medieval total war 2 in the app store. It’s just like old times, but now i can play it anywhere on my ipad pro
Great video. But the fact that you talked about Landsknechte and even the Forlorn Hope without touching on their use of Zweihänder/Schlachtschwert left me really, really blueballed.
I was thinking about this the other day. Dang ol' spears are the quintissental human wepon.
Pikes saw use as late as the 19th Century, interestingly enough. Usually used by reserve troops and to help defend fortifications when the enemy closed in to melee range.
This is the best medieval history channel on youtube. The pictures really help bring to life what these military armies actually were like.. Organized and sophisticated for their time. They did not just run at each other like in movies.
Interstingly I always assumed, that the musketeers at the sides of the Tecio also were kontermarching since they are way to deep for their width to make sense otherwise.
They most likely did! That's way we phrased it something like "the Dutch adapted and refined the counter march" (probably not the exact words we used!). It is assumed that the two so-called "garrisons" (to the side of the Tercio) used the counter march, but they were probably much much deeper than the 10 men of the Dutch Battalion. Keep in mind that we don't really know how exactly the Tercios fought. There's is much dispute about this and no evidence exists that is not in some way problematic. We especially don't know how the four smaller shot contingents (so called sleeves) operated. It's often assumed that they were deployed indepentently (for example to flank of enemies or do other tasks on the battlefield (small war for example) or that they stood in front of the pikes and retreated into the formation when it came to a melee engagement. They probably used the counter march as well. Also, a last note of caution: these things above are usually discussed most prominently in regards to the thirty years war which is already 100 years after the Tercios founding.
I forget the book in which I read it though if anyone has heard a similar story please let me know. The account was from the English Civil War and from what I remember the pikemen commanders from opposite sides corresponded before the battle that they would put on a show as they were the ones doing the dying, as in the aftermath of a route it was the footman that were most vulnerable and they didn't have horses like the cavalry nobles and wanted both sides of pikemen to have the strength to retreat in good order.