A close order formation is a military tactical formation

Tactical formation

A tactical formation is the arrangement or deployment of moving military forces such as infantry, cavalry, AFVs, military aircraft, or naval vessels...

 wherein soldiers are close together and regularly arranged for the tactical

Military tactics

Military tactics, the science and art of organizing an army or an air force, are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In...

 concentration of force. At about the time of the U.S. Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 (1861–1865), such combat formations of soldiers became unnecessary, when improved small arms

Small arms

Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light...

 and artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 made a death trap of open ground for any formation so exposed. Hence, the technological concentration of much firepower to fewer soldiers rendered the close order formation obsolete by the end of the 19th century.

Antiquity

Images from the Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....

ian kingdom from the third millenium BC clearly show men with spear

Spear

A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head.The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as flint, obsidian, iron, steel or...

s in close order formation. The close order tradition continued in the ancient world with the phalanx formation

Phalanx formation

The phalanx is a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons...

 of first the Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

s and later the Macedonians. The Greek phalanx fought with the aspis

Aspis

"Aspis" is the generic term for the word shield. The aspis, which is carried by Greek infantry of various periods, is often referred to as a hoplon .According to Diodorus Siculus:-Construction:...

, a large round bronze faced shield and a large spear. Frontage per man was the width of the shield (about 3 ft.) and normal formation depth four to eight men. The later Macedonian phalanx used a smaller shield but replaced the spear with a sarissa

Sarissa

The sarissa or sarisa was a 4 to 7 meter long spear used in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic warfare. It was introduced by Philip II of Macedon and was used in the traditional Greek phalanx formation as a replacement for the earlier dory, which was considerably shorter. The phalanxes of Philip...

, a long pike used in two hands. Normal frontage per man remained the same but normal depth grew to 16 ranks. An innovation was the introduction of a "locked shield order" (synaspismos) with a frontage of only about 18 inches. The Roman legions also fought in close order, using the pilum

Pilum

The pilum was a javelin commonly used by the Roman army in ancient times. It was generally about two metres long overall, consisting of an iron shank about 7 mm in diameter and 60 cm long with pyramidal head...

 and gladius

Gladius

Gladius was the Latin word for sword, and is used to represent the primary sword of Ancient Roman soldiers. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those used by the Greeks. From the 3rd century BC, the Romans adopted swords similar to those used by the Celtiberians and others during the early...

, on a similar frontage per man to the phalanx.

The Middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages, infantry used the shieldwall, a formation where shields were held edge-to-edge or overlapped. Close order was routinely used by infantry in the later Middle Ages, the intention being to avoid the enemy penetrating and disrupting their formation. A common literary image was that an apple should not be able to pass between their lances.
In the 15th. century, the Swiss developed pike tactics which used closely packed deep columns. A reconstruction of the deployment of Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

 forces in 1443 gives a formation 56 men wide by 20 deep, the formation having a width of 168 ft. and a depth of 140 ft. The Swiss main formation at the Battle of Morat

Battle of Morat

The Battle of Morat was a battle in the Burgundian Wars fought June 22, 1476 between Charles I, Duke of Burgundy and a Swiss army at Morat, about 30 kilometres from Bern.-Background:...

 consisted of 10,000 men and experiments have estimated its area of as little as 60m. X 60m. The knightly cavalry of the Middle Ages could also fight in close order, stirrup to stirrup.

The sixteenth century

The period 1490-1520 saw the emergence of a consensus in military thinking that armies should be increasingly ordered on the battlefield and that neat, rectalinear formations were the key to this. The uniform bodies of pikes would be ordered based on an area occupied by a soldier of three paces frontage and seven paces depth, the soldier being positioned at the centre of this rectangle. Pikes did not stand alone on the battlefield, however, and new formations of horns or sleeves of shot were developed to support these pikeblocks with firearms. At the end of the 16th. century, a system called countermarching was developed, which enabled an exchange of ranks of shooters. This led to the development of thinner formations and set tactitians on the road to developing the linear fire tactics of the 18th. century.

On horseback, the old knightly tactics slowly gave way to new tactics involving firearms and these led to the development of pistol-armed cavalry known as reiters. Reiters specialised in manoeuvering in deep, close formations and practiced a tactic known as the caracole

Caracole

The caracole or caracol is a turning manoeuvre on horseback in dressage and, previously, in military tactics.- Dressage caracole :...

 where successive ranks of men road forward, shot and retired to reload.

17th and 18th centuries

In the 17th century European armies expanded their use of firearms, which were at first matchlock

Matchlock

The matchlock was the first mechanism, or "lock" invented to facilitate the firing of a hand-held firearm. This design removed the need to lower by hand a lit match into the weapon's flash pan and made it possible to have both hands free to keep a firm grip on the weapon at the moment of firing,...

 weapons like arquebus

Arquebus

The arquebus , or "hook tube", is an early muzzle-loaded firearm used in the 15th to 17th centuries. The word was originally modeled on the German hakenbüchse; this produced haquebute...

es. These were later supplanted by unrifled

Rifling

Rifling is the process of making helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis...

 musket

Musket

A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....

s fired by a flintlock

Flintlock

Flintlock is the general term for any firearm based on the flintlock mechanism. The term may also apply to the mechanism itself. Introduced at the beginning of the 17th century, the flintlock rapidly replaced earlier firearm-ignition technologies, such as the doglock, matchlock and wheellock...

 mechanism, which became the weapon of choice because it could be fired relatively rapidly (six shots per minute). Because of their poor accuracy, these weapons were typically used in line formations

Line (formation)

The line formation is a standard tactical formation which has been used in Early modern warfare.It continues the phalanx formation or shield wall of infantry armed with polearms in use during antiquity and the Middle Ages....

 where a commanding officer would order volley fire to increase the chances of inflicting casualties on the enemy. These tactics were used through the 18th century. Line formations were, however, not without risks. Line commanders and other field officers were often highly visible targets, and became the target of sniper

Sniper

A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....

 attacks as rifling technology, which significantly increased the range and accuracy of firearms (at the expense of a substantially reduced rate of fire), began to see increased use in the late 18th century. Fortifications were designed to break up formations (reducing the effectiveness of volley fire), or to expose them to enfilading

Enfilade and defilade

Enfilade and defilade are concepts in military tactics used to describe a military formation's exposure to enemy fire. A formation or position is "in enfilade" if weapons fire can be directed along its longest axis. A unit or position is "in defilade" if it uses natural or artificial obstacles to...

 fire. In the latter, an enemy who could fire down the length of a line with an inaccurate weapon (or cannons loaded with anti-personnel grapeshot

Grapeshot

In artillery, a grapeshot is a type of shot that is not a one solid element, but a mass of small metal balls or slugs packed tightly into a canvas bag. It was used both in land and naval warfare. When assembled, the balls resembled a cluster of grapes, hence the name...

) greatly increased his chances of hitting something.

Another formation that saw use was the infantry square

Infantry square

An infantry square is a combat formation an infantry unit forms in close order when threatened with cavalry attack.-Very early history:The formation was described by Plutarch and used by the Romans, and was developed from an earlier circular formation...

. Designed as a defense against cavalry charges, an infantry battalion would form a square with the unit's standard

Ensign

An ensign is a national flag when used at sea, in vexillology, or a distinguishing token, emblem, or badge, such as a symbol of office in heraldry...

 in the center, along with reserve forces. This formation enabled the defenders to fire on cavalry on all sides of the formation, although there was some risk that fire from one square might reach other squares formed nearby. The effectiveness of a square depended on the ability of the infantry to hold their ground against cavalry charges.

The eclipse of close-order formations

During the 19th century, advances in firearms technology rendered the use of close formations obsolete. Widespread use of rifled guns (including cannons), and the advent of reliable breech-loading weapon

Breech-loading weapon

A breech-loading weapon is a firearm in which the cartridge or shell is inserted or loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel....

s and automated weapons like the Gatling gun

Gatling gun

The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...

, altered the tactical landscape. These weapons fired at greater range with accuracy, and technological improvements in aiming them also simplified the targeting of large bodies of enemy forces.

See also

• Moving 17th. Century Soldiers Website devoted to 17th. century drill which explains "close order" as it relates to pike and musket formation from the English Civil War
  English Civil War
  The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
  
   era:
• Phalanx formation
  Phalanx formation
  The phalanx is a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons...
  
  
• Shieldwall