of the 17th century. The problem they tried to solve was that the lack of uniformity in armaments and tactical skills of the mercenary formations they hired on the open market made coordinated fighting difficult. In addition the dominant tactics of the time had been developed by their opponents, the Spanish commanders, and these favored the Spanish troops (who were well-drilled in them) over their imitators. What they needed was a new tactical conception that addressed the weaknesses in the Spanish tactics. Starting in 1596 they introduced a number of reforms that addressed both problems. First of all, they changed the relative preponderance of pole weapons over firearms. Henceforth a company of 119 men would have 38% pikes, 25% muskets, and 37% wheellock arquebuses, compared with the old formation that had more than 50% pole weapons, like pikes and halberds. Because the wheel locks were deemed unreliable, by 1609 the arquebuses were phased out and all firearms were to be muskets. In the cavalry the lancers were after 1596 replaced with cuirassiers and arquebusiers, both armed with firearms. The loss of pike men potentially diminished the defensive capacity of the company, as the rate of fire of firearms was slow, and musketeers needed to shelter in the safety of the squares of pike men when they were reloading. To counter this problem the important tactical invention of volley fire by ranks was introduced, combined with the ancient concept of the counter-march, already used by the Roman legions. This combined manoeuvre had the musketeers deploy in blocks of five or more ranks and nine files, in which the ranks successively fired their weapon simultaneously. After discharging its weapon the first rank would turn right, turn the corner of the block-formation and march to the rear, where it would start reloading, while the new first rank fired a volley, and so on. This tactic enabled the unit to sustain a relatively rapid rate of fire of sufficient "density" to discourage a charge by the pike men of the opposing square. The manoeuvre had to be executed in a disciplined way, however, to avoid confusion in the ranks, especially as the enemy was not sitting idly by. It therefore had to be drilled into the soldiers. And this drilling of the tactical manoeuvre was one of the mainstays of the reform. It required an attendant organisational reform, because the education of recruits now