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Sengoku Period Warfare - Part 3: Infantry tactics

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Sengoku Period Warfare - Part 3: Infantry tactics  The full Osaka campaign battle screen -  大坂夏の陣図屏風 This is a continuation of previous articles describing the warfare of the Sengoku period, if you are interested in Battle formations and Cavalry tactics , consider reading the previous parts! The Sengoku period was the age of infantry troops : as I have stressed in other articles, the backbone of any army were the Ashigaru ( 足軽 ) , when used both as pikemen and as arquebusiers, and this article would be largely dedicated to them, with few exceptions. In any case, before jumping into infantry tactics , it's important to define whom were these infantry troops first. As I have explained in my army composition article, the units that fought on foot were the ashigaru pikemen, the ashigaru bowmen, the ashigaru gunners and the samurai on foot , both used as ranged units as well as spearmen. For the sake of this article I will divide this troops in melee units and ranged u