The State Army coat of arms

The musket was first used in the battlefield at the end of the sixteenth century. It replaced the haakbus, harquebus, a primitive firearm. The musket was larger and heavier than the haakbus. Under the leadership of Maurits and his nephew Willem Lodewijk van Nassau the musketeers were deployed in company formation, instead of on the flanks of the pike men. This heightened the musketeer’s readiness for battle and his effectiveness. In the course of the seventeenth century the musketeers increasingly replaced the pike men on the battlefield.