Rodeleros

Rodeleros ("shield bearers"), also called espadachines ("swordsmen") and colloquially known as "Sword and Buckler Men", were Spanish troops in the early 16th (and again briefly in the 17th) century, equipped with steel shields known as rodela and swords (usually of the side-sword type).

When the Spanish adopted the colunella (the first of the mixed pike and shot formations), they used small groups of sword and buckler men to break the deadlock of the push of pike, as the Swiss and Germans used halberdiers, comparable to the role of the German Doppelsöldner during the same period.

As battlefield tactics evolved during the early 16th century, the Spanish ultimately concluded that the vulnerability of the rodeleros on the battlefield outweighed their strengths, and they were dropped as a troop type when the Spanish infantry were reorganized into tercios in the 1530s.

[2] Occasional attempts were made to revive them, such as by Maurice of Nassau, who armed his guard troops with a sword and buckler in addition to a pike.

Later during the Thirty Years War, some military theorists proposed deploying swordsmen equipped with large iron shields in front of the pikemen to protect them from being shot by enemy musketeers, but it is doubtful whether this fanciful tactic was either successful or much employed in practice.