It was Duke Emmanuel Philibert who was largely responsible for the radical reforms of the army which made it a stable component of the state and disconnected it from the local feudatories at the same time.

In this period, the Piedmontese army was very open to innovations and was constantly modernising, especially during the reign of Victor Amadeus II.

The two most important reforms of these years were probably the creation of a specialised group of grenadiers and the abolition of the pikemen, both of which took place in 1685.

The second of these reforms in particular anticipated the motion of travel throughout Europe – in fact, the French and the Spanish only abolished their pikemen some fifteen years later, while the Swedes still had a third of their infantry equipped with pikes in 1720.

Also important, somewhat later, was the Regulation of 1709, which was inspired by the discipline of the Prussian army observed during the Siege of Turin and by the firing tactics of the English and Dutch forces.

The king maintained control of the troops, supported by a defence staff, composed of adjutants and 28 experienced generals, all of aristocratic origin (nobles held 78% of the positions in the officer ranks), while in the various ranks of the infantry and cavalry forces, the bourgeois formed 20%.

After the restoration of the kingdom in 1815, Victor Emmanuel I ordered the reconstruction of the Piedmontese army, organised into ten brigades of infantry and supported by cavalry and artillery.

Under Victor Emmanuel II, the Royal Sardinian Army was changed in many respects, with an increase in numbers and in the quality of the forces.

The first included service in the Royal carabinieri, the armourers, the musicians, the musketeers, and the volunteers, while the second consisted of all the other soldiers who were obliged to remain in the army for 8 years unless the government ordered otherwise.

In this reform, criminals condemned to forced labour, imprisonment, and exile were excluded from military service, as were those guilty of crimes relating to the penal code, men condemned by foreign courts to similar punishments, and the executors of justice, including judges, magistrates, their children, their adjutants and the children of their adjutants.

The division took place on the basis of age and the oldest soldiers (provided they were literate) were made corporals.

In the early nineteenth century, the soldiers of the Sardinian army had the following social composition: 65% farmers, 25% labourers and artisans, 10% bourgeois and aristocrats.

According to the regulations of 1853, the pay of the average soldier in peacetime was 15 centesimi, rising to 25 in wartime, in addition to a ration of bread, 830g of wood in summer and 1660g in winter (double for junior officers), and a daily subsidy for the wives of the soldiers and two rations of bread per day.

The Sardinian artillery was very similar to that of the French, organised in brigades each of which contained 4/6 pieces moved by 300 horses and assembled on-site by soldiers.

The first nineteenth-century models appeared in 1833 and they were modified in 1844 to make them more like actual infantry rifles, except shorter and more manageable on account of their lighter weight.

In the nineteenth century, the carabinieri were introduced and they formed the main cavalry force, especially distinguishing themselves in the First Italian War of Independence with their splendid sabre charges.