Moving 17th Century Soldiers
 

Open Order - in the Ranks

Open Order in the ranks is double the spacing for Order between soldiers in the ranks.  It is particularly useful for making sufficient room for doubling ranks.

The space for Open Order in the ranks is simply double the length of the left arm with fingers extended from one person to his comrade at his left.
  OrderOpenFront_H5


Colonel Barriffe provides commands for going to Open Order in the ranks and which depend on the initial status of the ranks:
  • "Files open to your right (or left) to your Open Order!" (if the initial status was Order or Close Order)
  • "Files close to your right (or left) to your Open Order!" (if the initial status was Double Open Order )
  • "Files open (or close) to your right AND left to your Open Order!" (instead of files shifting to one side or the other, soldiers orient to the rank's midline)

Note: the only difference between these commands and the ones for Order is the addition of one word in each: "Open." All soldiers should listen closely to their superiors in order to catch this little addition.

Some illustrated examples of distancing commands

(Remember, a rank is 90 degrees to a file and consists of one soldier from each of several files.)

Distances