how to use advance and fire?

[Didz]

While i can see how the Napoleonic Era had less bayonet fighting due to increase in effectiveness in musketry and disciplined formations, how about earlier eras (say 1550-1700) during the height of the Musket and Pike? Were there times where there were tactical ramifications of plugging your musket with a bayonet and before receiving or attempting a charge? Was close in fighting more prevalent due to firearms being not all that refined yet? Were there many if any instances of situations where bayonet wielding troops got caught up in a pike push?

Exactly, there must have been some sort of progression from ancient and medieval warfare which was very much close up and personal, to the horse and musket era' of massed musketry. Certainly, in he mid-17th century one still got the 'push of pike', but perhaps it was the decline of the pikeman that triggerred the change in doctrine. When everyone has something to use that kills from a distance it begins to get less appealing to stand too close.

I've never actually seen anyone cover this transition in a methodical way, most books concentrate on weapons and ignore soldiers attitudes.