Mounted Crossbowmen: The mounted cossbowmen generally accompanied the Vorhut as scouts or as a mobile advance patrol. They usually fought on foot, rather like dragoons. The cranequin-type loading mechanism was preferred by the Swiss and was most certainly used by the mounted crossbowmen as the more simple device in comparison with the windlass which was generally used by the Burgundian foot crossbowmen.
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Handgunners: The tactical role of the handgun was initially limited in Swiss service. In the Zurich role call of 1443, only 61 handgunners were conscripted for the Schutzenfahnlein of 536 men, the remaining 475 being armed with crossbows. By the Burgundian Wars, the proportion had been about half and half handgunners and crossbowmen, although there seems to have been a general difficulty in maintaining a good proportion of firepower in Confederate armies.
The unpopularity of the handgun probably derived from the difficulty which gunners experienced in handling such weapons. In battle the rate of fire must have been dreadfully slow, loose powder being very difficult to handle in wet and windy conditions (the earliest form of cartridge was not introduced until late into the 15th century). With luck and kind weather a handgunner would probably have been able to manage one shot a minute.
The method of firing the handgun appears to have differed. Early handguns were held under the arm and fired by lighting the touch hole with the glowing tip of a match. The earliest record of the introduction of a serpentine (the S-shaped trigger mechanism to which the match was attached) dates from c. 1411. The position in which some of the handgunners are holding their weapons (i.e. with the butt of the gun rested on the shoulder instead of against it, tends to suggest that accurate firing could not have been possible without a serpentine mechanism holding the match - since the right hand would have been required to steady the aim if the butt rested on the shoulder.
Gunners' kit consisted, as far as can be ascertained, of a small bag and powder flask. Lead boules were used for shot, and it was not uncommon for handgunners to carry molds with them on campaign. At the Battle of Grandson, the Swiss made a sortie to the outlying hamlets at Yverdon and collected pewter plates which they could melt down for shot.
Handgunners generally wore little armor as they needed to remain mobile. Bernese handgunners and crossbowmen favored a small fighting axe known as the Mordaxt. This was often used for the construction of earthworks and pallisades (so-called Letzinen).

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