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Something that occurred to me recently is that there was never any real engagement between 16th century Spain's finest and their Turkish counterparts that definitively proved which was better organized/disciplined/technologically superior/etc. The only encounter I can think of in which native Spanish troops drilled and organized in the tercio formation faced off against a substantial Ottoman army that included janissaries (the empire's crack troops) was in the aftermath of the siege of Malta, when Don Garcia, the viceroy of Sicily, arrived with a relief army to mop up the remnants of the Turks. This was a Spanish victory, but the Ottomans were already in disarray, sapped by months of fighting, dysentery, and rivalries among their leadership, and this battle therefore can't be considered representative of Ottoman capabilities.

So I was wondering if anyone else had any opinions and/or information on the matter. I'm not too well-versed in the finer points of military history or tactics, so any bit helps.
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