What were SHIELDS FOR? If arrows and spears go through them, what is their point? 

I would definitely hype Raid for $10,000, too.

@@Oxnate Whatever keeps this channel going. Reviewing new arms and armor can get expensive and time consuming.

maybe have Multi functional Paveses have exist what could be used Standing on the ground against Arrows and Bolts and be used half way descent in Hand to hand combat .

I mean as a Compromise for Crossbow Men .

@@Intranetusa there's better ways to do it. Raid also like using lawyers. Karl at InRangeTV had an interesting interaction with them.

I'm going to make a mercenary company off of that for D&D now.

This raid is sponsored by Shadow Legends!

With heraldry this was often literally true.

I'll rather have youtubers to anounce their sponsors like that. Because at least they are skippable. Or so far they've been...

@@stevenmcclary534 underrated comment"! 😂🤣😂🤣

You never know when ninjas might be around. Better be safe and hold your shield behind you just in case, that way you can die from the honorable battleaxe in front of you than the risk of a surprise ninja from behind...... Or they just may be hot and want to die in the shade....

I have tested this manouvre. Lets me trust through plate armor like butter. I can't believe people don't do this more often.

Don't forget to ditch your helmet for that +2 plot armor! Never accept a helmet that covers your face! Gives -5 red shirt malus!

The only scene i can remember that featured a shield was ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XTi-Y9KNNqk.html

Pretend to be a ninja turtle.

GRRRRRRRRR

@@scholagladiatoria See, he's angry because he knows I'm right.

Consider modern body armor. Most police in the U.S. wear class 3A armor which isn't proofed against rifle rounds but is against handgun and shot gun rounds. Why? Rifle rated armor is heavy and bulky and likely unneeded in civilian shootings

@@yoursexualizedgrandparents6929 Put your skills into riding and horse archery. It's better than using polearms from horseback when you're up against a larger and tougher army.

Have you considered strapping bucklers to each of your forearms as well? Since according to early DnD that was technically an option, since apparently that's how you use bucklers according to TSR.

"Handling the butt" finally snaps into place!

Yes, many champions in that game are quite equipped!

I saw what he did there

Especially given what we've learned about the protective value of common textile armors; that itself isn't taking into acount rigid, or semi-rigid, metallic armors worn over the textile armor.

@Projected Senator Raymond Foster i'd say it's pretty likely

I think it is important to account for what the shield is used with. For example, even if the shield can't stop a longbow arrow, the mail can't stop it and the padded jacket can't stop it, but all three combined just might. Layers of protection.

@Projected Senator Raymond Foster Depends on the shield. Typically the larger a shield became, the thinner it had to be to avoid becoming too heavy. The Roman scutum for example was made from very thin plywood. It would have offered minimal protection from longbows and crossbows, especially at close range. Luckily for the Romans, bows of their time period were much weaker.

Signiffenely

Absolutely, yes. True.

Yeah, getting even a fraction of an army's worth of men who can draw a 100+lb bow, or the industry to manufacture a several hundred pound crossbow was an accomplishment rarely done in mass. Plus, getting stabbed in the arm still has a higher survival rate than the torso, even with infections.

Great historical example comes from the "The history of the wars" or "the wars" by Procopius (somewhere around the 6th century, but obviously you find free translations online just as easy). In book I, at some point he compares Eastern Roman and Persian archery and their equipment: "...especially among the Persians they were falling by the arrows in great numbers. For while their missiles were incomparably more frequent, since the Persians are almost all bowmen and they learn to make their shots much more rapidly than any other men, still the bows which sent the arrows were weak and not very tightly strung, so that their missiles, hitting a corselet, perhaps, or helmet or shield of a[n Eastern] Roman warrior, were broken off and had no power to hurt the man who was hit. The Roman bowmen are always slower indeed, but inasmuch as their bows are extremely stiff and very tightly strung, and one might add that they are handled by stronger men, they easily slay much greater numbers of those they hit than do the Persians, for no armour proves an obstacle to the force of their arrows."

@@louisvictor3473 Anna Comnemna says a similar thing about the Seljuk Turks with their horse archers with composite bows and the Crusaders with crossbows during the 1st Crusade. She described knights absolutely covered in arrows stuck in shields and mail that failed to penetrate while finding the penetration power of crossbows shocking.

Interesting fact I came across recently is that Byzantine military manuals recommended that horse archers should NOT be armed with very heavy bows, that speed of shooting (and therefore volume of arrow fire) is a preferable trait on the battlefield to the greater range etc of more powerful bows.

Not only the speed of the projectile will be reduced when going through each layer, the tip can also be blunted/deformed, and the angle of the projectile can change too... IMO this can make all the difference in many cases, ie needle arrow VS mail shirt. And finally of course, a shield would be useful in hand to hand fight, especially against people that might use anti-armor weapons.

My thoughts as well. I understood shields to be generally to be a less weighty form of protection (like armour) with the draw back of having to actively use it. On the battle field, it is equivalent to having more armour against one direction (i.e. towards the missiles) without having to sacrifice too much mobility (since you can also discard it once it is too damaged/weighed down as opposed to stuff strapped to you).

I was going to write the same, until I saw your comment. In addition, I suspect importantly, if the shield was ruined, had spears and arrows stuck in it, or otherwise became cumbersome, it was easily discarded. Even if a spear or arrow penetrated the shield and armor, and even if it caused a non-lethal wound, ditching the shield would remove the spear. Meanwhile, ditching body armor really wasn't an option. Just not having to spend the battle with a bunch of arrows and spears stuck to your armor would be more than worth it. For support, while I'm sure shields were retrieved and repaired after battle, it's clear that the Vikings treated shields as partly disposable, as warrior graves usually contain several shields. It's easy to forget that warriors and soldiers of past times were rational professionals, whose lives depended on their equipment. They knew that even slight benefits added up, and carefully weight the cost/benefit of every piece. If a shield improved their chances by 10%, while not causing any significant disadvantage, they'd use a shield.

Don't forget, also, that for the most part, fighters holding shields weren't just hiding behind them standing still waiting for something to puncture their shields. Shields would have been in constant motion and the odds of a sword or arrow striking one from straight-on perpendicular are very small. The shield would most likely have been struck a glancing blow. Let us not forget that the shield was a hugely useful attack weapon that could be used to leverage your close combat foe off balance or even used as a blunt weapon to dispatch a downed foe. The usefulness of shields is woefully understimated.

came here to say this

Yeah they’re really bad. They collect user data to sell and get more access than they should to other information.

@@seanmarkham6965 I wish there was an easier way for small channels to make money. Forcing ads is like the only way to make money on RU-vid.

@Ian Terry Roy MacLeod lmao, that advert is shocking tho that's bad enough

@Ian Terry Roy MacLeod Why not a front for Ohrana instead?

But you can view your heroes & examine their equiptment, video cuts to a barely dressed young lady with no armour, few weapons, but quite impressive equiptment.

Modern body armour works great, as long as the other person shoots it. There are plenty of areas left uncovered that if hit there, you’re going to be out of action. Not saying it’s not worth having, just that you’d better keep your first aid skills sharp as well. I’m of the better to have and not need camp, but every time it goes on it shines a light on how relatively unfit I am nowadays. Body armours’ primary function, as far as I’m concerned, is to help you survive on your way to cover.

@Kshitij Raj a properly fitted plate/carrier should cover from clavicle to belly button, and from nipple to nipple on the front. On the back it should be 2” down from your most prominent vertebrae (look down, and starting from the base of your skull feel downward. It’s the one that sticks out most) to just above the small of your back. Since most people buy the same size plate front and back, the back plates upper location is the important one. This is more that half of your torso, if you’re facing perpendicular to the target. It’s also the reason modern shooting stances are how they are. If a person is going to wear plates, they should be wearing side plates as well. m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PO_8GGluIOM.html That’s a good resource for this kind of talk.

@Kshitij Raj the point of either armours is to keep you alive. Getting a wound in the olde tymes was much more likely to go septic. They needed more coverage to help keep that from happening. Getting shot in the arm/legs is survivable, with medical attention. The neck/face/head is a small fast moving target. A spear or a sword leaves a much bigger wound, typically, but is also much easier to protect against. Look at the weight of a full plate harness (the best protection before firearms) vs what the average US infantryman is required to carry. Believe it or not, the plate weighs less, depending on SOP. That’s one of the reasons you see the folks that have more freedom of choice in their loadout choose to forego the flak aspect. Of course if you have an MRAP, your armour is something that a knight could only dream of having. Heck even 20th century soldiers would be envious.

@@nathanielkidd2840 It covers the most vital areas. Most people aim for center mass also. Just like medieval armor, it doesn't cover everything but it improves your odds. Naturally mobility is important as well but a well fit , quality piece of modern rifle plates should have minimal impact on mobility.

@Velsen Fest that’s what the flak is for. The plates are for bullets aimed at you.

Notice he had a warmaiden up when doing that.... doubt it would be the same if he had a deathknight up!

Thanks and yes I totally agree. I feel like medieval shields are not being tested fairly. However I don't think Roman era shields are being treated particularly unfairly, just that the pilum is a very specialised weapon explicitly for penetrating shields (and therefore implying that normal javelins would not).

Untill they got flanked by Oxford.

@@scholagladiatoria Agreed. Shields are a hugely understudied subject which deserve muuuuuch more attention. More than armour, actually.

Viking Weapons and Combat Techniques, by William R. Short, does touch somewhat on the performance in practical tests of various "facing layers" on the round shield popular in Scandinavia at the time, although the commentary is focused primarily on the effect of the blow on the shield itself, rather than the effect of the shield on the blow (if that distinction makes sense). It's been a few years since I read it, but the results stuck with me. Apparently, even a single layer of linen glued to the face can significantly extend the useful life of a shield in combat, and a leather facing (although much heavier and cumbersome) increases durability to the extent that a shield can remain usable to at least some extent after many repeated blows from heavy axes that would render an un-faced shield nearly useless with two good blows. (Edited for more precise word choice.)

The pilium is a form of javelin intended to be thrown. The design has two functions...to weight down a shield bearer load if in that kind of use, and to damage the weapon in event that someone were to toss it back at the original owner.@@scholagladiatoria

Also haven’t seen test with a moving target which will drastically change results.

@@Drahko12 besides the thrower missing more often, how do you expect a moving target would effect the penetration?

@@holyknightthatpwns it might be very slight, I would have to do some calculations, but the arrow’s point being shoved out of line with the direction of the force of the following arrow and its momentum would change the amount of force the arrowhead exerts perpendicular to the shield, lowering the penetration. I imagine it would indeed be slight, even when considering the bending of the arrow that would occur as the arrow attempts to maintain its straight path.

@@AHagridLookalike Oh, that's a good point. I hadn't thought about the lateral motion helping to deflect the arrow. In general I think there should also be more tests against an angled shield, as I doubt projectiles regularly hit them head on

@@holyknightthatpwns agreed, friend!

Thanks, now I don't have to watch the video! :D

To stop pommels

Wall hangers....

Serving food on.

It's always this reason in his video

For protecting your black soup.

as a counterweight when sprinting

Thank you for a genuine laugh out loud.

Not to mention sledding in the snow.

@@Riceball01 why yes, you can definitely slide around on top of bodies as well since they are basically frozen during winter: especially in colder climates.

Why do that when you can summon Tenser’s Floating Disc? Wait what were we talking about... ?

@@shoeberrypie I think we were supposed to be wargaming. 🤔

I highly agree here. We tend to think only in terms of javelins and arrows ve shields (if not just arrows) and too often forget about other ranged weapons

@@ameritus9041 This thought actually arose because I recently watched another video (by Invicta, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3uDtrwNY0Zk.html) that highlighted the Balearic Slingers and their effectiveness. It was surprising in many ways to have the effectiveness and lethality of slings brought back into my attention.

@@thomasjackson8737 sounds interesting

@@ameritus9041 I found the vid and added the link to the other reply

Sling stones are just as crap-your-pants terrifying as bullets so I don’t blame them 😭

Also some warriors had 'Shield Bearers" to protect them

It's a point. We're so used to firearms, where the missile kind of instantly arrives at the target and you never see its flight, that we forget things like javelins, and even arrows, move slowly enough that you can see and maybe react while they're in flight. Although on a battlefield I reckon chances are you're going to be so busy, a lot of the stuff you won't see coming.

Another thing worth mentioning is that all these tests include a shield that is fixed steady onto a holding device, meaning it can’t move as an arm would when absorbing the force of the blow. When a human holding a shield gets struck on the shield it folds in that direction, because it’s impossible to hold it steady, which also means all the force can’t go directly at the attacked point. It will be absorbed and lessened.

i'd wanna see my champions without their.. equipment ;) jkjk... unless 👀👀

@@xirensixseo the 34th Rule of the Internet is a pathway to many abilities some would consider to be... unnatural

LOL, I had skipped the ad, but I shouldn't have.

Ya ... "just looking .... at your champions.. and checking out the equipment... "🤫😇 Equipment ... right .. nice save/avoiding moderate 😏👍

@@jasondoe2596 - Scholaembeddedadvertisia He's cleverly looking for ways to get you to actually watch the commercials!

Much depends on what kind of bows were being used and at what range. At Hastings at least it was likely the European short bow, not a terribly strong bow. Welsh longbow or Saracen composite bow at close range? Different problem altogether.

@@oldschooljeremy8124 "European short bow" is not a thing. There is just an assumption that non-Welsh bows were weak, without much to back that up.

Yes, good point, that's why we have all of that art depicting not-things and assumptions rather than actual weapons.

Some aspis were kinda op for their time, having a sheet of bronze on top of the wood.

@@MinSredMash “without anything to back it up.” Anything non-welsh is weak. QED.

ty

Wow this was a long ad.

@@simonreichel7296 More money most likely. Making history videos aren't cheap I guess.

Thank you. Most obnoxious supporter of channels, by far.

I'd sell out for $10,000, too.

Ehh, Matt's been into silly legends for a few months now, if I remember correctly.

the cash is good for bending the knee. brandon hererra bought the materials for his firearm buisness with raid. kinda wild

Its all about penetration and context.....

@@Colonel_Overkill It's important to test if greased shaft really penetrates deeper.

also resistant =/= -proof

Non-immune =/= un-protected.

Reminds me of flak jacket I saw in an army surplus store once, that had the interesting message printed on the inside: "This armor *might* save your life!" (emphasis mine)

I feel a lot of plot armor is simply a lack of understanding/respect for qualified stage fighters & laziness

Or to put it technically, it mitigates the impact of outliers to the average outcome.

There's more than one type of shield described in Homer's Iliad. Most of them seem to be the 'figure 8' Mycenean-type ox hide shields. Those are well-represented in the artistic record, and don't seem to have metal bosses, but do have a reinforced wooden bar down the centre line. That's probably what they mean by 'the middle'. There's every reason to trust these descriptions, as other elements of contemporary arms and armour described in the same passages, such as 'boars tusk helmets' have been confirmed by the archaeological record from Mycenean Greece. More difficult is the lengthy passage describing the shield made for Achilles by Hephaestus. It is depicted as round and embellished with metal, with decorations depicting country life that are described in detail. Its not entirely clear that all of the Iliad was actually composed by the same person, at the same time, so its possible that differing descriptions of material culture are artefacts of different periods in the poem's evolution. The shield of Achilles may therefore represent another type of early shield, a later type of shield, or just a fantastical, magical shield made by a god for a demigod.

Didn't the Iliad also sometimes talk about layered shields, and even about spears penetrating this layer and the other layer but being stopped by the fourth or fifth layer in?

You would have to be superconfident on your ability to deflect an arrow sent at you to try deflecting it off at an angle, that's some John Wick level shit - also, you are presuming one arrow sent at you by one antagonist. In a battlefield situation you would likely have numerous people firing at you. I think most people would just try to hide behind the shield when they see an incoming arrow

@@dzonbrodi514 All you would have to do to deflect an arrow is hold the shield statically at an angle and hide behind it. No John Wicking necessary.

@@flyingfox09 what if they aim for the place where you are not holding the shield?

@@dzonbrodi514 then they should miss since most of your body should be behind your shield in the first place.

Shield tests are not accurate at all, surviving shields are much more durable and strong than the "shields" being tested. According to sources arrows did not pierce them at all

@@alexmag342 What sources? Whether they were pierced or not depends on the type of shield, angle of attack and weapon used. Tod Cutler has a good series on shield penetration.

Lookah likeah a wok.

Yup it was meant to stick to shields and weigh them down, and break if removed to prevent it being thrown back

@@alexmag342 The pilum was designed to bend/break after impact with anything, really.

I love how they decribed the shields in the iliad XD. Have you ever red the parcival Epos of Wolfram von Eschenbach? The he he writes quiet pictureful how whole forests were cut down to fill the need for the lances of one duel alone XD.

I doubt that. Everyone knew that pommels could not be stopped by anything before they tasted flesh.

@@louisvictor3473 What about MACHICOLATIONS?

@@aratus1622 Those are literally holes :v

Please see my series of videos on this topic :-)

@@scholagladiatoria I didn't know there was a series, I'll look for it right now. Thanks!

I for one would be very interested in learning more about the performance of wicker in this regard.

me three

Gurps had two hit point values for each type of shield, one for penetration, another for destruction. And those varied based on materiel.

They do have bulletproof ones for urban sieges and some specific military applications - SWAT teams have them.

Because we have widely available explosives

The highest ground gave you the fastest and furthest ride.

unfortunately the bosses on scuta make them stick and not slide as easily as hoped. Yes I have tried on steep grassy banks, still waiting for enough snow to try it on.

@@adamrudling1339 grab an aspis, that looks like it would slide well

@@adamrudling1339 you must balance on the boss, and spin around like a beyblades. It's the context they were designed for

Well it works in Willow

You've just made an enemy for life!

This is a very important point, and is basically the reason modern body armor is effective. It may stop the bullet, but it still feels (and has a similar physiological impact) like getting hit by a bat... that doesn't mean it's not effective. Getting hit by a bat is better than getting shot.

that's also what I thought, any projectile going through a shield would lose at least some of its energy, therefore delivering less into anything behind that shield, so it might not go through the armor or the padding or through the flesh. also I think the amount of deflected projectiles might be higher than we usually think

Because most of the time a shield would not be used in battle.

Status/ show off. Similarly why human nowadays buy a million dollar cars when we just need it to travel from a to b.

@@cikenot90 Yeah, but like, from the art, it doesn't seem like it was just people with money to blow painting shields.

@@quintoblanco8746 That doesn't seem right. Why spend the time and money making and painting so many shields that weren't going to be used? I get having pretty shields for parades and guard duty and such, but it seems like everyone was also painting shields that were intended to be beat to shit.

@@andrewkelly6828 That is how war works. Battles are rare. And not everybody involved in a battle will actually fight. A professional soldier will spend most of his time travelling, waiting, building barriers, digging latrines, training. That is true today and it was true in medieval times. A soldier might walk around with as shield for a year and fight one battle. Or not a single battle. And when it comes to a battle, not everybody will actually fight. Even today soldiers will often not shoot on a target during a skirmish, simply because they can't see a target. I was in the army for two years and I never shot anybody.

I'd certainly like a link.

Yes

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-G2Rl9DLUfao.html

@@SuperFunkmachine Thanks.

@@SuperFunkmachine Correct. And the kinetic energy here is in the 195-197 Joule range. 0.5 × 0.0813 × 69.3 ^ 2 = 195.22 Joule 0.5 × 0.0811 × 69.85 ^ 2 = 197.84 Joule

Certainly many bows in ancient Europe or other parts of the world would have been less powerful, and most crossbows were also less powerful than longbows.

You get that velocity with a good 145# yew bow and 64 gram arrows - the estimated low end on draw weights of indentured English archers. The heavy arrows do not perform as well as with a bow of the estimated draw weight of 160#.

@@eirikronaldfossheim Where are you getting this "estimated low end" from? As far as I'm aware, there's not a lot of evidence to go on when it comes to determining the typical draw-weights. Heck, Mike Loades estimated the typical draw weight as being closer to 120lbs. Also, what do you mean by "indentured" English archers? I was under the impression that they voluntarily joined armies to supplement their normal incomes.

​@@InSanic13 I also estimate the typical average draw weight to be closer to 125 lb -- in the population as a whole. And Loads' estimate was 120-140 lb. But he is talking about archers in general. For elite archers he goes up to 170 lb. Indentured archers were not the average. You had the Commission of Array, which included everyone able to carry weapons. The entire population were divided into 3 categories - archers, able archers and best archers. The best archers were selected to serve, and then able archers if they didn't have enough best archers. The sources specifically tell us that the strongest and best archers should be selected. They were grouped into companies of 50-100 men and put under a captains, usually an esquire. Also, every man-at-arms had to bring 3 archers each. Men-at-arms would selected archers from their own lands and those that didn't make the cut was still part of the Commission of Array. In other words, men-at-arms got the first pick and had access to the best and the best of the best. When they only needed a few percentages of the entire male population for an invasion force, there is no reason at all to take someone only able to draw 120 lb. They started training at 7 years of age. Why do you think that 20% of the men who trained for strength from the time they reached puberty at 13, were not in command of 140 lb bows when they reached their early twenties? That's what it takes. Only 20 % of them. With the right technique anyone can pick up a 90 lb bow and draw it back. With 6 months of training you can draw a 100lb+ bow. 140lb correspond well with the draw weight of the yew bows from the Mary Rose. Some of the bows were of lower draw weight, however, there were many more bows than there were soldiers onboard, so the lower draw weight of 100-120 was probably intended to be used by the sailors. There were 200 sailors and 185 soldiers on boards. With 250 bows, there was 65 bows more than there was soldiers. The crew of 200 sailors were divided into two watches, but during combat it was all hands on deck. However, yhe ship only needed 100 sailors to sail it. The rest had to help with the cannons and fight alongside the soldiers. They would usually only man one side during battle. 40 men and the gunners were more than enough. This meant that around 60 men could use bows during an engagement. When you subtract that percentage from the total number of recovered bows, you get bows left with a draw weight of 140-160 lb if we accept an elastic stiffness of 7.5. Most of the staves these bows were made of came from Northern Italy. In theory the thinnest bows could have been as heavy as 125-130 lb if they were made of high alpine staves with an elastic stiffness of 9. The soldiers onboard was not part of an elite of soldiers. They were part of the Captain's own indentured soldiers. The Admiral, however, brought 85 extra archers onboard the ship at the eve of battle, the kings own bodyguards, but those men brought their own bows. That's probably why we have found a 185 lb bow loose on deck. If contemporary sources tell us that bows penetrated plate armour of the day, they had to have a draw weight heavy enough to do it. As the author of Gesta pointed out: The arrows penetrated the sides of their helmets at Agincourt. To do that against armour made of low-carbon steel we need a good 140 lb bow and a heavy arrow at around 100 gram+.