While I reading about the uniforms of medieval Japanese infantry, I discovered that soldiers usually wielded a two handed weapon or a bow and arrow but never a sword and shield. Unfortunately, the material I was reading failed to explain why that was the case. After some online search, I discovered that shields were used in ancient Japan but were discontinued by the early medieval period, again without explaining why. Does someone in the OT know why? shields seems to have been universal, being used in cultures ranging from Chinese to Aztec.
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My understanding is that shields were considered dishonorable weapons. Cowering behind a shield does not match with Bushido mentality.
Bushido is an invention of 19th century.
My understanding is that shields were abandoned for two reasons. First, Japanese warfare was increasingly aggresive. Shield was disregarded as a defensive, cumbersome weapon. Secondly, shields was mostly historically used by disciplined melee infantry and cavalry. Japanese used neither, they preferred mass impressed peasant infantry that was treated as expendable.
Also,
My understanding is that shields were abandoned for two reasons. First, Japanese warfare was increasingly aggresive. Shield was disregarded as a defensive, cumbersome weapon. Secondly, shields was mostly historically used by disciplined melee infantry and cavalry. Japanese used neither, they preferred mass impressed peasant infantry that was treated as expendable.
Also,
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Surely you mean 18th. Hagakure, the book Bushido is derived from (and is about as accurate a depiction of samurais as Ivanhoe has of knights) was written in the early 1700's. Not that it matters, Bushido has exactly nothing to do with how they actually fought before and during the Sengoku Jidai.
As for offensive versus defensive postures. European wars were also very, very aggressive, and yet, shields only went out of favor after the mass deployment of firearms. Which might explain their absence from Sengoku era battlefields. While we tend to think of those battles as mainly melee clashes, firearms entered relatively early into the conflict and changed its nature rather strongly from spear-pike combat to shootouts.
The shield was historically disowned in Europe when armour began to serve its function. Maybe the Japanese tended to rely more on heavy armour?
Shields really only go well with certain tactics, and those weren't really in favor in Japan. The lack of much metal and a fear of arming the peasantry generally turned them away from using small arms with shields like you'd see a lot over in Europe. The warrior class also was interested in the larger 2 handed weapons, cavalry, and archery, and so there wasn't much use for shields amongst them either.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that shields were universal. They were phased out of Chinese warfare as well in the early Medieval era starting from the Han.
Since Chinese warfare became more and more dependent on cavalry due to the omnipresent threat of steppe raiders it's not that surprising that shields became less valuable once inter-Chinese warring came to a halt. Chinese cavalry came to a height during the Tang dynasty with western horse imports, which were basically larger, although ironically it was a rebellion by another western general An Lushan that ended the breeding program.
Here's a picture of Tang dynasty horse pottery:
Vs. Song Dynasty horses:
Warring States shield:
Anak Tomb 3 (357):
Since Chinese warfare became more and more dependent on cavalry due to the omnipresent threat of steppe raiders it's not that surprising that shields became less valuable once inter-Chinese warring came to a halt. Chinese cavalry came to a height during the Tang dynasty with western horse imports, which were basically larger, although ironically it was a rebellion by another western general An Lushan that ended the breeding program.
Here's a picture of Tang dynasty horse pottery:
Vs. Song Dynasty horses:
Warring States shield:
Anak Tomb 3 (357):
Attachments
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A shield is a tool mostly for individual combat. (Nonwithstanding other examples such as the shields used in greek phalanxes.)
When you face an enemy as part of a disciplined group, you can usually count on your left and right mates to cover your side and you only have to defend yourself from the front. I suppose in that case (i.e. the normal Asian peasant-infantry experience) you would want a long, two-handed weapon such as a spear or polearm to give you reach, instead of carrying a shield in one hand and a shorter weapon in the other hand.
Medieval knights on the other hand were (supposed to be) individual warriors, and fight their enemies at closer ranges, so perhaps that's why they stuck with shields for a long time: Protection over longer reach, since they couldn't count on mates to cover their sides.
Greek hoplites could count on their mates to cover them when part of a phalanx, *but* the Greek hoplite was also at his core a free, almost-aristocratic soldier, who would not stick with formation all the time but break formation and seek out individual combat once the battle goes his way. He was a free man and there were no superiors to stop him from doing is own thing and killing enemies in single combat (which would give him the right to claim all their armor and weapons as booty). So he carried a shield, to protect him in single combat.
Compare that with the peasant soldier: He has much less reason to seek out single combat, because if he faces other peasants then there isn't much to be had in the way of booty, and if he faces a richly equipped aristocrat-warrior, then he may have his booty taken from him by his social betters (i.e. the aristocratic commander in charge of the peasant force). So he carries no shield.
When you face an enemy as part of a disciplined group, you can usually count on your left and right mates to cover your side and you only have to defend yourself from the front. I suppose in that case (i.e. the normal Asian peasant-infantry experience) you would want a long, two-handed weapon such as a spear or polearm to give you reach, instead of carrying a shield in one hand and a shorter weapon in the other hand.
Medieval knights on the other hand were (supposed to be) individual warriors, and fight their enemies at closer ranges, so perhaps that's why they stuck with shields for a long time: Protection over longer reach, since they couldn't count on mates to cover their sides.
Greek hoplites could count on their mates to cover them when part of a phalanx, *but* the Greek hoplite was also at his core a free, almost-aristocratic soldier, who would not stick with formation all the time but break formation and seek out individual combat once the battle goes his way. He was a free man and there were no superiors to stop him from doing is own thing and killing enemies in single combat (which would give him the right to claim all their armor and weapons as booty). So he carried a shield, to protect him in single combat.
Compare that with the peasant soldier: He has much less reason to seek out single combat, because if he faces other peasants then there isn't much to be had in the way of booty, and if he faces a richly equipped aristocrat-warrior, then he may have his booty taken from him by his social betters (i.e. the aristocratic commander in charge of the peasant force). So he carries no shield.
Not quite true.
Since Hoplite warfare was made up of symmetrically opposing phalanxes, who then poked each other with sticks, then ran if their stick broke first, single combat wasn't that common outside of the Iliad. There's written evidence of hoplites being shamed for breaking formation in Sparta, some even having to sacrifice themselves in battle in order to make up for breaking the phalanx. Being a free man didn't really change that, and they certainly had superiors telling them to not break the line just because he liked the look of someone's helmet.tee hee
Also, loot and single combat weren't really linked. Most of the looting done in the town next to the battle or on the enemy baggage train, not of the bodies of the combatants themselves.
As you said at the beginning, shields were important in phalanxes, but they were also important to Hoplites because it represented camaraderie and unity, because a hoplite's shield covered the man to his left, not himself. This continued into the Roman Legions, and was again seen in the shieldwalls of the early medieval times, which were really effective against most infantry at the time - a tactic that was phased out in favour of just throwing mounted knights at everything. Shields disappeared in formation combat when the Swiss realised that a formation of two-handed pikes was more useful against Armoured Calvary (which was a HUGE DEAL at a time where knights carried battles) than a formation of spears and shields. Contrary to gunpowder making shields obsolete, I'd say it was more a necessity brought on by two handed polearms being more useful against horses than a shield was.
Speaking of pikes, I found this on the wiki page:
As Calvary becomes more important, we see infantry tend towards two handed weapons for the extended reach, because a shorter spear/sword and shield wasn't as effective against an armoured calvary charge than a longer, two-handed pike or sword.
Where did you get that from? Is the old "oh, premodern, barbaric armies fought as a disorganized rabble man-on-man" fallacy?
I thought I explained that already? When you fight in a formation, you don't need a shield so much, because you have buddies to your left and right who protect your sides. When you fight individually, you don't have that.
:huh: Don't put words in my mouth. There are plenty of reasons why people would break formation and seek out individual combat. premodern / barbaric / blabla doesn't figure into it. When you break formation and seek out individual combat right in everyone else's view, it's a grandiose opportunity to gain prestige and status. (Hence the frequent fights between "champions" attested in, e.g., early Byzantine-Arab wars.) When you do it in the middle of a battle, seizing an initiative to seek out an enemy in the middle of a meelee, hacking him down all by yourself gives you the right to claim all his stuff as loot and may make you a rich man instantly. (Read the Iliad, Homer has the warriors all eager to hack each other down and claim booty, and he even describes how many victors only enjoy their loot for a few brief moments before the next man, in turn, hacks them down.) When a battle has dissolved into a general pursuit, soldiers might rush to hack down fleeing enemies individually because they think it's now the time to kill those bastards, and steal their stuff.
You don't earn much in the way of loot if you always stick with your formation. But the armor/weapons/horses of your enemy are often enormously expensive pieces of equipment. Why leave it to the cavalry, or the officers, to rush in and claim all the stuff?
There may be rational reasons why you would, in some situations, have armies full of warriors who look forward to single combat, and who go to lengths to acquire gear (like a shield) that lets them face those fights with confidence. In other situations, soldiers might not look forward to it all that much because there'd be much risk and little to gain, so they are going to stick to their buddies and not go out seeking high risk situations. What previous posters wrote about Japanese and Chinese peasant armies makes me consider it likely that most troopers would fall in the latter category. Hence supporting the theory that there are social reasons why shields weren't used so much in those cultures even before gunpowder became prominent.
It's not so clear cut as that. The Normans at Hastings did not ride down Harald Godwinsson's shield wall - they fell on the Saxons and won the battle after the Saxons broke formation and pursued a bunch of fleeing Normans. Why, pray tell, would they have broken formation, if holding formation was so super great on their minds, as you claim? Holding formation is what's unnatural to a warrior. Throwing yourself on the enemy and hacking him down, that's what all your instincts push you to do, when your blood is up, and when you sense that he is weaker than you.
Homer's Iliad was a hugely popular epic throughout classical Greek and Roman times. They wouldn't have kept on retelling that story if the whole "glorious individual combat" thing of Homer had been an alien concept to those Greeks and Romans.
While there is a degree of difference in the rigor of training, the Iliad was popular with greeks and romans for the same reason that lets say Saving Private Ryan is popular. The idea of heroic self-sacrifice is popular wether or not it is actually representative of what happens on the battlefield. It is not, and it was not.
People charging individually like idiots get massacred down. People fighting in formation, protected by the shields of their squadmates, those live.
Champion fights are stylized fights done before you go into melée , as it was a way to avoid the risky, coin-toss fighting that melée could degenerate to. Better to lose a champion and yield the field than to be forced into a rout and lose your army.
I would really like to know where you got your ideas from, cause to me, it seems like the worst misconceptions about premodern warfare rolled into one ball.
People charging individually like idiots get massacred down. People fighting in formation, protected by the shields of their squadmates, those live.
Champion fights are stylized fights done before you go into melée , as it was a way to avoid the risky, coin-toss fighting that melée could degenerate to. Better to lose a champion and yield the field than to be forced into a rout and lose your army.
I would really like to know where you got your ideas from, cause to me, it seems like the worst misconceptions about premodern warfare rolled into one ball.
I don't think this is true. When you break formation in front of everyone against orders, you end up getting in very deep trouble with whoever happens to be in charge. Spanish tercios had severe punishments for breaking formation so they could "prove themselves", because that was not tolerated in a disciplined force. You will note that Tercios also seeked out distinction (not loot) by breaking formation, but they never had shields.
[Citation Needed]
I don't think war profiteering works on a dibs calling system. I sure wouldn't like to be trying to pull platemail off of a corpse in the heat of battle so that another noble didn't take it first.
Most historians who study Ancient Greece preface the Iliad with "ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THIS EVER, EVER HAPPENED". More importantly, the Iliad is an idealisation of combat by authors who had never actually seen it, rather than a legitimate source of what combat is actually like.
Because that's not how looting actually works, you get loot from whoever happened to be living in the village next door to the battlefield, not in the thick of battle.
I'm still skeptical that it was some sort of lust for gold and blood within the semi-nobility that made them use shields for one-on-one fights to the death, while the cowardly and meek peasantry used two handed weapons because they weren't alpha enough to break formation and steal someone's gold plated codpiece.
Because the Saxons that broke formation thought the Normans were fleeing and thought they could chase them off the field, which was a tactical decision - not because their murderboners overwhelmed them to the point of needed to crush the Normans in honourable combat no matter what.
As I said, the Iliad is as much a realistic depiction of ancient warfare as a Tom Clancy game is to modern warfare.
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On reflection, I feel that while you're right to a certain extent about the shield being used for self defence by swordsmen/axemen who lack the range of polearms, the reasons why you think that are really, really wrong. So to reiterate, it's not that shields aren't good for the rare one-on-one fight with an enemy, or that people didn't occasionally get taken by the thrill of battle, but that the shield's use as a tool in warfare wasn't completely and totally shaped by these factors.
More importantly, in Japan (which is the focus of the thread), shields never really caught on. And we all know how much the Japanese loved to duel one-on-one because they wrote down their favourite ones in historical documents - so how come shields weren't an integral part of warfare here?
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If anything shields seem to be *more* important when fighting in formation than otherwise.
No, it came from, "I pulled this out of my ass with no supporting evidence".
If shields came about primarily from single combat, then the Japanese should have logically been the foremost user of shields, which is not the case here.
The simplest answer is that shields just weren't that great. You sacrifice an arm for a heavy and purely defensive tool which most likely doesn't cover your whole body anyways.
You're liable to be attacked from the sides, from behind, and below as well as above the shield. Tbh, shields in combat outside of formations probably sucked.
Single combat outside of ritualized bouts is an idealized fantasy brought about by men who had never seen hand to hand fighting.
Do people honestly believe that a soldier in Japan would just watch as their fellow comrade engaged in a slug fest with an enemy from the opposing army? Bullshit.
You could hardly be further from the truth.
The shield was mainly a tool for formations. By itself, a shield was a heavy and clumsy addition. The key strength was in formations. The phalanx was one of the first military formations (much earlier then the Greeks)
Most asian troops used shields extensively, where resources were available.
The shield was staple defensive equipment of most medieval european soldiers at the time. The knights did no use any more or any less than levy infantry.
You may have watched "300" far too much.
Greek hoplites were a citizen militia raised by the city. Not "almost aristocratic". And they would certainly not break formation as it was tantamount to defeat. The phalanx relied on the weight of the formation for its strength, the individual combat skills of the hoplites not being anything amazing. Broken formation are the reasons of the catastrophic defeats like Leuctra and Pydna.
Nonsense. The shield was the one thing you would expect a levy to carry. Mainly out of a desire to not get killed.
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But what do you do with other arm instead? from what I can tell:
a. you can use it, along with the other arm, to hold a two handed weapon. This offers even less protection compared to a shield, especially against projectiles.
b. you can wield a parrying dagger, which is better defensively, but still not as a good as a shield.
To me, these two options don't seem to prolong combat survivability compared to a shield.
Also a shield can be use it offensively, during a charge for example and to bash an opponent away during one-on-one combat.
Yeah I thought a shield was a big advantage simply because you can knock your opponents weapon out the way and attack with your own weapon at the same time. If your opponent only has a sword he now has to worry about getting his sword caught and redirected by your shield as well as your own blade.