Anybody experienced a shieldwall?

I'm no reenactor but I'm a military history fan so here's my 2 cents on this.

Shieldwall usually focuses on short swords and the shields in such a way that every man is protected. It's very similar to a Greek (Byzantine) Phoulkon or a Roman Testudo but it's more of a Germanic influence because they weren't masters of cavalry so this was made mostly to defend against rampaging Roman equites and later on against the Huns.

When the shields clash against an infantry charge or a cavalry charge the whole force is usually supported by the whole group because it's a closed defensive system and if one is pushed behind then the others suffer as well. Not sure what you mean by the "boss" but the shields are overlapped on each other to make sure the spear or sword doesn't pierce inside the shieldwall. There is interplay between the soldier and the board but it would occur in the form of SHIELD - OVERLAPPING SHIELD - SHIELD as in the overlapping shield covers a significant portion of the two shields on each side.

I hope it's not too confusing.

The shield wall is just that, a wall of shieldmen. Most of these troops were specially trained. The wall can be stationary for defensive reasons or in movement to drive the enemy back.

Behind the shield wall are long pikes, spears, and long-swords men who lunge at anyone trying to penetrate the wall. If a shield goes down, another moves forward to take their place.

I have been in several SCA field battles and the shield wall never last long in reality. Which is why I preferred my great long sword, it aloud me mobility without dragging my arms down from carrying a shield around and constantly having axes, swords and spears banging on the shield...

I think the Romans were masters of the shield wall and they could move together very successfully. But, they may have gotten their inspiration from the Greeks. Once heavy Calvary were introduced,with lances, even shield walls collapsed...

I'd strongly recommend Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Trilogy. Not only is it a fantastic series, but many of the battle scenes hinge around shield walls tactics and strategies and no one writes battle scenes like Cornwell.

I can't find it now, but there was a well done demonstration of The Battle of Maldon online, in video.

I bet it's still there, somewhere.

thothguard51 said:

I think the Romans were masters of the shield wall and they could move together very successfully. But, they may have gotten their inspiration from the Greeks. Once heavy Calvary were introduced,with lances, even shield walls collapsed...

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The Testudo wasn't quite effective against infantry and cavalry. It was only useful because it could defend against archers. The Phalanx is another example of a shieldwall but that's a different story because it enabled mobility for the spearman and the whole group. The same goes for the pikemen formations later on in Renaissance warfare (pike and shot).

For an alternative of the shieldwall, look at schiltrom.

zornhau said:

Thanks so far. However, the tactical use of the shield wall is well documented.

What I'm after is what the individual warrior experiences.

Look, with longswords, when the blades clash there's this phase where each fighter tries to outfox the other by being weak to their strong and strong to their weak: you shove, so I take my sword away to cut down the other side, but you feel my sword rise and cut into my head, but I feel that and raise my hilt to stab you in the eye, but you feel that and...

That's what I'm after, but with shields.

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I don't think you find this kind of interplay between individuals in opposing shield walls - the shield wall works because it is not a group of individuals, it is one solid mass of men moving together.

I'm in a Greek battle reenactment society, and when the hoplites form a shield wall all you see is overlapping shields with spears poking over the top of them - you don't even see their heads (apart from the crest) because they duck behind their shields. From the hoplite's perspective, all you see is the bowl of your shield, not even the guy next to you, because your sight is so restricted by your helmet (particularly if you're wearing a Corinthian with the narrow eye holes). When you close with the opposing shield wall, you're looking to get your spear over the rim of their shields while doging those coming back over yours. If your spear breaks, someone passes one forward from the ranks behind. Each of those ranks (perhaps 10 - 20 deep in real warfare) has their shields pressed into the small of your back, pushing you forward to try to literally push the enemy off the field. When two shield walls meet it's like a tug of war in reverse - it's about gaining ground, not how many you kill (the casualty rate in hoplite warfare was actually very low, and many of those would have been crushed in the press rather than fatally wounded by weapons). If the opposing shield wall breaks, you don't break formation, you just keep advancing and trample them underfoot (careful to avoid the groin thrust from below!), and let the rear ranks finish any off with the butt end of their spears or short swords. The first one to push their enemy off the field claims the victory and sets up their trophy.

Of course this is a very stylised form of battle particular to hoplite warfare, so I don't know exactly how it translates to the mediaeval period.

If you type 'G20' and 'riot police' into YouTube, you can get quite a lot of educational first-hand footage. The shields aren't quite like early medieval European ones, but you get some sense of how a loose formation with large shields can work.

What struck me was the psychological impact that a shield wall can have on the people who face it. (Admittedly, these are twenty-first-century civilians, not a comitatus of early medieval warriors.) In the footage, you can see how camera operators' adrenaline spikes and the image begins to shake when the police beat on their shields or point with a stick in the camera's direction. When the line of cops is standing still, individuals often fixate on one officer or one weapon to the exclusion of everything else in their environment. When the line charges, it's a hardy soul who holds his ground long enough to make contact with even a ragged, disorganized formation. These battles mostly seem to be won and lost long before anything resembling physical force occurs.

zornhau said:

Thanks so far. However, the tactical use of the shield wall is well documented.

What I'm after is what the individual warrior experiences.

Look, with longswords, when the blades clash there's this phase where each fighter tries to outfox the other by being weak to their strong and strong to their weak: you shove, so I take my sword away to cut down the other side, but you feel my sword rise and cut into my head, but I feel that and raise my hilt to stab you in the eye, but you feel that and...

That's what I'm after, but with shields.

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If you have two hundred men forming a shield wall, with two hundred pikemen behing them, followed by more shields, do you really want to go through what every man is feeling. The shieldmen are taught to either hold or advance. They work together and all they are thinking about is that a axe, pike, or mace does not get through and that the guy next to him holds his line. Once a gap is achieved and the enemeny poors through that gap, then its every man for himself, and the shieldmen will try to regroup as there is saftey in number...

Come to think of it, Vegetius' De re militari also dates from just a couple of generations before your period. Of course, he was an armchair general writing a backward-looking treatise, but there may be some useful stuff in there.