Shields?

[apostrophefz]

Hello all.

Delete this, but after a brief search nothing came up.

Where are shields?

Gameplay wise I don't even remember they are there. But one day (I've been playing for 3 weeks now) I stopped and thought to myself: "where are the shields?" There were bows, lots of them. It's uncanny to think that the military culture of the time disregarded shields altogether, as the bow was still in wide use. Didn't the japanese use shields?

[american samurai]

The Japanese used shield from very early times, both hand held and large shields that would be propped up and used to hide behind. Here is a link with a lot of information on the use of shields in Japan.

http://samuraiantiqueworld.proboards...1&scrollTo=247

[apostrophefz]

The Japanese used shield from very early times, both hand held and large shields that would be propped up and used to hide behind. Here is a link with a lot of information on the use of shields in Japan.

But where are they in Shogun 2? Where are they in sengoku Jidai based movies and anime?
Until your post, I swear, I had never seen a personal japanese shield.
Is it an omission of sorts, an artistic license?
How to explain this? I'm dying to know.

[War lord]

The shield simply never caught on in Japan in a big way. Most Japanese weapons were two handed.

[apostrophefz]

But how could it not catch on when archery was widely used?
I'm being unusually petulant here, but this evades common sense. Arrows inflict damage, so you shield against them the best you can. Everybody did that, until the pike and shot era and onwards.

Or am I wrong? The bow wasn't widely used, thus there were no arrows to shield from?

And don't call the honor card. "Honor" alone doesn't prevent the invention and usage of physical personal protection.

[BM309K58SMERCH]

Shields were used in prehistoric Japan and early Japanese history (Joumon to Nara periods), but it slowly started falling out of use for some reason. On the other hand, the o-sode of o-yoroi armor during the Heian period (12th century) could be considered as a substitute for the shield.

Bows were widely used before the introduction of firearms for a long time. They had a significant value in Japanese history, and they actually were the primary weapon of the early samurai. Early Samurai were technically mounted archers more than melee cavalry.

Bows did reduce in importance in later periods (let's say the Sengoku Jidai, setting of Shogun 2), but they did not really reduce in numbers. As for why there aren't any shields, perhaps somebody else would explain it better, but one reason may be that the quality and quantity of iron in Japan made it an unnecessary effort to make shields for the masses.

Shields also diminish the glory that one would receive if he was fearlessly facing the enemy, not hiding behind a cowardly board. Needless to say, shields were still used as fortifications in their larger role like "pavises" as tate, especially during the Sengoku Jidai as warfare became less ritualized.

Go to american samurai's post and scroll up, there's more info there.

It's uncanny to think that the military culture of the time disregarded shields altogether, as the bow was still in wide use.

Do not forget that perceptions of war differ from one culture to another. Not everything has to follow "common sense".

[Hazzard]

What battlefield weapons were used one-handed in Japan? You need a free hand to use a shield properly and I can name two, wakazashi and spear. I've never seen any depiction of the spear being used one handed in Japanese period art, but obviously it is art, accuracy is probably not the highest priority. The wakazashi is a one handed sword around 60 cm long. That's so short I'd take rather a two-handed weapon like a katana or a polearm.

I disagree with the idea that a shield is dishonourable, but there is something to consider. At the time of the Sengoku Jidai, shields had been falling out of use, because their armour allowed them to shrug off arrows, crossbows were also being replaced with firearms and firearms would ignore shields. Now before the Sengoku Jidai, crossbows hadn't been seen in quite a while and firearms didn't exist in Japan. That leaves only arrows and artillery as ranged weapons. You can't protect yourself from artillery, but were the most commonly used pieces of armour arrow proof? If they are, then why use a shield?

[american samurai]

But where are they in Shogun 2? Where are they in sengoku Jidai based movies and anime?
Until your post, I swear, I had never seen a personal japanese shield.
Is it an omission of sorts, an artistic license?
How to explain this? I'm dying to know.

The hand held shield I show is the only one that I am aware of in the world, I saw it for sale on yahoo Japan several years ago, since I did not get a chance to see it first hand I can not be sure that it was authentic but the print does show that it could be. The print I found very recently when going through a book of prints, at first it did not even register that I was seeing a print of a samurai using a small hand held shield to keep from being shot. So here you have a picture of a shield and a print that most people do not even know exists, so how would anyone developing a game, or writing a movie etc know this? There are literally thousands of Japanese woodblock print books from the Edo period, most have never really been examined for things like this.

A similar situation is cross bows, how may Japanese cross bows have you seen, and yet they did exist.

[american samurai]

Just found another print showing a samurai defending himself with a hand held shield, no idea how old this is but it is interesting.

[Spear Dog]

And don't call the honor card. "Honor" alone doesn't prevent the invention and usage of physical personal protection.

Actually, honor has intense and unavoidable significance inside an ideology where it plays a central roll and the response to dishonour is inescapably 'kill yourself'.

[daelin4]

I read that a variety of interesting factors caused the Japanese to not adopt shields.

The first was, according to some reddit post, that the dominant martial arts schools of the earlier period were spear-based, and since that required two hands, remained prominent even as sword fighting techniques developed. Seeing as both involve using parrying techniques to prevent getting something pointy stuck into your jugular, I'd say that's one reason enough to not need shields- not like the Japanese fought anyone else that used otherwise for a long time; even the Mongols with their mass formations of archers didn't change them. By the time the Japanese adopted similar tactics, they already had access to firearms, which would have defeated shields anyways. So there's the sociological factor.
A very similar comparison can be made to modern rifle cartridges (and modern battle rifles, for that matter) post-WW2 to now. The Germans were the first to use intermediate cartridges in their assault rifle designs, but it wasn't until later during the Vietnam War period that everyone else switched over to similar intermediate designs: until then, they stuck to their full-sized cartridges through the AK-47 (Soviets), M14 (United States) and FAL (West Europeans), despite the fact that the Germans in a prior world war had clearly proven how much more viable and tactically practical an intermediate cartridge, and that's after the Germans themselves tried the same through their G43s and FG42s. After that everyone smartened up and followed the trend with their AK74s, M16s and a variety of European gun designs that all featured 5.56mm or similar calibre. To be fair though, this was clearly a logistical consideration- hard to fully equip your standing armies with new rifles AND supply them with new ammunition, when you can just design a better rifle than before but adopting as many existing trends as practical, including current ammunition standards. Hardly common for militaries to choose new designs it they are not only unproven in battlefield conditions, but can also seriously compromise your troops in the meantime. In any case, all militaries today use 5.56mm or equivalent as the compromise of accuracy and stopping power is considered acceptable, and you still got non-standard guns with calibre for the exceptions.
You can argue that shields would have indeed have been useful if the Japanese actually adopted it- who knows, their fighting style didn't change only because there was no reason to.

Another thing to consider is that, in a way, the Japanese already did design shields, via their shoulder pauldrons. This pattern of armour was the vogue in the Genpei War period, portrayed in the game's Rise of the Samurai DLC campaign. The pauldrons were large and square-shaped and would have protected the upper portions of the samurai's body, including neck and face, as he is riding his horse and trying to shoot a target with his bow. Being mounted into his shoulder, he needs neither a hand to manipulate it's direction, all he needs to do is shift his body or turn his neck, or otherwise move his shoulder to allow vision or block an incoming attack. Even when on foot the benefit of this feature can be beneficial, especially if your threat is from a clear angle of attack (ie a rampart or tower manned by enemy archers), or a single opponent on the battlefield.
Japanese armour in general was considered adequate enough to avoid getting killed or wounded by arrows. And the people that used them- samurai- were usually mounted so there's also the factor of you moving around on a horse that helps avoid getting shot up.
You have to consider the military history of the Japanese. Rarely did you have droves of people running around shooting eachother with bows, the majority of warriors would duel- usually on horseback- with bows. If things got too close or ammunition was expended, you closed in with spears, then swords. In none of these cases would a shield do anything. Combat was very ritualistic.

As a counterpart, certain European civilizations like the Macedonians employed shields in a slightly similar fashion, where phalangites' shields were partly held by the forearm but also carried suspended over the shoulder via a sling or harness, allowing the use of a shield covering the arm and thus the left portion of the body, yet also allowing both hands to wield a long spear. Shields also originated as large constructs protecting whole bodies, yet as warfare developed gradually grew smaller as armour technology improved and emphasis on manoeuvrability (horses, and later mechanization) and firepower (improved missiles and gunpowder technology) prevailed.

What's even more interesting than lack of shields was how the Japanese remained conservative even after fighting the Mongols, where for the first time very different tactics, including massed infantry and cavalry formations, and even gunpowder ordnance like rockets and hand grenades didn't seem to have a dramatic effect on how the Japanese fought the invaders. You can say that the Japanese killing off all Mongols and not capturing anyone to acquire military knowledge of the outside world as a main factor in them not embracing these new techniques until centuries later when war broke among independent feudal daimyo.
By the time of the Sengoku period, where context of mass formations and larger emphasis on infantry tactics prevailed, shields would have been useful, and indeed field pavises were a primary feature on battlefields...however by that time the Japanese acquired firearms, allowing them to easily arm vast numbers of commoners with guns without the need to master the elite arts of the bow to similar effect. With enough men and guns, all you needed was to tell them to point in shoot in the general direction of the enemy, and if the bang wasn't enough to spook them off, the number of bullets hurled forth would at least hurt a number of men and horses for the same job.
Even more interestingly was that when firearms became vogue in Europe, the elite warriors like Spanish Conquistadores still used armour, sword and shield until the time of improved muskets well into the 1700s!

It is however an interesting thought, if instead Japanese military history instead kept shields and developed it further. Think of all the terminologies you'd have for parts of a shield, the way they do with parts of swords, spear, and armour. If anything I'm surprised they haven't developed techniques where one can just use something like their shoulder or skirt armour as detachable, improvised shield. But again, this goes back to the fact that you need to sacrifice a hand from your weapon to use it effectively, something most samurai probably were never trained to do.

[Hazzard]

Based on what happened in Europe, with the use of shields dropping as armour became arrow proof, I think Japan simply hit that point sooner. To my knowledge, armour and archery didn't change that much over time, in terms of power and protection. If armour shrugs off arrows, why bother with a shield?

I reckon, simply because the swords were short, a shield wouldn't have been as useful in hand to hand combat. I've used a targe and Broadsword before and even though the sword comes up to my hip, manoeuvring it to reach my opponent around the shield is hard.

[Samittaja]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2GcZWl1XGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C19fMHVW-w

According to the youtuber Metatron, the samurais started as mounted archers. The bow requires two hands, and this influenced their armour. The armour in turn influenced the melee weapons they would use, i.e. two handed weapons, mainly polearms. After that, the samurais did use hand held shields sometimes, but it was more personal preference than a common trend. Alright, let's pretend this settles the shield usage of samurais once and for all. This is over-simplifying centuries of history, but I'm satisfied with the answer for now.

But this doesn't explain the peasant soldiers in pre-gunpowder era. In Gempei war the numbers of soldiers given are traditionally huge, and I've come to understand the numbers are considered hugely exaggerated, but I still suppose the numbers are in the thousands and in the biggest ones tens of thousands. I find it hard believing all of them would be samurais, given it requires huge wealth to afford all the equipment, a horse, servants and a life time of military education. So I think even in Gempei war peasant soldiers were important part of military numbers. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Given that the Japanese had used shields in the past and given that the samurai main weapon at the Gempei war is bow, why didn't the peasant soldiers re-introduce shields? We can even bring this to the early Sengoku Jidai, before gunpowder is introduced to the Japanese warfare in large scale. Didn't they use personal shields? Is the power of conservatism really so powerful, even among non-nobility?