How comes japanese smiths never invented shields?

How comes japanese smiths never invented shields?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/s2DsfR3bNd4
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

>Shield
>Smiths

Japanese samurai would rather die than cower behind a shield

...

But they did?

Because katanas would easily slice through shields like butter so they would be useless in the end

This, they literally made armour out of shields. This also meant all their armour was made of wood and leather, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

Not exactly, no, but you'd need a smith for the boss, iron bands and possible rim.

>This also meant all their armour was made of wood and leather
and that's complete bullshit, samurai and ashigaru armor was made of iron and/or steel.
They had plenty of mail armor, O-yoroi, the armor displayed in the picture was made of iron as well. Later armor were mostly made of steel, ashigaru armor too (they were just less armored).
Japanese armor is more mobile because it has more gaps, but it's still plenty heavy, though a bit less than the comparative European armor.

>primary warrior class is horse archers
>foot soldiers aren't equipped with shields
I really want someone to explain this to me.

If the food soldiers don't use shields it makes perfect sense that the primary warrior class are horse archers.

And as the primary warrior class are horse archers, it makes sense for the infantry to start using shields, but they didn't. This is like a subhuman lack of creativity and intelligence. There must be a proper reason for why they didn't.

I believe it's because their armor was pretty sufficient protection against arrows.

Or the nips simply couldn't into massed archery. Atleast compared to some Western armies, especially the English. At Agincourt the French knights were afraid of the Englishmen' arrows going through the slits of their helmets. If there was anything comparable in Japan, the armor sure as hell would not have been sufficient.

metalurgy/tech spread trends to come with ethno migrations. and isnt japan classically heralded as the archaic model of feudalism; inherenetly, the greatest gap between rich/upper strata and lower? with such a disproportionate balance between the 2 ends of the pyramid, the average serf/foot soldier/slave wouldnt be able to afford a sword much less a shield. 2 handed pike and a proving grounds for skill -> genetic succession amongst the lower class was all that was left and would explain the rise later to japans modern empire pre nuclear events of a high genetic consistancy at the ft soldier level, a high average, relativistically, from eons of breeding. naturally (probably) rising from their geo-isolated position in the world, a split between occasional migration influxs & colonisation of the archipeligo would have taken up most of its 14000 years of "history" (coined from migration onwards) of varying groups (jomons, nigs etc) peddling their way around the map..

they did have shields, they stopped using them about the same time as everyone else when better iron and steel working technology improved armor

Because the nip infantry is composed of bow wielding spearmen before the 1300s changed all that?

>massed archery
>no plate armour
>no shields
What am I missing here?

It's probably some extremely fucking gay Bushido honour related garbage where a shield is somehow of less honour than just getting shoot in the body with an arrow. Nips are known to have done some seriously dumb shit

Pavises everywhere.
A Pavise is a portable shield, with a stand.

Did anyone ever take advantage of the immobility and slow deployment like the Englishmen did at Crecy? I know very little of Japanese battles.

...

what do you mean, the genoan crossbowmen didn't get their pavise shields due to incompetent leadership unwilling to wait an hour for the shields in the baggage train to arrive, not immobility or lack of organization stemming from immobility

Using that shield in battle will break your wrist.

>somehow

Because NIPPONESE steel is too strong and cuts right through shields

That's a mirror...

It is possible, but while your opponent is aiming for the center of your shield in the off chance it might hurt your wrist, you will have an opportunity to strike him also.

Despite them being used for centuries amirite

doesn't look very reflective

The scarcity and low quality of metal lead to it being used primarily on weapons that were really good at slashing, while armors were made with more common materials like leather and lacquer. It made shields in melee combat somewhat moot, so it became more of a race to get the first fatal blow in, being that their weapon techniques involved a single killing strike rather than drawn out parrying melee to cripple or tire the opponent.

To defend against massed archers, they simply kept on the move, wore shield-like armor, or used non-mobile shields.

>while armors were made with more common materials like leather and lacquer.
Yeah except all those worn by the samurai... and the ashigaru, actually every bushi in the feudal era had metal armor (usually lacquered iron or steel).
Just because it didn't look like it, doesn't mean it wasnt (and it was).

They did. There were people who took them around archers..

Shields never had just one single grip in the middle.

Almost always they had straps so your whole underarm would be connected to the shield, this way you have way more control over the shield.


Hitting the center of that shield would be the best for your wrist, hitting the sides however would bend you wrist violently.

Most Japanese armors were made of irons. They lacquered small iron plates and tied them with silk ropes. Some light armors were made of leather and they were also lacquered and actually tough enough to resist slashes.

not sure what you mean

if the impact rotates the shield, the rotation at the pivot will be a lot less than the rotation at the point of impact

if the impact pushes the entire shield down or backwards, the shock will be transfered throughout the arm as well as the wrist, unless your opponent has inhuman strength or you have poor technique, it doesn't seem likely that striking your shield will damage your wrist

Yeah, there're actually armors made of paper. But they worked.
youtu.be/s2DsfR3bNd4

This. Shields would be useless against 10000 times folded japanese steel

The shield rotates around your hand when struck. There is a plethora of footage with people using these types of shields on YouTube.

Only large shields used in lieu of armor, like the hoplon, were strapped to the forearm because the center handle offers more shield mobility.

>Almost always they had straps so your whole underarm would be connected to the shield
Completely false.

/thread

...

>anthony cummins
>"martial arts historian"
Dear gods, a ninjer who is despised by other ninjer, a guy who can't understand japanese is now a japanese martial arts historian ?

Also, "rare and expensive guns", well considering they were fielding more of those than the european nations at the same time, I certainly wouldn't say so.

I actually have a book by a legit historian that shows examples of ashigaru armor made of Lacquered paper used by the Hojo. I dont think it was universal.

of course actual samurai had the money for steel armor

When your weapons are capable of slaying 50 men and toppling entire castles with a single whirlwind attack, what good will a single plate of steel do?

馬鹿な。。。

It's a bronze mirror. It's called a mirror in Japanese. It was never supposed to be a shield.

This.
Turns out, when the equivalent to the Triarii all use two-handed weapons like bows or pikes, it's more effective to get the lower classes to carry shields for them. Warfare just evolved differently in the east. Shield and spear, then shield and sword, was not considered to be the armament of the elite.

This seems actually practical. Defense team and offense team. Division of labor.

There are a lot of openings compared with a western armor. Did they wear chain mail under it?

Anyone have the gif/webm where a western broadsword utterly annihilates a katana?

On the arms yeah, and usually silk and padded materials for the legs and armpits. Silk is actually very hard to cut and pierce. But then this armor looks a bit old-ish (could be a more recent take on an older style), armors of the 15-16th century covered more and the old ones mostly were made to protect against arrows.
Japanese armor were usually more mobile than the european ones (plate ones at least), that comes at the cost of some covering.

European must cover their entire body with plates because they had to protect themselves from infamous English long bow attacks. In close ranges, they could actually pierce chain mail.

Doesn't really matter, the point is he slashes and stabs the fuck out of that armor for fuckall effect.

What matter really is that the Smithsonian found no one else to talk about japanese bushi than Stephen Turnbull (who is heavily criticized) , and a ninjer with an ego complex, that says something.

Early Pre-Samurai Japanese battles were violent cases of tribal posturing.
>Two armies meet
>Professional Warriors stride out
>ABOOGAAABOGGA I AM SUKEMOTO NO CHINCHIN MY DADDY WAS SUKEMOTO NO AKIRA DESU DESU WANNA FIGHT?
>YA I WANNA FIGHT?
They fight
Duel Over
>FUCK YOOOOU
>MISSILE FIRE, MISSILE FIRE EVERYWHERE, UNTIL ONE SIDE PUSSIES OUT AND GETS CHARGED AT WITH SPEARS.

Planting these big wooden shields in the ground like an instant palisade also seems a much better way of doing shield walls than carrying around smaller metal shield and having to hold them up.