Is it true that the Japs never used shields or is it a meme? And why was this the case if so?

>Coincidentally, Japs started moving away from shields around the same time Europeans did.
This. I don't understand why people are surprised that japs weren't big on shields but never question Renaissance warfare.

it looks very dumb though

...and?

People don't realize the popular image of the samurai is from the 16th century

> but never question Renaissance warfare.
Because Europeans actually had legit armours, protecting from most of bad things.

>Is it true that the Japs never used shields or is it a meme?
It's a meme.

>I don't understand why people are surprised that japs weren't big on shields but never question Renaissance warfare.
Because people don't know anything about it, which is why in western fiction you commonly see knights wearing 16th century armour together with high medieval heater shields.

The Japanese had armour that was well protective enough for their purposes.

>there are people that actually think Japs only wore armor made of bamboo

"Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.
It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."[4]
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function

Oh, I wondered what those were.

Samurai armour is fine. What's your point? Just because it's fancy pancy it doesn't mean it wasn't good for its purpose. They were made with many interlocked metal plates and were usually complemented with chain mail. The kabuto offered good neck protection too. They even had masks to protect the face.

So did samurai.

Their armor provided solid defense against arrows, slashing, and moderately well against stabbing.

>he kabuto offered good neck protection too
>Let's use Japanese word, It will look more proffesional
>complemented with chain mail
They used butted mail. I wouldn't call that an armor.
>They even had masks to protect the face.
Wow, that's amazing. Except Metatron debunked that and Matpat is not viable source of information.
>So did samurai.
Oh fucking really
The red part will be penetrated by any arrow. Whoa, I feel like dying just by looking at that armour.

Their chain mail could protect them from sword cuts , and the outside of the arms usually had extra plates reinforcing them. It wasn't as good as European full plate but it offered plenty of protection

It would protect from cuts the same way WW2 helmet would protect from rifles.
Sometimes something would bounce off.
youtube.com/watch?v=xw3lcgIAwLk
>the outside of the arms usually had extra plates reinforcing them
That's why I painted them green.

They had some dedicated shield bearers to protect their levy troops, like the Chinese did.

But their bows weren't really strong enough to defeat their armor consistently, so the samurai had no real need of shields to defeat missiles. Europeans had crossbows to deal with, etc. European firearms just made shields even more obsolete.

>WW2 helmet would protect from rifles
>Sometimes something would bounce off

Helmets weren't to protect from bullets, they were to protect from artillery shrapnel.

They usually had plate on the forearms.

>butted chainmail

So did the Romans, that said the Japanese had both riveted and butted style chainmail.

On most Japanese armors there would be plates on the outside of the arm and the chainmail would only protect the gaps between them. pure chain mail sleeves became more popular with the rise of guns because the plates wouldn't provide good protection against them

So do you user, but at least the horo serves a purpose.

>They even had masks to protect the face.

Wasn't the masks designed to "scare" the enemy?

I can't see it giving protection to arrows shot for example. The troat protection made of iron chains seems totally legit thou

They were made of laquared leather or iron so they probably provided minor protection

Are you for real. That's what I stated, that they were bad against bullets.
>So did the Romans
Romans used riveted mail.
>On most Japanese armors there would be plates on the outside of the arm and the chainmail would only protect the gaps between them.
Sure, but real mail would do better. But it seems Japanese didn't care.
>pure chain mail sleeves became more popular with the rise of guns because the plates wouldn't provide good protection against them
Uh, I don't get that rationale. But nonetheless, European plate protected quite good against guns, and that changed only in 17thC.
Which leads to my original point - Europeans are justified to not use shields. Armour become really good. But not so good in case of Japan.

Japanese armor was real good, no one in the world at the time considered it poor.

There are examples of riveted mail in Japan, that said mail armor was usually secondary and used to cover gaps. of course riveted would be better, but what they had was perfectly adequate

>Uh, I don't get that rationale.

Thin plates on the arms would not do much against bullets

>So did the Romans
No. Don't spout bullshit.