Talk:Shield wall

Other images of shield walls
Though fond as I am of Rome: Total War, it seems like it would be nice to have a less computer generated image of a shield wall, as well as of a modern shield wall as used by riot police. I did find one rather nice image of a contemporary Anglo-Saxon shield wall ( via ) but regrettably it is not free in the way that Wikipedia would like; the author licenses it under something similar to CC-attrib-noderiv-noncommercial. Collabi 23:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy of Article?
I will certainly be hunting for a shield wall photo (must remember to take a camera to a show),

As an aside it probably would be worth someone with more writing skill to add in about loose and locked shield walls, where loose was common for skirmishers and hard lock for men at arms (since hard locked its slow to advance)

As for the shield pressing against the body I would like to dispute that, in a hard locked shield wall (which is what ends up pushing against another shield wall), larger shields rest against the knee and shoulder in "braced" position, and the second rank will sometimes be needed to support the first rank as the main goal in medieval warfare was to 'break' the shieldwall to enable one force to encircle the other.

A locked shield involved overlapping one side over an adjacent shield and underlapping the other side with the opposite shield, also a notable thing was that front rank shield wall members were at risk of having their legs attacked (to force them out of the wall), and the shield walls decline was unlikely to have been missile weapons, which are relatively innefectual against a sturdy shield wall, but the development of more advanced wrenching polearms, such as the halberd and bill hook and some guisarms, that were designed to either wrech the shield wall up (which when locked a single wrenching weapon can pull a large amount of a shield wall away), while some weapons like the bill hook could also be used to "pry open" the shield wall, allowing a skilled user to attack the shield carriers from beyond the reach of the shield wall. AberDave (talk) 09:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The use of the term 'Housecarls' in reference to the army of Alfred is anachronistic as this is a tenth century term, also, the status of the Fyrd is disputed (see for example Hollister Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions on the eve of the Norman Conquest 1962). It is unlikely the Select Fyrd comprised "unarmoured peasants ... use[ing] modified farm tools" indeed it is likely that the Select Fyrd was frequently comprised of "the household troops of the Saxon nobility". If peasants did serve it is likely this was in the Great Fyrd and it is not clear whether they fought or supported the army moving logistics, digging fortifications etc.

What is the evidence for short swords and the carrying of 2 swords? Is this a reference to seax (or Scramasax) and the pairs of sword/seax found in several rich continental graves (eg Childeric's)? Long seaxes, that is things bigger than a knife, are very rare in England in comparison to swords. Swords are uniformly long (34-37") (ref Underwood Anglo-Saxon Weapons and Warfare 1999). There is very limited evidence for long seaxes being used as weapons and they may have been designed for hunting.  --Ceola (talk) 17:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Shieldwall.JPG
Image:Shieldwall.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Anglo Saxon Content
It seems that the bulk of this article is dedicated to English use of the shield wall. More information on earlier (and later), as well as examples from other parts of the world would be useful to give a clear account of the historic use of the shield wall. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.188.67.28 (talk • contribs)

Saxon use
Maybe its because of reading one too many novels, but my impression was that, the shield wall would in part be formed by the Fyrd, and the professional housecarls would fight in front of the shield wall, exactly so that they could have the room to swing their two handed swords and famous bearded axes. The shield wall would be there to retire behind when and if things got a bit hairy, such as when the enemy cavalry charged. Kind of like todays riot police. The shield wall of long riot shiels is there to take the momentum of the rioters attack, and when the rioters have spent themselves, riot police with small round shields and long riot sticks sortie from behind the wall to mop up stragglers and ring leaders. KTo288 (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The Ancients
I think the article should distinguish between the various tactical methods of the ancients and the shield-wall of northern Europe during the dark ages. The phalanx was certainly quite distinct from a shield-wall. The opposing sides did get into a scrum of sorts but the very longs spears kept if from being the kind of slogging match that dominated Europe before cavalry became dominant. For most of the other ancients interlocking shields were apparently a rarity. The Romans formed perhaps the closest ancient approach to a shield wall but they rarely fought other shield-walls. 65.79.173.135 (talk) 14:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)Will in New Haven65.79.173.135 (talk) 14:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)