I am probaly going over old ground here so please be patient. As far as im aware(and my knowledge in this area is quite limited) the Samurai throughout their history never adopted the shield for defence. They most surely came into contact with enemies using them (The Mongol invasion and the Japanese invasion of Korea) and they always appeared willing to adopt to new ideas and methods of warfare.The Samurai always appeared practical and before the introduction of massed ranks of arquebusiers in the later Sengoku period the shield would have afforded some protection against archery and during melee and yet I have not come across an reference to shields being used.WHY?. This is a question that has come up for me from time to time and I would appeciate any insight into it .
many thanks Sean

Something close to the european pavis was used, but their kind of combat and culture just didn't call for the same type of defense. Their armour took European influence to get any kind of solid plate style as it was, but the only thing personal and close to what you're refereing to would be the tessen, or iron/steel war fan. Handy for troop signals and defense. ;)

Though I am sure someone else will chime in to back me up and/or correct me.

My understanding is that the Samurai considered themselves to horse archers first. As such they're primary weapon was the bow. A bow, being a two-handed weapon, is incompatible with a shield.

However, their armor was significantly assymmetrical, being much heavier/thicker on the left side. In the typical bow firing position their left side would be facing the enemy.

Now as to why their foot troops didn't use hand shields (I've also seen depictions of pavises/mantlets used by ashigaru), my only guess would be that they were also primarily two-handed weapon troops. Either bow (or, later, arquebus) or spear.

Obviously the Greeks demonstrated that the spear and shield were not incompatible, but the Greek city-states army was likely very different from the Japanese infantry in socio-political ways. The Greek soldiers were middle-class freemen providing their own equipment. I suspect (but am not even remotely certain) that the Japanese infantry was more a feudal serf/levy kind of arrangement, wherein they were probably issued gear or the commanders cared less for the lives of individual soldiers. (that last part was a little inflammatory, so if I'm totally off-base please let me know)

-Steven

672CE: Still mainly mentioned as horseback archers, but as things progress the need for a slung Tachi mount or huge Fukigaeshi to deflect arrows became less prevalent. We see more Katana style mounting and less archery as a primary means of social distinction. I'm sure there are many other factors, but the two handed aspect of spear fighting is also well brought up. Consider opposite the ashigaru of the same time and one sees the Naginata still a favored weapon of the male warrior. Food for thought I guess.

Also the early size of pre 1500's Sode might make a good example of why a shield would be redundant...

Here's a link to a previous thread on the subject:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=5732&highlight=

Many thanks for the replies, and thanks Matt G for the thread(some really good photos) I was near sure this subject would have been raised before but Im new to this group. Thanks again all.
Sean

I like to think of the whole shield/armour issue in terms of weight. If your already wearing a 10lbs cuirass why bother adding a 10lbs shield to your armament when you could simply double the thickness/weight of the cuirass. You see the same thing in Europe during the late middle ages. During the age of plate, with the exception of the pavise, shields become decidedly rarer on the battlefield when before they were ubiquitous items.

My take on it is that in previous centuries and in different places before the introduction of plate armour, the shield provided a defensive niche, that is it provided a rigid defence. Once plate armour is introduced that niche is already filled and the shield becomes redundant. Not a hard and fast rule, but I think it applies pretty well to history.

So essentially the Samurai didn't need shields for a rigid defence because they were already invested in obtaining this defence from their armour.

the japanese did use sheilds, though it's probalbly to protect them while shooting and not in close combat
these items are displayed in the tokyo national musem, and date from 400-600 AD:

http://www.stevequayle.com/Giants/Artist.rend....alone.jpg
http://www.stevequayle.com/Giants/Artist.rend....armor.jpg

I personally think the reason why the japanese would reject a shield is either because they would've consider it cowardly or because they couldnt make a shield that would protect them and at same time be easily moveable (we asians are short, and the japanese more so than the rest of the asians, LOL). small sheilds would've done little to protect against the heavy two handed weapons that the japanese loves to use.

Simply speaking, the samurai (although I'm still more comfortable calling them bushi did not use shields for reasons already stated before in this thread--at first they fought as horse archers and had the o-sode shoulder pieces to rely on. Later, when they fought on foot more frequently than before, their armor was considered sufficient to ward off most blows. But some of their retainers certainly used large pavises (called tate--check the other thread if wou want to see pictures of it) to protect their more lightly-armored archers--a tactical formation that persisted right down into the Sengoku Jidai until firearms rendered it largely obsolete.

However, earlier Japanese armies--especially before the 10th century--often had massed foot formations with substantial shields, copied from Korean and Tang Chinese models. These formations seemed to have fallen out of favor as Imperial authority grew weaker and the Japanese military landscape began to be dominated by local magnates who relied on mounted troops to establish and maintain their hold over their lands.

From the book, "Early Samurai 200 - 1500 A.D."its says that Samurai used small portable hand-held shields from as early as the 3rd century A.D. to about the late 6th century A.D.

Not all of the Samurai shields were tall and/or heavy like that of a European "Pavise".

The two illustration's show samurai from the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. armed with Shields. :cool:

Sorry about that, I should have explained myself more clearly.

These "japanese warriors" in the illustrations, were the forerunners of the future japanese military class.

The first true samurai warriors didn't appear until the foundation of the Kamakura Shogunate in 1192 A.D. by Minamoto no Yoritomo. :)

And I made a typo myself--wrote "11th century" when it should have been "12th century."

As for when the "samurai" appeared, they were in existence way before the Gempei War. What the Taira regime and the Kamakura bakufu created were samurai governments, not the samurai class as such.

(And I recall something about "samurai" being originally a title of military officials of 6th rank and above in the Tang-based imperial court hierarchy, which certainly went far before the Gempei War.)

Well it seems fairly safe to say that they did used shields but I wonder why they stoped so early in their devolopment compaired to the rest of the world. The Japaneese stoped useing sheilds around 600 AD while Europe was useing them well up until the 1500s. It is well thought that the Japaneese kept their swords hone to a razors edge but given the armor that they were faceing, would this be effective? The armor was made of a ridged material that would resist cuts, so much like the plate of Europe. Both cultures had varients of the same weapon in most ways. The Glaive of Europe to the Nagi Nata, Spear to Spear, 2 handed blade ect.

Did they perhaps find a way to make the sheild uneffective against a particular style? Is it perhaps the design of the Sword? In short, how would a Samurai compair to a European Knight?

Among the infantry types, those who were not using bows tended to use polearms which are best handled with two hands, such as the naginata and the long pike. In these cases. a shield of any size would be a major hinderance.