Hi!
This is a computer game related question.

In RPG games you come across socalled towershields. Thats big shields that covers the character.

So, this is my question; did that type of shields exist, and if they did, how big were they?

The real world of the D&D tower shield would be a roman scutum, large kite or large oval shield.
These shields are generally between 100 and 140 cm. A 120cm kite shield will cover you from shoulder to the lower leg.
RPG terminology is often quite misleading.

there is a feature article about shields at;
http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_shield.html

There are some errors in that article.

The Greek shield was never called a hoplon. "Hoplon" means tool or weapon. The word referred to the entire panoply of the hoplite, not his shield. Today the word seems to be reserved for firearms. The Hoplite shield was called an "aspis". Earlier shields were called "aspis", "sakkos", or "rhinos".

Predecessors to the hoplite shield were not the same size. Some were considerably larger. Homer describes circular shields that reach to the knees and some are even larger - such as Hektor's shield. Greek pottery illustrations support this.

No Greek shields were made entirely of bronze (except votive offerings). The bronze was just a facing for an organic shield.

I saw two enormous pavises at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They were about man-height. I had never seen anything like that before.

Weren't the shields described in Homer supposed to be more of an oval or figure-eight? But maybe I mixed that up with an entirely different kind of Minoan or Mycenaean shield.

BTW, I've always considered "tower shields" in D&D to be a rather sloppy rendition. On one hand, they're rather too large and rigid to be a scutum or an aspis--as large as these shields were, a significant part of the protection they provided actually came from the offensive power derived from their size and weight. Imagine a solid line of large shields bearing down upon you and try to think whether you'd be able to face it without pissing your pants or running away altogether. Quite unlike the D&D tower shield, which you essentially plant down somewhere and hide behind. To be honest, this was what the huge pavises/mantlets were for--but these were so large that they should have prevented the user as well as the enemies from effectively making hand-to-hand attacks, whereas in D&D the shield's wearer is still free to attack wherever he wishes.

So it's a bastard between a scutum and a mantlet without reflecting the reality of either kind of shield. Granted, we do have accounts of some ancient Near Eastern infantrymen moving in deep formations where the first ranks carried huge shield like that while the men behind wielded pikes, but this is a massed battlefield technique and not really applicable to the single combat situations more normally encountered in D&D.

Mind that I'm an avid D&D player and DM too, but I and my gaming group tend to find the unassuming simplicity of the earlier rules more enjoyable to play--and, ironically, the way they represent their fights in a more abstract way (compared to v3 or v3.5) often makes them feel more realistic than the newer product.

Here's a picture from my trip to the Met. The sword in the middle is 49 1/4 inches long.

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Is the Fayum shield Roman or Celtic? If Roman then there is another error in that article.

Good observations Dan,

The same old confusion between Hoplon = weapon and Aspis = round shield.

Matthew: Good point, just a few people know about the correct plural form for “scutum” ( i. scuta) although I understand the typical Roman “scutums” sound much more familiar to ‘ History Channel eaters ‘ … I am one of them by the way!.

Elling : To the best of my humble knowledge the kite shields don’t belong to this category ( tower ) since they had an arm loop and single or X shaped hand grips, they rather belong to ‘targets’ category.

I would like to add some humble comments.

Although never for sure, as all these references come from several sources of unknown origins; the earliest Greek forms for shield were both Skouton ( which later derived to the Latin = Scutum ) and Thyreos : a large shield.
As you said Dan, aspis , sakkos and "rhinos" are all encountered in History.

As for the Greek Aspis ; I know of three different types.

Aspis koilé : The round curved shield used by legionary heavy infantry - ex . the Spartan’s shield with the Lambda ( Greek letter for L – a sort of inverted V-) .

Aspis platea : the flat shield used by legionary light infantry.

Aspi (s) diské : a small round shield probably used by the Greek Cavalry.

I took this photo at the Musei Civici Veneziani… no scuta here… just curious shields .


I have been very much into shield research and find this post of great interest indeed.
In fact, I am working on a large – Celtic- oval shield.
I look forward to seeing more interesting comments when I come back from my well deserved holydays.

Thanks for sharing this photo with us Chad.

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The official D&D sourcebooks for v3.5 actually mention the kite shield as an example of a "tower shield" in game terms. My gaming group interprets it as a "large shield" instead, though, since despite its size it doesn't seem to have been used by planting it passively on the ground. The Bayeux tapestry certainly doesn't show them being used in that way, even though it is granted that the tapestry might not be the most accurate source about arms and armor, let alone tactics.

That chain's too long. It needs to be a few links shorter so that the ball smashes into the fingers. ;)