Shield wall

This article is about the military or police tactic. For the defensive structure of a castle, see Shield wall (fortification).

Anglo-Saxon shield wall against normanic cavalry in the Battle of Hastings (scene from the Bayeux Tapestry).

The wall, (Scildweall or Bordweall in Old English, Skjaldborg in Old Norse) is a military tactic that was common in many cultures in the Pre-Early Modern warfare age. There were many slight variations of this tactic among these cultures, but in general, a shield wall was a "wall of shields" formed by soldiers standing in formation shoulder to shoulder, holding their shields so that they abut or overlap. Each man benefits from the protection of his neighbor's shield, usually the man to his right, as well as his own.

History

Ancient times

This tactic was used by many ancient armies including the Persian Sparabara, Greek hoplite phalanx formation, and Roman legions.

The shield wall came into use in ancient Greece during the late eighth or early seventh century BC. The soldiers in these shield wall formations were called hoplites, so named for their heavy weaponry (hopla, "ὅπλα"). These were three-foot shields made from wood and covered in metal. Instead of fighting individual battles in large skirmishes, hoplites fought as cohesive units in this tight formation with their shields pushing forward against the man in front (to use weight of numbers).The left half of the shield was designed to cover the unprotected right side of the hoplite next to them. The worst, or newest, fighters would be placed in the middle front of the formation to provide both physical and psychological security.

Roman legions used a type of shield wall called a testudo formation in which the first row formed a dense vertical shield wall and the back rows held shields over their heads, thus forming a tortoise-like defense, impenetrable to missile weapons. The man at the right hand of each warrior had an important role; he covered the right side of the warrior next to him with his shield. This made it so that all the shields overlap each other and thus formed a solid battle line. The second row was to kill the soldiers of the first line of an enemy shield wall, and so trying to break it. All the other rows were weight for the pushing match that always occurs when both sides tried to break the other wall. When a wall was broken the battle turned into a single-combat melee in which the side whose wall collapsed had a serious disadvantage.

In the late Roman army and the Byzantine army, similar formations of locked shields and projecting spears were called fulcum (φοῦλκον, phoulkon in Greek), and were first described in the late 6th-century Strategikon. Roman legions were typically well-trained, and often used short stabbing-swords (such as the Gladius) in the close-quarters combat that inevitably resulted when their shield-walls contacted the enemy. Auxiliaries were often less armed, therefore to provide more defence a shield-wall with spearmen was commonly used.

Early Medieval Period

See also: Svinfylking, Battle of Hastings, and Battle of Stamford Bridge

Reenactors recreate the Saxon shield wall at Hastings.

The shield-wall was commonly used in many parts of Northern Europe, such as England and Scandinavia. In the battles between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, most of the Saxon army would have been the poorly trained Fyrd -- a militia composed of farmers and other lower-class folk. However, the shield-wall tactics of the day did not require any great skill, being essentially a shoving match with weapons. A few select warriors, such as Huscarls, carried heavier weapons and consistently wore armour. These men operated primarily as support for the main wall, and as bodyguards for highly placed Thegns and royalty^{[citation needed]}.

The vast majority of opponents in such battles were armed with spears, which they used against the unprotected legs or faces of their opponents. Short weapons, such as the ubiquitous seax, could also be used in the tight quarters of the wall. Limited use of archery and thrown missile weapons occurred in opening stages of shield-wall battles, but were rarely decisive to the outcome. The drawback of the shield-wall tactic was that once breached, the whole affair tended to fall apart rather quickly. Untrained fyrdmen gained morale from being shoulder-to-shoulder with their mates, but typically fled once this was compromised. Once the wall was breached, it could prove difficult or impossible to re-establish a defensive line, and panic might well set in among the defenders.

The tactic was used at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, where the relatively well-armed Saxon army hit a Viking army unawares. The Vikings were not wearing any armour, and after a bloody shield-wall vs. shield-wall battle, fled in panic. There were few survivors on the Viking side, while the English took moderate casualties. Both sides at the Battle of Hastings are clearly visible in the Bayeux Tapestry using the tactic, though Norman mounted cavalry ultimately won the day -- portending the end of massed shields in combat. When two forces formed shield walls they would often be at a standstill for hours. The process of creating a shield wall was to interlock shields in a wall like formation this in turn made it almost impossible to break the line. The formation used to break shield walls was known as the boar snout.

Decline

The shield-wall as a tactic has declined and has been resurrected a number of times. For example, in the Greek and Macedonian phalanxes, as the Dory spear gave way to the sarissa, it became impossible to carry a large shield and so it was abandoned.

Likewise, in the Late Middle Ages, the shield was abandoned in favour of polearms carried with both hands, giving rise to the pike square tactics.

In the revival of military thinking and tactics that was a part of the Renaissance, military theorists such as Niccolò Machiavelli in his Art of War advocated a revival of the Roman legion and Sword and shieldmen. But as in the phalanxes before, well-drilled pikemen displaced the shieldmen.

The pike square remained in use on the European battlefields of the 16th and 17th centuries, but with the increasing importance of the handgun, it was replaced by the line formation in the 18th century.

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars and with the beginning industrial warfare, the line formation also became obsolete and was replaced by trench warfare, with forces spread out along a front instead of concentrated on a single field of battle.

Use in modern times

Police form a shield wall.

Although largely obsolete as a military tactic due to firearms, a wall of riot shields remains a common formation for riot police worldwide.

Right hand man

The modern term 'right hand man', meaning a well trusted individual, is said to derive from the shieldwall formation. The shield, worn on the left, is used to cover both the wearer and the soldier to the left. Thus it was advantageous to have someone you trusted as your 'right hand man' (positioned to your right).

See also

• Roman infantry tactics, strategy and battle formations
• Wedge formation
• Line formation
• Phalanx formation