Effectiveness of shields against muskets?

[Darth Raidius]

After the introduction of hand-held firearms in Europe, shields gradually disappeared from the battlefield. But how effective would it have been for shields to remain in widespread service throughout the 16th century and onwards? Would it not be possible to construct bullet-proof shields of acceptable weight and cost?

 

[Nemowork]

No, to be blunt.

You can get away with making heavier and heavier armour if it goes on yur chest because its close to your centre of gravity and easily supported.

Holding a shield is far more difficult and how on earth are you going to use a musket?

 

[janusdviveidis]

Shield disappeared not because of hand held weapons, but because armor become so good, that shields become redundant. Good armor could stop most projectiles from early firearms at moderate distance.

 

[Darth Raidius]

No, to be blunt.

You can get away with making heavier and heavier armour if it goes on yur chest because its close to your centre of gravity and easily supported.

Holding a shield is far more difficult and how on earth are you going to use a musket?

You are not supposed to use a musket, only defend against it. I don't know how thick wood a 17th century musket round can penetrate... any reliable estimates?

Shield disappeared not because of hand held weapons, but because armor become so good, that shields become redundant. Good armor could stop most projectiles from early firearms at moderate distance.

Yes, but shields are easier and less expensive to manufacture than armor. You can equip ten thousand foot soldiers with wooden shields, but forging steel armor for each and every one of them is another thing entirely.

 

[janusdviveidis]

For fighting in this period you needed to be musketeer, pikemen or cavalrymen, both infantry professions required use of both hands. And as I mentioned shields started to disappear with advanced plate armor, before widespread use of hand held firearms.

 

[Darth Raidius]

For fighting in this period you needed to be musketeer, pikemen or cavalrymen, both infantry professions required use of both hands. And as I mentioned shields started to disappear with advanced plate armor, before widespread use of hand held firearms.

Actually swordsmen were used quite frequently even by some modern European nations well into the 18th century because of their effectiveness in breaking formations and taking on pikemen up close. The only real issue was that a sword charge would be mowed down by musket volleys if they attacked head-on, so I wonder if shields could have prevented this. You only need one hand to swing a sword, and the other can hold a shield.

 

[Domhnall Balloch]

It's a persistent myth in my speciality field - the Highlanders - that the targe could soften musket blows. It couldn't: a musket ball would go right through. And the targe was just about the strongest shield going that late in the early modern era.

A shield would need to completely stop a bullet to be anything other than counter-productive, and by the time muskets came around no shield was capable of doing that. Though that didn't stop the English from experimenting...

 

[Haakbus]

What about thick pavises?

The Koreans used a type of wooden pavise that was about 3-4 inches thick and could apparently absorb musket balls.

 

[RollingWave]

The Japanese used stacks of bamboos sort of as shields that worked reasonably well against late 16 early 17th century guns. however they were big and required both hands to hold.

 

[Whyte]

Would it not be possible to construct bullet-proof shields of acceptable weight and cost?

If it would have been possible and conferred a tangible battlefield advantage to the inventor, it would have swiftly become widespread.

The fact that we don't have such shields in history implies to me that it was 1) impossible, 2) too costly, and/or 3) not enough of an advantage.

For instance, like Nemowork's said, there are examples of 'bullet-proof' cuirasses. So you definitely could make a buckler-type shield that is thick enough to turn a bullet from a musket... But what then? It protects what, 10% of your body? Weighs enough to tire out your arm and to be slow in melee. And prevents you from using a musket or a pike. Not to mention probably costs a lot more than a normal buckler, since it needs to be so thick and from fine steel.

A cuirass would be better, like Nemowork's said, but much more expensive, probably more than most soldiers could afford. Cheaper and thinner cuirasses were still good enough to turn a pike or a sword, but a musket would punch through. (I'd probably still want one, though, if I had to be on the battlefield. Just on the off chance that it would deform and slow down the bullet enough to make the wound survivable... Assuming I could afford it.) Again, the fact that those cuirasses got phased out with the pikemen around 1700 (save for cuirassier cavalry) speaks of the military reality that they were not good enough (for the price?) against the contemporary muskets.

And as a final note... if you are imagining a 'shield wall' or a 'tortoise formation' of slow shield-bearers inching closer, I am sure that the opposing artillery is having a field day blasting them to bits.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

As Haakbus says, the closest you could get would probably be a sort of pavise, which would probably be used when on the tactical defence to form a quick barricade to protect your men from the worse of the enemy musket fire.

 

[Tercios Espanoles]

Shield (really a form of pavise) from WW1.

 

[MagnusStultus]

Why would anyone want shields when you could get your musketeers behind a tabor line?

http://podolska.neostrada.pl/tabor.JPG

Better forms of cover was available, but artillery complicated things.

 

[Dan Howard]

A 16th C arquebus with serpentine powder delivers around 1300 J
The same weapon with corned powder delivers 1700-1800 J
A later 16th C musket with corned powder delivers 3000 J or more.

3mm of plate requires 1275 J for a 15mm lead ball to penetrate if it is low carbon steel and 1870 J if it is medium carbon steel. So 3mm will stop the arquebus but not the musket. You'd need around 3.5mm of medium carbon steel to stop the musket.

The density of medium carbon steel is around 7870 kg/m^3. So a 3.5mm shield that was half a square meter would weigh around 6.9 kg. So the answer is no. A shield that was thick enough to stop a musket would be too heavy to wield effectively unless it was too small to provide an effective level of cover.

 

[janusdviveidis]

Interesting numbers, Polish Husars used ......plates that in some parts were up to 3 mm thick ( I think on the ridge in front) and they seemed to be able to stop bullets at moderate distances, I have no idea what kind of steel they used.

 

[Dan Howard]

3mm is at the lightest end of the scale. Hussar ......plates varied in thickness from 3mm to 9mm. The 9mm example is in the Museum of the Polish Army in Warsaw (inventory number 882x). Two other Hussar ......plates in the same museum (No. 629x and No. 678x) are both 7mm thick.

 

[attila006]

3mm is at the lightest end of the scale. Hussar ......plates varied in thickness from 3mm to 9mm. The 9mm example is in the Museum of the Polish Army in Warsaw (inventory number 882x). Two other Hussar ......plates in the same museum (No. 629x and No. 678x) are both 7mm thick.

Where they well known for stopping musket balls? What about the cuirassiers of the Napoleonic Wars?

 

[janusdviveidis]

Where they well known for stopping musket balls? What about the cuirassiers of the Napoleonic Wars?

At early stages they met mostly pistols and arquebus, later muskets. Mostly I know that they often went trough big firefights with very few casualties among men (although loses of horses often were crippling.)

 

[Dan Howard]

Where they well known for stopping musket balls? What about the cuirassiers of the Napoleonic Wars?

One Hussar allegedly survived a cannon shot - he was seriously wounded but he wasn't killed. The account is supported by three independent sources.

 

[The Imperial Russian]

The Zulu's oval shields were bulletproof against muskets as late as the minee-ball in firearm history.