Which Shield Type is Better? - Pros & Cons

good old sword and board it's been enjoyed for protection since the bronze age you have essentially one of two flavors to choose from which is strap shield or center grip shield which are fundamentally different and have their own pros and cons so let's look at them we'll start out with a ton of traffic noise thanks thanks truck and bus and what's next the monster truck just bring it we just need a a ghost train go through here anyway this is sponsored by beard sorcery we've got this big box full of stuff from them really nice stuff we got beard wash beard conditioner we've got oils we've got bombs we've got cream we've got all kinds of stuff this has become my favorite brand there's a lot of really nice scents if you like patchouli which i do personally mithril arcana is where it's at and dark sorcery as well this is a bomb this is great if you don't like the shiny look that oil gives you this helps shape your beard and tame that bed beard if you like a woodsy aroma cleric's charm is great this has got sandalwood and they added cinnamon to it which i didn't have before and i very much like that this is wax by the way so uh really nice stuff check it out it's in the description down below highly recommended so let's start off with the pros pros off the strap shield first so you've got two points of contact which means that it's more stable all right if you want to cut i've got all this to brace against it and stop that and it's going to be pretty easy to hold against it regardless of whether i want to catch it on the flat or on the edge if you cut from over there i can catch it on the edge as well either way so this is going to be pretty stable overall and it's also going to be pretty easy to carry for the most part because i can depending on the size we we're dealing with two pretty small shields here they're almost the same size but not quite um you can sort of rest it pretty comfortably i just stand here and have my leg bent i can just kind of rest it on my thigh and it's not a lot of strain even if i if i just let it hang depending on the fit of the strap i can relax the fingers too and just kind of let it dangle there and it's it's pretty comfortable if i if i'm just waiting for the opponent to do something or you know just you know watching for something and you're not immediately in combat but you want to be ready for it you can just kind of kind of chill like that you know whereas with the center grip shield depending on the weight it can be exhausting because you constantly have to hold on to it you cannot relax your fingers but you can also kind of rest it somewhere but it's it's a bit easier this way simplicity is also an argument in favor of this in terms of construction because you don't need a hollow boss right here you can have one if you want but it's really unnecessary on this is absolutely necessary because this is what keeps the hand safe without that boss right there his hand would just be exposed it would just stick through the hole in the center of it it's somewhat more challenging to make this because you have to forge the boss um although there are some versions which are woven as well like wicker boss things like that and you can also carve it that all takes more work this is one of the simplest things you can do i mean as a kid i remember making shields like this you just grab some some random old board and you just attach two straps and that's it it's one of the simplest things you can do this one is not what i would call simple craftsmanship by the way it's just the the principle is a little bit easier potentially norman kite shields strap and with boss you you do find things in between so that's not necessarily a strong argument because they often didn't really shy away from spending a lot of time on making arms and armor so there's that this one here also has a little nasty addition which is the spike right here that screws right into the front which is useful not just for offensive use as you can imagine but also to catch a blade so if he strikes and i catch it on the flat here this is going to stop it right there so now i have control over it and i can manipulate it in theory you can do that with this too i've seen some depictions of spiky bosses on bucklers from medieval manuscripts also with this you can more easily typically hold on to something else you know like if i this would be a weird combination but i can grasp something relatively easily be it a dagger or you know something else i've seen it shown with a center grip buckler two grabbing a like for example a guitar together with a buckler things like that you can do that it's a bit more awkward with this i find it easier here and there are other types of strap shield where both your arm and your hand goes all the way through so it's just strapped to the forearm itself and the hand is free to hold on to something which is quite useful for sure so pros of a center grip shield you have more flexibility generally you can move this in ways that you can't really wear the strap shield because for example i can easily change between vertical and horizontal grip it's a little bit more difficult with that if you want to do it because then you have to rotate the entire arm i can do that and in addition i can also freely move the wrist which means i can also do things like this you know i can switch sides so if you throw a cut at me i don't want to catch it flat like this i can angle it over here or i can angle it over to the other side which means i've just closed this off here and now i have an opening there if you thrust this happens pretty automatically now a real sharp point of course would stick into this but either way i can move it over there and once i've got this i can really move it in any direction i want safety because the hand is inside of this piece of hollow piece of steel it's pretty safe in there so what that means is if if i receive a strong cut on this that penetrates into the shield you know like a strong fighter could try to literally split the shield and if that happens it'll be stopped at this point so it's not going to split my hand as well whereas a powerful cut into this if this goes deep enough there's nothing really to stop it so it can cut into the arm now if you have a metal reinforced rim that's not as much of an issue or just a large shield where it's unlikely that somebody would cut all the way into it but either way this is potentially safer in that regard and that also means that you can deliberately do this which is this is something i want i want to get your blade stuck in my buckler because what does that mean now you know you can't get it out easily and in the time it takes you to try i've got a free shot basically if we pretend it's stuck i can by twisting it i can control it right here and i can pull it down and now i've got uh free reign here also against arrows if we just pretend it's a large shield is like three times the size because this is not a battlefield sort of shield size but if i if i just hold this out in front of me and then try to you know cover behind that any arrow that goes through would have to pretty much go through the entire thing which is unlikely so if i hold it away from me this is pretty safe because even if they go pretty far i'm generally going to be safe whereas there if arrows go through they might pin the shield to your forearm which that's really got to suck to have to take that off and even if it doesn't hit the arm just by virtue of it being closer to the body typically it's just arrows are more likely to reach you also if you have to let go of this for some reason you can like if i just i can just drop it you try to drop that as it's gonna be difficult you're gonna have to deliberately use one hand to hold on to it to slip out of it this is a technique funnily enough against a buckler in the historical manuscripts which is holding on to it and wrenching it what happens here is i got a joint lock pretty much right there already so and particularly if i were to use two hands so let's say we're in some kind of situation where our weapons are bound up and i just say all right screw it and i take both arms and wrench it violently the larger the shield the worse it is because the greater radius means i have like a steering wheel not as bad with this so if you hold on to this let's say let go with the sword and if you hold on to this i could just let go it's better than getting my wrist broken or my arm or you know being locked into a takedown that i can't get out of and the cons are pretty much exactly the opposite of what i just said or the flip side of it like with the last point in particular this also means that i just don't have as much to hold against it like i can let go more easily but it's also not going to take as much to twist this in my hand because all i've got is just the wrist strength to go against it whereas there it's the entire arm basically so if you tense this up it's going to be harder than it is to just move this when there's nothing but the wrist this there's nothing so this is a lot weaker in that regard which also means the whole uh revolving door thing it has its advantages but it can also be an issue because it's just not quite as strong so let's say i mess up the pairing so captain it's just i don't quite get it it slides off something like that you can flop around in ways that require more deliberate control also oh yeah that that's that's also like if you have an axe or anything like that any way to hook this that's going to work quite well this you have a bit more of a chance to hold against it again it's also going to be difficult but it's easier to hold against it with a strap shield than it is with this even if this was a large shield against a hard-hitting weapon you know be it a dana axe or any kind of pole arm or or even just a two-handed sword this can be rough to um statically block was at least again if you do deflectional it's easier you can support it with with the other hand you know that's uh an idea that's been proposed for the reason why viking hills are shaped that way to be able to embrace the shield like this you know i don't know if that's the case i don't think we can really save with any kind of certainty but it works the cons of a strap shield one i've already mentioned the steering wheel effect where you kind of get locked into it and can't get out as easily basically the uh disadvantages of the strap shield i've already mentioned by talking about the center grip shield because it's the exact opposite like the uh added stability means that you get locked in you can can be exposed to arrows and other things penetrating the shield which can injure your arm or your body behind it when striking with it you don't have quite as much reach as you do with the center grip shield simply because your hand is close to the the rim of the shield anyway so in order to strike with this i'm gonna have to be pretty close whereas striking with that gives you just a little bit more because essentially half the radius of the shield gets added to your bare-handed reach whereas this is bare hand plus a little bit with these two it's it's really not not a significant difference but if we both had large shields one strap one center grip the center shield would definitely have more reach for striking does this have potentially more power for a strike maybe you can punch with it just the same as with a buckler but i would argue that this sort of swing you know basically like a hook with a shield this might be more powerful because it just it's connected more firmly to your to your body but at the same time it may not be that big of a difference because you can strike pretty hard with a central shield too a very minor thing it takes longer to equip this in video game terms simply because you have to slip through it and then grip it whereas that you just you just pick up and not really that much of a difference it's not terribly significant but it's a difference there are strapped arm shields with a spike at the end which i've talked about in another video which are pretty useful for the size in particular because with the spike there you're able to thrust very effectively and again you could still hold on to something else so that is certainly quite useful the captain america way by the way to wear it as a backpack no it's not a thing because for that both straps have to be so loose that it's just gonna be floppy with this strap it's not that big of a deal because the main bearing point of contact is on top but if this one is floppy then you don't have that stability that normally comes with this there might be more things more pros and cons but there's all i can think of right now i'm sure people in the comments will point out everything i've missed and how dare i but either way i hope you find it interesting and thanks for watching it is very small you can kind of try to hide behind it like if i if i crouch low then i'm pretty covered but yeah essentially uh if somebody attacks a leg you're better off just just moving it out of the way you still have a weapon to defend with it's easy to just hyper fixate on your shield and just like this is my defensive weapon this is what i'm gonna use for everything but if you like cut toward my right side for example yeah like i can do this or isn't it easier to just do that and then i can try to break your elbow [Music] foreign

Channel: Skallagrim

Views: 161,876

Keywords: Skall, Skallagrim, shield, defensive weapon, history, arms and armor, steel, round shield, buckler, armor, historical weapons, targe, shield strap, sword fighting, which is better, shield bash, spiked shield, RPG, fantasy, roleplaying, DnD

Id: xLuRHCaIcb0

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 16 2022