Talk:Shield wall

message: Though fond as I am of Rome: Total War, it seems like it would be nice to have a less computer generated image of a shield wall, as well as of a modern shield wall as used by riot police. I did find one rather nice image of a contemporary Anglo-Saxon shield wall ( via ) but regrettably it is not free in the way that Wikipedia would like; the author licenses it under something similar to CC-attrib-noderiv-noncommercial. Collabi 23:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other images of shield walls 

message: I will certainly be hunting for a shield wall photo (must remember to take a camera to a show),
As an aside it probably would be worth someone with more writing skill to add in about loose and locked shield walls, where loose was common for skirmishers and hard lock for men at arms (since hard locked its slow to advance)
As for the shield pressing against the body I would like to dispute that, in a hard locked shield wall (which is what ends up pushing against another shield wall), larger shields rest against the knee and shoulder in "braced" position, and the second rank will sometimes be needed to support the first rank as the main goal in medieval warfare was to 'break' the shieldwall to enable one force to encircle the other.
A locked shield involved overlapping one side over an adjacent shield and underlapping the other side with the opposite shield, also a notable thing was that front rank shield wall members were at risk of having their legs attacked (to force them out of the wall), and the shield walls decline was unlikely to have been missile weapons, which are relatively innefectual against a sturdy shield wall, but the development of more advanced wrenching polearms, such as the halberd and bill hook and some guisarms, that were designed to either wrech the shield wall up (which when locked a single wrenching weapon can pull a large amount of a shield wall away), while some weapons like the bill hook could also be used to "pry open" the shield wall, allowing a skilled user to attack the shield carriers from beyond the reach of the shield wall.   AberDave (talk) 09:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accuracy of Article? 

message: :Image:Shieldwall.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 05:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Shieldwall.JPG

message: Maybe its because of reading one too many novels, but my impression was that, the shield wall would in part be formed by the Fyrd, and the professional housecarls would fight in front of the shield wall, exactly so that they could have the room to swing their two handed swords and famous bearded axes. The shield wall would be there to retire behind when and if things got a bit hairy, such as when the enemy cavalry charged. Kind of like todays riot police. The shield wall of long riot shiels is there to take the momentum of the rioters attack, and when the rioters have spent themselves, riot police with small round shields and long riot sticks sortie from behind the wall to mop up stragglers and ring leaders. KTo288 (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Saxon use

message: I think the article should distinguish between the various tactical methods of the ancients and the shield-wall of northern Europe during the dark ages. The phalanx was certainly quite distinct from a shield-wall. The opposing sides did get into a scrum of sorts but the very longs spears kept if from being the kind of slogging match that dominated Europe before cavalry became dominant. For most of the other ancients interlocking shields were apparently a rarity. The Romans formed perhaps the closest ancient approach to a shield wall but they rarely fought other shield-walls. 65.79.173.135 (talk) 14:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Ancients