Were bucklers used on the medieval battlefield? How?

>>292990
to push aside or deflect a pike so the swordsman can close with his blade

>>292990

Not really. They were more of a duelling or a self-defense piece of equipment. In most pitched field battles, you wanted some kind of two handed polearm as your primary melee weapon. Swords of any stripe tended to be more of a backup/sidearm sort of thing.

>>293005
Wouldn't you want a larger shield, then? So you can protect yourself easier or defend from arrows?

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>>293018
I will always despise this line of thinking.

Artilleryman? YOU GET A PIKE
Longbowmen? PIKE
Crossbowman? HALBERD BECAUSE REASONS
Cavalry? LOL Y U NEED SWORD TAKE BARDICHE INSTEAD
Scouts? PIKES PIKES PIKES
Fusilier? PIKE

Swords had a use on the battlefield, just not in the hands of the average soldier. For some strange reason we keep finding the things and depictions of the things everywhere. Who knows why.

>self-defence equipment
literally triggered

>>293050
Ideally yes. But many people would rather have a tiny shield instead of none.

>>293056

>. For some strange reason we keep finding the things and depictions of the things everywhere.

For some strange reason we keep finding pistols and depictions of pistols everywhere, despite the fact that they're almost never used on the battlefield. Who knows why?

And it's not like you have a shortage of depiction of spears of various stripes either. They were very clearly very popular weapons.

Swords are great if you're in a bit closer than good polearm range, or if you're out of your formation, which happened quite a bit.

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>>293056
Well polearms didn't became super popular until armor advance to such a degree that shield wasn't really worth the increased protection compared to hitting power of a two-handed weapon.

Who /glaive/ here?

>>293091
I never got the point of glaives. They seem inferior to both spears and halberds.

They usually opened the fight when soldiers would throw their bucklers, usually decapitating or severing limbs of those ahead of the enemy charge; a holdover from the days of ancient warfare where Roman legions would do the same with pila. If the edges of the bucklers weren't adequately sharpened -- something that could happen when troops were on the move for a long time, leading to the wearing down of the fine edge and no opportunity to resharpen them -- the bucklers could safely be caught and thrown back at the army who threw them initially. This could continue back and forth until a winner was decided. This practice continued in war until the proliferation of accurate firearms and led to the development of ultimate frisbee.

>>293101
Style points.

>>293076
>pistols almost never used

reiters
Hakkapeliitta
whatever other language you want to translate knight into
misc naval warfare

Two handed formation weapons were utilized in the late medieval period (time of buckler) in mass blocks to primarily defend against cavalry. The only pike blocks that converged with other pike blocks with pikes at arms were the Swiss Mercenaries, because apparently being a poor mountainnigger makes you have titanic balls. So

Infantry v cav: pikes down
infantry v infantry: usually raises pikes, general melee, unless swiss insanity
Tercio: mostly static

Swords had a place, in the hands of men that knew how to use them and were trusted with their use, would find themselves out of the line (as you said) and noble troops. This did not stop pikeman from accumulating general melee weapons as well, like grosse messer or cudgels.

Spears and long two handed weapons are amazing for formations, but were common, not the rule.

>>293101
Aesthetics and probably because being able to cleave a motherfucker in half is neat.

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>>293105
>this post

god damn that would be amazing if that was true

>>293056
>Swords are very heroic weapons
>Western culture has a hero fetish
I wonder...

>>293101
Halberds are better against armors, glaives would work better on fucking up peasants with shit armor.

>spears
Those sucks compared to most pole arms. A glaive is better compared to something like bardiche.

>>292990
HEMAfaggot here

they were used in duels, mainly.
Look up treatises on sword and buckler fighting such as i33, all of the techniques are for duels, not warfare.

>>293368
Are there any fighting manuals that explain about warfare, or battle tactics, that you know of?

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>>292990
Yeah.

How? Sticking the enemy with the sharp end.

And Rodeleros maybe.

>>293368
Well and how many HEMA manuals are there for warfare to begin with?

Oh yeah that's right...

Archers in the battle scenes in the Beachamp Pageants are shown carrying them.

They're most useful for self defense or a duel rather than fighting in a ranks where there's not much room, though if you had one, would you really just take the sword and leave the buckler at home if you went to war?

Maybe a check of inventories and stuff like the Bridport 'muster' roll might turn up a few in a military context?

Another thing you could look at is this.

http://www.thearma.org/essays/SwordandBuckler.htm#.VlRpynYvfaQ

I mostly try to avoid John Clements but this article seems reasonable.

>>294887
whats Clements up to these days? still harping on about the superiority of flat to edge?

Mancini's description of English soldiers in 1483 describes how almost everyone has one. "Almost every man has a helmet and carries an iron shield and a sword which is as long as our sword; but heavy and thick as well."

Though these are not troops for battle but either the Duke of Gloucester ' s bodyguard or extra troops brought in when he was seizing the crown.

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Yes.

Particularly by archers, (there's a whole shit-tonne of reference material of that - you could carry sword and buckler, hooking the buckler over your pommel, which is pretty important if you're also carrying a bow, and maybe a stake to plant in front of your position.

That said, it was always a civilian defence, first and foremost. You wouldnt get knights using a buckler, generally speaking.

>>293091
You know a spear is a polearm right?

>>295415
nigga knows whats up