The Armour Archive

re: shields. Just from a look at the couple of pics that are up. The shields are too flat and should be hung from a guige around the neck.

Shields on horseback are another piece of armour and are not used as they would be on foot. If you swing a shield around then you are going to pull on a horses mouth. This not only looks ugly, is bad for the horse but can also affect your perfomance. Can't fight well if you are fighting your mount.

Curve them, put them on a guige, don't move it around so much, hide behind it and use your horse to manouver you into the correct position for defence and attack. ie: you attacking their off side whilst presenting your near side (shielded) or even better, gain their crupper.

I could not actually see this thread in the Medieval Combat and Weapons forum. I found it by doing a search. And this post is an experiment.

Rod, I agree 100%. I think that to may people forget that mounted combat is about horsemanship first, everything else comes after that. My concern is that people who are not advanced riders will continue to move their shield instead of their horse and they will end up with a lot of sore mouthed horses.
Again just my .02c