Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk XI

[Storm Bringer]

That's pretty much one pretty specific situation, that also generally looks like that in our time and culture - in pretty much any medieval town in say, 15th century, or Sudanese countryside today, you can expect people to carry around much bigger 'guns' than a knife.



And guns, at very least, are very often hoped to intimidate in the first place, so the killing won't be required. If some random thug is trying to mug person who draws the gun, he will pretty much always run away, not risking said life for cell phone he wanted to 'obtain'.

And assassinate is very bad choice of word indeed, anyway.

oh indeed. but the point remains, don't threaten any force you are not prepared to use. if you pull out a knife, or a firearm, you should be genuinely ready to stab/shoot the person you are threatening, and be prepared to kill him if you do so. otherwise, if your not prepared to use it, why carry it?

[Phaedrus2129]

Indeed, the intent of drawing a gun is to shoot to kill. If Mr. Bad runs off that's a bonus, not the goal.

[warty goblin]

Anything useful to add for coming up with a system for suprise attacks with small blades?

If the attack is genuinely unexpected - aka from behind against an unaware enemy - and done by somebody with any sort of competence, it'll almost certainly be fatal. It doesn't take a particularly large or sharp knife to open a throat. This isn't something requiring specialized training, it's something any level 1 peasant who's slaughtered an animal larger than a chicken would have first hand experience of.

[Galloglaich]

It is perfectly possible for a person to recieve a leathal wound that is not disabling, and visa versa. a knife in the chest can quite easily cause a wound that will kill a person, but leaves them prefectly capable of continued action for as much as 5 or 10 minutes, until blood loss kills you. conversely, a nasty leg wound that leaves a man unable to stand may not actually kill them, given quick treatment to stop blood loss.

This definitely can be true, though it depends on the knife and the person.

histroy is littered with tales of duels in which one person suffers a wound that leads to their death, but not before they are able to inflict a simmilar wound to the person they are fighting.

One of the regular posters in this thread (i think it's Mike G?) was a paramedic at some point, and has reported in this thread previously stories of people getting potentially leathal wounds, but being able to wander off form the where they were stabbed and go several hundred meters in shearch of help.

I was also a medic in the Army, and I've seen the results of knife wounds from bar brawls many times. There was a particular spate of them in 1987 during a series of riots between US and British occupation troops in Germany (they were usually kept apart but several units were stationed in Frankfurt am Main during a big exercise called Able Archer).

A knife wound can be a lot like a gunshot wound: sometimes people die immediately, sometimes (fairly often) people don't even know they are wounded (even if they have a critical injury).

During able archer we quite often had to do first aid on both the victim and the perpetrator since both were brought to us by the MP's and both were often badly injured. The big difference I noticed, and I believe the FBI reports bear this out, is that a blade longer than 6" tends to be much more dangerous. A wide blade, like a bowie knife, longer than 6" is actually more lethal, statistically, than a .357 if I remember correctly. By contrast, shorter pocket knifes often break, cut the hands of the attacker, and less often seem to penetrate deep enough to cause lethal damage except against a helpless person.

It is true that people can often survive serious knife wounds and may not even be slowed down by them, but the same is true for gunshot wounds, sword wounds, axe wounds etc., especially when inflicted by inexperienced people. But I think the wounding effects of knives and daggers are greatly underestimated in almost all role playing games (not mine or TROS though).

I think what was meant is that when you fight with any sort of weapon, you need to be prepared, mentally, to kill the person you are attacking. Guns, and Knifes, and swords and so on, are all designed to kill. if you are using one, you should be trying to kill the person you are attacking.

hence, you don't "fight" with a kinfe like you fight with your fists. you use it to "assassinate". to kill. it's a misuse of the word, but it gets across the deadly intent, and willingness to kill someone, that you need to use it.

While this is logical, it doesn't always bear out this way. People do just 'fight' with knives. For every serious life threatening knife wound I saw in the army, there were 10 wounds which were just cuts to the extremities, often to both persons, (and both were on their way to the Mannheim military stockade as a result). I've also seen quite a few knife fights on Decatur Street in New Orleans back in the 80's. It's fairly common all around the world, especially in the poorer parts for people to fight with knives without necessarily intending to kill each other (whether that makes sense or not is another issue).

I have a buddy in the HEMA world, Jay Vail, who is something of an expert on knife fighting and knife defense, he made this video you might find interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Mc9IxpYRM

In there you can see examples of people going down and being disabled very quickly by a knife (like the one in Africa), and other examples where they don't seem to be effected in the short term. You can also see how a big knife can be very dangerous even to people armed with semi-automatic guns, if in a close area and wielded by a determined attacker.

G

[Yora]

Poor choice of words on my part I guess. The idea was that it is relatively rare that you have two people with knive in hand being ready to strike back if the other initiates a fight, and it happens much more often that people who attack with knives do so very suddenly and inflict severe wounds before the other one even realizes what's going on and can do anything to defend himself.

Knive injuries are much more often the result of "getting shanked" than from having a kind of "duel" with knives.

Which is what I am interested in. Maybe allowing characters in an RPG to make two attacks with a small blade instead of one when the enemy is suprised, and another two attacks if he wins initiative and continues his assault before the enemy gets his first turn. That way it's still small wounds, but the defender will have sustained multiple injuries before he strikes back.

[warty goblin]

Poor choice of words on my part I guess. The idea was that it is relatively rare that you have two people with knive in hand being ready to strike back if the other initiates a fight, and it happens much more often that people who attack with knives do so very suddenly and inflict severe wounds before the other one even realizes what's going on and can do anything to defend himself.

Knive injuries are much more often the result of "getting shanked" than from having a kind of "duel" with knives.

Which is what I am interested in. Maybe allowing characters in an RPG to make two attacks with a small blade instead of one when the enemy is suprised, and another two attacks if he wins initiative and continues his assault before the enemy gets his first turn. That way it's still small wounds, but the defender will have sustained multiple injuries before he strikes back.

If you are attempting to kill, the only reason you inflict a 'small' (which I'm reading as minor) wound is that you don't have the opportunity to inflict a large, serious one. If your target is unaware of you, you have pretty much carte blanche to cause any sort of injury you want. Which means you won't be inflicting small wounds. Poking your enemy two or four times in non-lethal or non-disabling ways isn't an action of comparable utility to knifing them repeatedly in the liver, or cutting their throat.

[Fhaolan]

Poor choice of words on my part I guess. The idea was that it is relatively rare that you have two people with knive in hand being ready to strike back if the other initiates a fight, and it happens much more often that people who attack with knives do so very suddenly and inflict severe wounds before the other one even realizes what's going on and can do anything to defend himself.

This conversation reminds me of something my instructor told me when were were going through historical fighting styles. The various fightbooks written by swordmaster George Silver (16th-17th century) seemed to be full of stuff that paraphrases down to 'stop mucking about and kill the other guy.'

I get the impression that a lot of fencing masters of the time were teaching rather complicated and flashy styles that were more dominance displays than combat, and Silver was fed up with it.

[Fortinbras]

I'm a little bit bewildered by the popularity of the rotella, especially with the famous Spanish soldiers who derived their name from using it.

Capo Ferro seems to be saying that the rotella is too heavy and slow to be used to parry by itself. It it is two small to be terribly effective at missile defense. It doesn't have nearly as great reach as the larger "viking" style shields and thus seems to have limited effectiveness when used offensively.

So, I have a two part question:

1. Why did anybody bother with rotellas in the first place?

2. How effective would targeteer type troops be if they were armed with big, center grip shields?

[Fhaolan]

I'm a little bit bewildered by the popularity of the rotella, especially with the famous Spanish soldiers who derived their name from using it.

Capo Ferro seems to be saying that the rotella is too heavy and slow to be used to parry by itself.

It's a time period and regional issue. In Spain rotellas were very popular in the 16th century and according to surviving examples were made of steel. Ridolfo Capo Ferro wrote his fightbooks in Italy in the 17th century, and according to surviving examples of rotellas from that period and region were mostly composite wood and leather. So you're dealing with two objects that *look* the same in illustration, and have the same name, but are fundamentally different in weight and balance.

Also Capo Ferro was a very interesting writer. He constantly talks about how useless things are, like feints, etc. But then later talks about how you shouldn't do anything *but* use feints, etc. He's a bit bipolar.

[Yora]

This conversation reminds me of something my instructor told me when were were going through historical fighting styles. The various fightbooks written by swordmaster George Silver (16th-17th century) seemed to be full of stuff that paraphrases down to 'stop mucking about and kill the other guy.'

I get the impression that a lot of fencing masters of the time were teaching rather complicated and flashy styles that were more dominance displays than combat, and Silver was fed up with it.

It's the difference between fighting for sport and fighting to kill.

As nice as olympic fencing and kendo looks, I don't think it has much to do with actual warfare sword fighting. If the penalty for getting hit is just your opponent scoring points instead of losing a limb or your life, everything changes drastically.

Even if grappling is king in MMA, things would be completely different if one of the fighters had a knife or just a rock in his hand.

[Dienekes]

It's a time period and regional issue. In Spain rotellas were very popular in the 16th century and according to surviving examples were made of steel. Ridolfo Capo Ferro wrote his fightbooks in Italy in the 17th century, and according to surviving examples of rotellas from that period and region were mostly composite wood and leather. So you're dealing with two objects that *look* the same in illustration, and have the same name, but are fundamentally different in weight and balance.

Also Capo Ferro was a very interesting writer. He constantly talks about how useless things are, like feints, etc. But then later talks about how you shouldn't do anything *but* use feints, etc. He's a bit bipolar.

Hmm, it's possible he was using a rhetorical device that was common in Italy in the Renaissance where you advance two competing lines of thought to emphasize the complexity of the situation and to subtle imply your smarter than the reader so they'll hire you to teach them instead of just reading the book.

Or he couldn't make up his mind. Either way.

[Spiryt]

Even if grappling is king in MMA, things would be completely different if one of the fighters had a knife or just a rock in his hand.

It would need defining "king". "Base" would be more appropriate, cause will it's possible to do pretty well in MMA or other "complete" combat without any serious striking, it's impossible without any serious grappling.

And striking with someone who has a knife is pretty suicidal. If one has to fight, grabbing and controlling the knife/knife hand is pretty much most sane cause of action.

[Wardog]

[QUOTE=Yora;14453486
As nice as olympic fencing and kendo looks, I don't think it has much to do with actual warfare sword fighting. If the penalty for getting hit is just your opponent scoring points instead of losing a limb or your life, everything changes drastically.[/QUOTE]

Or even more, if the penalty for getting hit is... nothing at all, because the hit wasn't on the right part of the body/in the right manner to score a point according to the rules of teh sport.

[awa]

I'm designing a setting and in it one of the groups is particularly good at breaking pike formations one of their tricks is charging it with a mixed species force some of them human sized berserkers but some are size small fast and agile capable of running on all fours. so the pike men point their weapons at the larger more threatening guys but at the last moment the small guys drop down and rush under the pikes where they start killing the pike men unable to defend themselves so the formation is disrupted when the bigger guys hit the formation.

so i basically have two questions could you slip under the pikes like that or would they be able to reorient their pikes fast enough to stop it.
and would close combat specialists inside the pike formation lead to anything other then a bloody rout.

[Dead_Jester]

Slipping under pikes is possible (assuming the first ranks are positioned to received a charge), although against pikeless infantry, a pike formation should not be immobile, and the efficiency with which they can redirect the pikes varies greatly according to the training of the troops. Assuming they have seen (or expect) this tactic, they should preemptively lower the pikes in the first few ranks to receive a charge by smaller creatures.

As for the effectiveness of such tactics, it depends greatly on the training of the soldiers in the pike formation (most pikemen carried and trained with other weaponry, but levies may not) as well as to its actual composition (a hybrid formation of pikes and halberds, or pikes and longswords, would be harder to dislodge with an infantry charge). Morale would also play a large role in this; although troops may be able to reach the pikemen, if the formation does not break, than you may end up in a large melee, or the pikemen may simply push through if they can repel the initial charge. Spanish rodeleros were sometimes used in a similar fashion to breach and disturb solid pike formations, with mixed results depending on the training and freshness of the troops.

[Galloglaich]

To build on what Jester said, this idea of running under the pikes was a fairly effective tactic used in the 16th Century particularly by rodeleros in the Spanish armies, against German Landsknechts and even against the Swiss, who they began to get the better of.

But for context, this was specifically associated with the ratio of weapons in the given armies during a fairly short period; by the 1530's after the reorganization into Tercios the Spanish somewhat de-emphasized this (light skirmisher) troop type, mainly because they were too vulnerable to cavalry. Infantry formations from the mid 15th Century onward to Napoleonic times were made up various combinations of different types of soldiers: pikemen, gunners, heavy infantry (halberdiers or two-hand swordsmen) and skirmishers like rodelero. They all had their advantages at different stages of the battle, and these advantages changed as technology changed, particularly with the gunners. Over time it became more and more just 'pike and shot'

Pikemen are the best for countering cavalry, gunners obviously do damage from long range but are vulnerable to cavalry (so they are protected by the puikes), halberdiers are good when infantry formations are mixing it up with each other, and skirmishers are ideal when formations have broken up. The rodelero became effective when some armies, notably the Swiss, had begun to use too many pikemen and not enough halbediers or swordsmen. Later (late 16th and 17th Century) it became standard for at least some of the pikemen to also have swords and bucklers, and they would wait for the cavalry charge with one hand on their sword and one on their pike!



As for commentary by various Masters:

What is useful in a one-on-one duel and what is useful in a battle or a large skirmish may be three different things. Many fencing masters prefered the off-hand dagger for defense over a buckler or a rotella, others preferred the buckler. A large shield is not as much of an advantage in an indivudal duel but on the battlefield it's a big bonus! The steel rotella in particular were actually very helpful and were bullet proof at least to some extent.

George Silver, while a respected fencing authority, is well known to have had a rather nationalist or even racist bent; specifically during his own time he was reacting to the sudden and immense popularity of Italian and Spanish rapier fencing, and there were two Italian rapier masters making a fortune teaching rapier fencing in England during his life, Rocco Bonetti and Vincentio Saviolo. Silver famously posted a challenge to Saviolo who ignored him. In Silvers favor, he saw how the craze for rapier (which came late to England but hit hard) was leading to a sharp rise in fatalities from dueling. And he correctly pointed out that it wasn't right to throw out the indiginous fencing systems entirely in favor of the rapier.

But I think history also shows us that rapier fencing was not nearly as useless as he claims; to the contrary, it was quite effective. Each Master has their own biases and contradictions (sometimes they contradict themselves as previously noted) and this has to be taken into consideration, without necessarily picking one over the other.


G

[Traab]

By contrast, shorter pocket knifes often break, cut the hands of the attacker, and less often seem to penetrate deep enough to cause lethal damage except against a helpless person.

I just wanted to agree with this. Pocketknives/swiss army knives, those things are DANGEROUS to try to stab someone with. Most of the ones ive seen or owned have a really crappy grip, so the slightest resistance to your stab means you have a nice even chance of slipping off the grip and cutting your own damn fingers off. (Ok, off might be pushing it, but you wont be happy)and I cant count how many pocket knife blades I have had break on me over the years. I dont know if I just abuse them too much, or if I have the bad luck to buy the really crappy quality ones, but either way, ugh. In a choice between my pocket knife and a stout branch in a fight, im grabbing the branch. Im sure there are excellent quality ones out there, but I never had one.

[Hjolnai]

How effective would a 15th-16th century infantry force be against pikes, if it was equipped in old Roman Legionnaire style - specifically, with large shields, javelins and short swords (probably falchions)? I'm not really asking about anything else which the Legions used, like the hastati/principes/triarii, just the equipment.

I know the Legions were used to good effect against the Macedonian phalangites, but changes to equipment (particularly steel plate harness) and common tactics might reduce their effectiveness.

[Brother Oni]

Nice detail on that pikeman, Galloglaich - you can see how he's using his rear foot to support the pike, but it's obvious from the way he's holding it, he can drop it at a moment's notice to use his sword.
I will say that pike seems a bit short compared to those I've seen used during the English Civil War, so if any cavalry gets past the pikewall, the longer pikes will buy a couple extra valuable seconds for the infantry to draw their swords.

How effective would a 15th-16th century infantry force be against pikes, if it was equipped in old Roman Legionnaire style - specifically, with large shields, javelins and short swords (probably falchions)?

Against a force solely consisting of pikemen? Probably about as well as the rodeleros did, as mentioned by Galloglaich and Dead_Jester.

[Hjolnai]

Against a force solely consisting of pikemen? Probably about as well as the rodeleros did, as mentioned by Galloglaich and Dead_Jester.

I was thinking the situation would be somewhat different - using the full body cover of a large shield to push against pikes, while it would be difficult to pull beneath the pikes. Of course, with plate harness the attractiveness of a heavy shield is much diminished, and I suspect that pushing against the pikes is a losing game.

I would expect that the Roman use of uneven ground (which had minimal impact on their troops, but made a coherent phalanx very difficult to hold) and flanking would apply to pike squares as well as the much earlier sarissa phalanx, but no doubt the same terrain advantage was used in the late middle ages.

[Matthew]

According to Polybius the Romans beat the Macedonian pike phalanxes because they never engaged them on open ground, which gives us a good indication of how things would go in the late medieval period.

[Brother Oni]

I was thinking the situation would be somewhat different - using the full body cover of a large shield to push against pikes, while it would be difficult to pull beneath the pikes. Of course, with plate harness the attractiveness of a heavy shield is much diminished, and I suspect that pushing against the pikes is a losing game.

Not especially. Theoretically the front rank could deflect the pikes up over their formation, with the ranks behind holding their shields up in a testudo formation to prevent the pikes striking downwards on their heads, thus either the pikemen have to retreat or end up in close quarters against swordsmen which is a losing proposition.
Of course it's equally possible that enough pikes could slip past the gaps in the front rank and cause the testudo formation to fragment enough for the longer ranged pikes to cause some real damage, or the two units just end up in a shoving match about 10ft apart for the entire battle.

I would expect that the Roman use of uneven ground (which had minimal impact on their troops, but made a coherent phalanx very difficult to hold) and flanking would apply to pike squares as well as the much earlier sarissa phalanx, but no doubt the same terrain advantage was used in the late middle ages.

You should bear in mind that pikemen were fairly specialised infantry, designed to go up against other pikemen and to stop cavalry getting at the artillery or musket/arquebus units. A more general unit like a roman legion would have an advantage if they managed to close with pikemen.
Later pikemen also didn't use shields which would prevent the meandering to the left(?) problem that sarissa phalanxes tended to have.

As Galloglaich said, pikemen were often supported by halberdiers and swordsmen in melee combat. Since your scenario doesn't seem to involve mutiple units or a combined arms force, flanking wouldn't be an issue.

[Galloglaich]

I think the Romans would have four big problems facing a Renaissance army:

1) their shields (scuta) are fairly light compared to late Medieval equivalents, and would be easily penetrated by heavy crossbows (arbalests), arquebuses and muskets. This is similar to the problem they had with the Huns and the parthians with their composite bows, only (much) more so.

2) The scuta would also fairly easily be cut apart in close combat by Halberds, similar to the problem they had with the Dacians and their Falces.

3) They would have a problem with range due to their ranged weapons. A Roman Legion is armed mainly with pila (javelins) and / or plumbata (darts). Neither one has the range of a crossbow, longbow or arquebus, let alone a musket. The Legion is supported by artillery in the form of torsion spring ballistae and catipults, but these are also badly outclassed by small cannon, especially the fast-firing breach-loaders you had by the 15th Century.

4) Roman Cavlary would be badly outclassed by Medieval cavalry; their heavy cavalry (Cataphracts / Clibinari) don't charge, don't have the same kind of saddles or stirrups, have much clumiser and less effective armor, and are not trained nearly as well. They will suffer as they did against Gothic and Parthian heavy cavalry.

Against the Huns, Goths, Dacians and the Parthians the Romans could make up somewhat for some tactical problems with superior strategy, but most of their tactical tricks would be known and in many cases, improved upon by late Medieval armies. Their best bet would probably be to adopt a heavier (and therefore by necessity, smaller) shield, (like perhaps a steel rotella ;) or a 'mini-pavise') arm at least some of their guys with longer weapons (not necessarily pikes) and arm some of their guys with some kind of high powered missile weapon like guns or arbalests.

Then a legionairre wouldn't be all that different from a rodolero. They could keep their Javelins and gladius. Javelin armed forces (notably the Almogavars) were still proving to be effective as late as the 14th Century in Europe. The katzbalger of the Landsknechts wasn't much bigger than a gladius or a baselard. (I suspect the longsword or bastard sword that a lot of Swiss infantry lugged around as a sidearm was more useful in a chaotic melee but that is a matter of opinion).

At that point I think your Roman legion would stand a fighting chance.


G

[Matthew]

Roman scuta were in excess of 12 lbs in weight. Is that light? I am not particularly well informed about Renaissance period armies.

[warty goblin]

According to Polybius the Romans beat the Macedonian pike phalanxes because they never engaged them on open ground, which gives us a good indication of how things would go in the late medieval period.

My (very) limited understanding of this is that by Roman times, the phalanx was used for mobile offense, and would generally charge into an enemy. Broken ground would thus break the formation apart, allowing the legionaries to get through the pikes. Until the phalanx lost cohesion however, I recall reading that the Romans tended to be unable to have much effect.

[Galloglaich]

Roman scuta were in excess of 12 lbs in weight. Is that light? I am not particularly well informed about Renaissance period armies.

I don't know the precise weight comparisons but I know the scuta while large was (like most shields) made primarily of relatively thin laminated wood, about 3/8" from what I remember. That isn't going to be nearly sufficient to protect against a military grade crossbow from circa 1400-1500, let alone an arquebus. And as I mentioned they had serious problems with composite recurve bows of the Huns and the Parthians.

G

[Brother Oni]

And as I mentioned they had serious problems with composite recurve bows of the Huns and the Parthians.

To clarify Galloglaich's statement a bit, 13th century Mongolian recurve bows had a draw weight ranging 70-160 pounds (I can't find a figure for Parthian or Hunnish bows), although often horse archers would only part draw their bows, sacrificing power for rate of fire.

Looking around some more, Song Dynasty recurve bows (about 900AD) also have about the same draw range (the record for a normal soldier was 270 jin or ~162lbs), so it's possible that the Parthian and Hun were about the same (I believe they used a thumb ring, thus increasing their draw weight).

If a Roman Scuta couldn't stop one of these arrows then I fully agree that they wouldn't even slow down a crossbow that needed a drawing mechanism (they start from about 200lbs for a goatsfoot all the way up to 1200lbs for a windlass siege crossbow).
What an arquebus or musket would do, let alone cannon, doesn't bear thinking about.

[Traab]

I have a question about shield design. Were the majority of them angled to deflect attacks? Or a flat surface to just absorb the impact? I just wonder because it seems to me that it would be smarter to not force a guys shield arm to absorb the full weight of the impact, and even deflecting a bit of the force could mean the difference between a broken arm or a hale and hearty warrior ready to continue. But I recall seeing a lot of movies with different warrior groups and many of them seem to have flat surface shields. Is it that there is a danger of the blow sliding off the shield and hitting the guy behind it?

[Spiryt]

If a Roman Scuta couldn't stop one of these arrows then I fully agree that they wouldn't even slow down a crossbow that needed a drawing mechanism (they start from about 200lbs for a goatsfoot all the way up to 1200lbs for a windlass siege crossbow).

200 pounds crossbow would generally be roughly similar in energetic output as that 70, maybe 90 pound bows, so I don't think that 'would'nt even slow down' applies in any manner. Pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, what's the source about trouble (and what source of trouble) with Hun arrows? That's sounds very interesting.

But in any case, Medieval shields, be it wooden or plywood ones, weren't really any heavier or thicker than scuta... They still tend to have way under 1/2'' thickness and are generally not overly heavy.

A lot of preserved scuta are very impressive pieces of shield design, so I don't think that they would be any problem at all.

They also 'served' in times and places when javelins of all kind were still very popular, and heavy javelin can easily out penetrate any arrow in wood, if thrown well.


Too much dependence on it, in face of weapons like guns and lances could be bigger problem, obviously.

[Galloglaich]

200 pounds crossbow would generally be roughly similar in energetic output as that 70, maybe 90 pound bows, so I don't think that 'would'nt even slow down' applies in any manner. Pretty much the same thing.

Yes but a 200 lb crossbow wouldn't even be military grade by the end of the Medieval period. Basic military crossbows were in the range of 300-450 lbs, which is at least as powerful as any self-bows the Romans were facing from the Huns and Parthians (who as I said, gave them a lot of trouble); but of course by the 14th or 15th Century you also have many crossbows in the 800 lb - 1200 lb range on the Medieval battlefield which are way too much for Roman shields to handle.

In addition, you also have arquebus, roughly equivalent to a 12 - 16 gua shotgun shooting a slug, and various intermediate level guns such as trestle guns, hook-guns, arquebus-a-croc in the 15-40 mm caliber range, plus fast-firing breach loading cannon, and by the late 15th, various precursors of the musket, all of which would be devastating to a Roman army which would really have nothing even nearly equivalent to answer with.

Anyway, what's the source about trouble (and what source of trouble) with Hun arrows? That's sounds very interesting.

There are countless examples, Procopius "The Wars" is full of them, but for one easily accessible case see my link above to the Battle of Carrhae on "Parthian heavy cavalry".

But in any case, Medieval shields, be it wooden or plywood ones, weren't really any heavier or thicker than scuta... They still tend to have way under 1/2'' thickness and are generally not overly heavy.

If you are talking about a Norman kyte shield or a Viking -Era shield, I agree with you.

And 'Heavier' may not have been the best word to use; it would be more accurate to say 'designed to deal with high-velocity missiles'. A steel or even iron rotella, which were ubiquitous by the late Medieval period (based on a design pioneered by the Ottomans) is vastly better protection against bullets, crossbow bolts, or recurve / longbow arrows than something like a scutum. I don't know about all the other types of late Medieval shields but I know that the 'Mini-Pavise' type pioneered by the Lithuanians and spread throughout Central Europe was developed specifically to cope with crossbows of the Teutonic Order and recurve bows of the Tartars. They were made with laminated construction of various materials (including textiles and even paper in some cases, apparently) which seemed to be a step above a regular shield in terms of protection against missiles. They were basically portable versions of the pavise which was designed the same way.

A lot of preserved scuta are very impressive pieces of shield design, so I don't think that they would be any problem at all.

They also 'served' in times and places when javelins of all kind were still very popular, and heavy javelin can easily out penetrate any arrow in wood, if thrown well.

No javelin is going to punch through a steel shield (or steel breastplate), or if it will, I've yet to see it. But the real point (pun intended) is that while javelins do have good penetration at very short range (as the Almogavars proved in Greece with their all iron soliferrum type javelins) a crossbow or a gun has at least equal penetration from 200 meters or more in distance. Which is the problem the Romans had with the Parthian and Hun recurves.

Too much dependence on it, in face of weapons like guns and lances could be bigger problem, obviously.

The Legionairre, with a little tweaking, would be a decent troop type for the late Medieval period, but would need to be accompanied by some kind of better cavalry defense and some better cavalry, and some better 'artillery', I think.

G