It is one of the most common types of armor. Throughout all human wars, the lives protected by shields far exceed those of other armors such as helmets and armors. This does not mean that shields are good at defense. The main thing is that shields are simple to make and can be used by any person.
A soldier or mercenary can own it as long as he is willing. Most empires cannot equip every soldier with a good set of armor, even leather armor, but configuring a shield is much simpler.
The most elementary shield is like a wooden pot lid - even inferior to the pot lid in terms of material selection. The diameter is 30 to 40 centimeters, and the thickness of the shield is between 2 and 5 centimeters depending on the wood. The stupidest apprentice carpenter,
You can make 20 shields a day. Such a shield can effectively defend against horn bow fire at a distance of 80 meters. Of course, such ugly things are often seen in peasant uprisings, and regular empires will not take them out to people.
joke.
The most basic shields used by regular armies, no matter whether they are square, round or even unique shapes, must have one feature - composite. The shield made of composite materials of different materials and different densities has a significantly better defense against bows and arrows than those of the same texture.
The shield is better; the effect of defending against the knight's submachine gun is not much worse. The more common one is a three-layer composite of iron, wood, and leather, with iron as the surface, wood as the bone, and leather as the lining; better large shields are made of steel
, wood composite; some special races like to use pure steel shields, which are too heavy for human soldiers. Even human heavy infantry can hardly carry a large shield weighing more than 80 kilograms forward. Therefore, heavy shields are generally
Made of four layers of steel, wood, steel and leather, it is more than twice as light and has good effects.
The size of shields ranges from 30 cm to 150 cm. In some large fortresses, there are even giant shields exceeding 2 meters. This giant shield can even be used to resist catapults.
——"Chi Yizi. Shield Theory"
Chapter 84 Warming up for the siege
On January 2nd, summer of the 6th year of the Magic Calendar, His Excellency Chi Aotian, who was canonized as the Grand Duke of Flower Language, seemed to have never happened. Not only did he not show a smile on his face, but even the nobles should have the same smile when accepting the canonization.
There is no humility at all. What is even more strange is that although he has the right to ennoble many nobles in the territory, even though there are many officers from the two major systems of the small mercenary group and the Black Dragon Knights who heard the award, Chi Aotian
Your Excellency did not seem to have any intention of awarding a reward at all. He nodded coldly to Count Mingyang, indicating that he had heard something, and then turned around and returned to the tent. Many officers were stunned for a moment and then led by Tayang and others.
Then they returned to the main tent to continue the previous meeting. However, Mr. Ming Yang, the special envoy from Lindu, was simply left outside.
In later generations, there were two different speculations about Chi Aotian's approach. Most of them believed that at this time, the Northern Expedition Army was facing a strong enemy in a fortified city. It was not good to give the title of noble to anyone before the battle. Rather than doing this, it was better to
To prolong the suspense longer, let many officers and even the Allies have hope that whoever has the most outstanding military exploits in the siege will be rewarded. This understanding does have facts as evidence. There are also facts.
Some later scholars believe that Chi Aotian was not very good at communicating with others. It was impossible for him to make appropriate decisions about these rewards at the time. Perhaps, he would entrust the matter to others. In fact, Su Wen was in the city.
He played a similar role in the post-breaking canonization. In addition to these two mainstream views, there is another voice: Chi Aotian did not think about fame and fortune at all during his northern expedition. Just like Amy shied away from many thrones, Chi Aotian was against
The Grand Duke is not interested in anything hereditary.
What is worth pondering is that after the meeting, Tayan secretly patted the shoulders of several mid-level officers, including some from friendly forces, and what he said was very interesting: "Work hard, the general is very optimistic about you.
oh."
In later studies, all scholars have quite the same view on this. According to Tayan's previous performance, this time, in order to inspire the soldiers, he "falsely preached the imperial edict".
The first half of the second attack and defense of Rhode City was a completely formulaic siege process. There was nothing surprising in every step, and it was completely expected by the officers of both sides.
After four days of plundering on the spot, the Black Dragon Knights' war resources were much richer than before. At dawn, hundreds of simple small catapults had been set up in front of Rhodes City. Behind the catapults, there was a dense mass of black people.
For blockbuster films, it seems that the number will not be less than 100.
What surprised Chi Aotian and others was that the walls of Rhodes City were filled with tall prairie elf archers from some unknown time. Qingluo frowned and muttered to the deputy captain before coming to Chi Aotian's side.
: "Deputy Captain, the Grassland Elf Alliance has always been neutral, but they often become mercenaries for various countries or mercenary groups. Their group of elders do not completely obey Her Majesty the Queen, so..." Qing Luo did not finish what he said.
The meaning is very clear. Chi Aotian has long seen the magical skills of the prairie elves. Whether it is Xilin Island or Duanbing Port, the prairie elves are the most eye-catching group on the battlefield. In these two wars, although this group only has
There are more than 100 people, but the role they play is definitely not this number. At first glance, there are no less than 1,000 prairie elves on the city wall. They probably entered the city at night. This sudden weight is even bigger than two people.
Dragon Knight is still heavy.
"I know." Chi Aotian didn't waste a word, even nodding his head, and then waved to Su Wen beside him.
"Prepare the catapult!"
"Yes! Your Majesty General." Su Wen immediately led his personal guards to the rear of the allied forces to supervise the battle.
More than a dozen allied officers held high flags and rushed out with the catapults. All the Allied troops affiliated with them rushed up with a roar - the total number of Allied troops cooperating with the Northern Expedition has now reached 20,000, of which more than half
Having gone through the baptism of four or five small-scale battles, several major officers already have the title of Imperial Knight, and more than 200 people have the title of Imperial Lifetime Knight. As for the money, they are spreading it around.
Money, women, status, any political power, no one can expect ordinary farmers in their own territory to resist the temptation of these three things. After all, no one can raise the consciousness of farmers to the level of a saint.
The more than 5,000 allied troops of the left army were divided into two parts. Most of them raised their shields to form a shield array - thousands of swordsman's round shields with a diameter of 70 cm were neatly arranged one on top of another, with a height of
It consists of three shields. The shields are staggered and directly protected to a height of 1.9 meters. Horizontally, each row has at least 300 shields, and the distance between each row is 5 meters. Such a shield array, even if it is projected upwards
It is difficult for bows and arrows to cause too much damage.
The remaining more than 2,000 allied troops lowered their heads and ran to the catapults. Every 20 people took charge of a catapult and pushed the chariot into the shield formation.
All this has been practiced last night, and even a temporary army can easily do it well.
"Get ready to rush the car, ladder!"
"Don't worry." Tayan casually flicked a black and red bean into the air so that it disappeared. With a grin, he led four lizardman guards and strode to the large formation of residents who were surrounded by them.
Tayang smiled brightly, shaking his jingling money bag with one hand, and waving a sharp scimitar with the other: "Residents, in front of you is the evil sweat-blooded mercenary group. They are the ones who forced everyone to come here. It is them,
I wielded my saber and hacked countless residents to death. I announced that the first person to rush to the city will be rewarded with 1,000 coins. The first team to break through the city gate will be rewarded with 1,000 coins. For every enemy killed, the reward will be based on the enemy's head.
Level up and receive 10 gold coins! Below, teams 1 to 20, each team is responsible for one charging car, teams 21 to 41, each team is responsible for three ladders. Charge after hearing the drum, those who are timid,
Anyone who retreats from the battle will be executed on the spot!" From a sweet smile to a ferocious expression, the old priest turned his face faster than he could turn the pages of a book.
The old priest also deliberately used two spells: amplification and fear. Fear, originally a skill unique to sacred mages, used strong mental pressure to force opponents, especially beasts, to panic and flee in war. Unexpectedly,
The old priest learned and used this, coupled with the lizard man behind him who kept spitting out his red tongue, the innocent and robbed residents in the city were so frightened that their legs and feet were unstable, and the cries kept ringing in the crowd. Tayan didn't pay attention at all.
Turn around and call for the supervision team to come and supervise.
"Catapults, move forward." The brown flag quickly rose to the top.
The shield soldiers moved forward in small steps, and the catapults were wrapped in the shield array and rumbled forward. Minzhuang behind them pushed a cart full of stones and followed closely.
Many officers of the Black Dragon Knights frowned slightly. After all, they were not a regular army. They could not even walk in a shield formation. More than 30% of the shield formations were already slack.
Looking at the slowly moving catapult, the huge city wall seemed to be completely silent. The prairie elves standing in the first row occasionally stretched out their hands to measure the distance. For ordinary prairie elves, with the blessing of wind magic, the range can reach
600 meters, but no one will do this unless they have to. Once the magic is blessed, the wind elves will continue to respond to the wind in the sky. This is not controllable by the archer at all. The accuracy of the arrow suddenly drops significantly. If you can control the blessing
If you can shoot an arrow with wind magic within a 10-meter circle, you can be considered a super archer.
400 meters... This is close to the range of the prairie elf.
"Get ready-" the elf captain on the city wall ordered loudly, and the handsome elves took out the brown arrow feathers from their quivers and scattered them in front of them.
"Crazy Vulture Swordsmen, Wild Vulture Archers take off!" Chi Aotian squinted his eyes and also visually measured the distance. Seeing the uniform actions of the elves on the city wall, the young general had to send the two troops that were originally prepared as reserves.
Enter the battlefield in advance to contain the enemy's amazing archers.
The black double-winged rattlesnake flag and the cyan double-winged rattlesnake flag were lifted into the sky at the same time. Except for the eagle knights who were on guard, the remaining knights took off in the wind under the leadership of Qing Luo and Chang Qing.
Qing Luo knew the range of the prairie elves quite well, and loudly ordered the knights around him to rise upwards, until the altitude reached more than 600 meters.
call out--
A light green arrow shot out from the city wall, drawing a nearly straight arrow path. In the middle of the shield array, the body of a young soldier suddenly froze, and stood there for a moment, with blood spurting from his mouth, and he fell to the ground.
This long arrow started the second offensive and defensive battle of Rhodes City.
"Shoot!" Orders were issued simultaneously on the city wall and in the sky.
300 meters away, the brown arrow feathers pulled out faint shadows in the air and rushed towards the shield array. The first row of shield array collapsed in an instant - the human soldiers could not imagine that at such a long distance, the arrows could
It can shoot into vital points through the gaps between shields.
The farmers who had just joined the army were immediately stunned, especially the Allied troops in the first row. They threw down their shields in panic and rushed towards the second row of shield formation like a buttless chicken.
The slingers were knocked down by the third wave of arrows that followed.
"Anyone who escapes from the battle will be executed on the spot!" Su Wen, wearing heavy armor and running with his bodyguards, cursed loudly. The old soldier didn't care about the sharp bows and arrows screaming across the armor, and waved the moon-washing scimitar in his hand continuously.
, more than a dozen deserters were chopped to the ground, and the gushing blood dyed the silver armor blood red.
"The first shield formation is organized into the second shield formation, catapult, shoot smoke!"
Facing the rain of arrows, the young peasant soldier hurriedly poured the black smoke into his pocket, put a bowl-sized stone inside to weigh it down, put it in the bowl of the catapult, and sprinkled it with self-igniting powder.
.
Boom... Boom... Boom... Nearly a hundred catapults took turns shooting out the smoke-filled pockets. This simple catapult did not have a fixed range, and the weight of the stones was also uneven. The smoke was near and far away.
, the farthest one has been fired into the city, and the nearest one is only 150 meters away. After each catapult fired five rounds in a row, thick smoke billowed out in front of the city wall. It is certainly impossible for these wolf smoke temporarily collected from the homes of village residents to pass through
Special treatment, full of toxicity, the stench not only stimulates the sense of smell, but also irritates the eyes. The southeast wind is blowing in the spring of Eminor continent, and a cough suddenly sounded on the city wall. "Ah--" After a few breaths, someone came
He was choked and couldn't stand upright, so he screamed and fell from the city wall.
Originally, the prairie elves were all wind magic masters. 1,000 prairie elves joined forces to release wind magic, which could at least prevent the smoke from spreading upward. Unfortunately, the vulture knights had already started shooting arrows downward. At a height of 600 meters, the forest elves
There was no way to maintain the proper accuracy, not to mention that the area below was still full of smoke. The elves all replaced their horned bows with arrows and scattered them at will on the city wall.
There was chaos on the city wall. The prairie elves recognized the sound of the wind and jumped to avoid the vertically falling bows and arrows.
"Hurry! Fall into the water!" Grand Duke Iron Hand Ban Jiang stood on the highest archery tower and shouted loudly.
The people inside the city wall braved the rain of arrows and ran up the horse path with prepared cold water. Buckets of water were poured down the city wall, and the black smoke under the city wall was suppressed by the water.
Light blue light shone on the tail wings of the arrows, the wind elves danced noisily in the sky, and the dense rain of arrows pounced on the vulture knight.
"Flash!" The mad eagle knight pulled his mount to fly against the direction of the arrow rain.
Pounce... There were still more than a dozen knights who couldn't dodge and missed. Fortunately, at such a height, the vultures were not seriously injured. With flapping wings, the raptors fell towards the formation. Several of the elves were in mid-air.
He blessed himself and his companions with the technique of levitation.
More dense rockets fell from the sky with a whirring hot wind, and the wooden shields were instantly doused with kerosene. The first few rows of shield formations were immediately scattered, and rows of catapults ignited blazing fire. In the fire,
Almost all shield formations tended to collapse.
The horn sounded in the main formation of the Black Dragon Knights, and two gate flags were raised in succession. "Retreat!" The allied officers on the front line immediately commanded the allied troops to retreat back. The civilians who were being bundled behind the shield formation were also tied up with ropes.
Pulling back.
In the first wave of the Second Battle of Rhodes City, the Sweat-Blooded Cavalry Mercenary Regiment only killed more than 40 people and was shot and burned more than 100 people. It shot and killed more than 1,000 people from the Black Dragon Knight Expeditionary Force and destroyed more than 30 catapults. It was a complete victory.