Very moronic question here , since their were case where shields were used ww1 , why didn't anybody form a testudo formation when charging at the opposing side ?
Very moronic question here , since their were case where shields were used ww1 , why didn't anybody form a testudo formation when charging at the opposing side ?
Because primitive AT guns were punching through those shooting shields. Grenades, mortars, artillery, getting stuck in no mans land, mines. Getting blasted by MG fire and quickly falling apart and on top of one another as you scatter.
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People tried shields during WWI, at first to protect snipers trying to shoot people trying to cross no-man's-land. They were quickly defeated by large-bore rifles.
>In 1914 and early 1915, German snipers were engaging British Army positions with impunity from behind steel plates that were impervious to .303 British ball ammunition. In an attempt to counter this threat, the British War Office purchased sixty-two large-bore sporting rifles from British rifle makers, including four .600 Nitro Express rifles, which were issued to regiments. These large-bore rifles proved very effective against the steel plates used by the Germans. In his book, Sniping in France 1914-18, Major H. Hesketh-Prichard, DSO, MC stated they "pierced them like butter"
>Stuart Cloete, sniping officer for the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, stated "We used a heavy sporting rifle - a .600 Express. These had been donated to the army by big game hunters and when we hit a plate we stove it right in"
I would also imagine a phalanx formation would move rather slowly through the rough terrain of no-mans-land and thus would be a sitting duck for artillery, mortars, grenades, or mines. Even if you theorized the shields were bulletproof against machine guns I doubt they'd be able to hold a truly gapless wall, trying to move across that kind of terrain without allowing gaps is nearly impossible, especially with the bullets hammering against the shields. Bullets are going to get in between the gaps and wreck the formation.
Elephant rifles are really terrible at punching through steel, I'm struggling to imagine a plate impervious to .303 but not .600NE
because hand grenades barbed wire mines large caliber rifles and artillery were invented
cannons would be pointed down range to stop tank attacks too
>charging
>hundreds of yards
>through shell craters and barbed wire
>in formation
Sovnds like someone isn’t TRVE TO CAESAR
They did. To eliminate gaps between the shields, they welded or rivited them all together like a box. The new modification made it too heavy, though, so they put it on a tractor so they could move it. Of course the tractor took up alot of space inside the testudo, so they had to reduce the number of people inside as well
Grenades, Artillery, Mortars, I'm sure an MG would fire enough rounds for one to slip through.
Lil homie second from the right got hit straight in the face with the first pool noodle.
kid looks afraid, he's ducking back and he's not advancing like everybody else.
Send him to guard the baggage train.
I'm sure he suffered soft tissue damage but he kept fighting.
What happens if you charge from the left?
Strictly speaking they're supposed to have men on both flanks with shields raised.
gotta raise em right
I could easily beat up all these kids, formation or not
hence the invention of the tank
a phalanx provides too big a target and is easily spotted. men on their own are not heavily armored to withstand machinegun and modern mortar and artillery fire that shreds a foolhards formation such as this to bits in an instant. in short modern weaponry has caused men to spread out and adopt the squads within platoons/companies arrangement in favor of huge line formations the last of which was seen in the Napoleonic era and civil war. WW1 trench warfare came close in it's stupidity but was the first time when technology had advanced to the point that people were forced to acknowledge that for example cavalry had no place on the battlefield when the polish cavalry were slaughtered by tanks and machine guns (altho horses continued to be very important logisitcally for example to field german armys food gear and ammo up thru ww2)
in short a shield formation is an antiquated technique that is well suited against antiquated and out geared and gunned opponents, not against the terror of modern technology such as the simple infantry man with an automatic rifle
Because guns and artillery penetrate scutum shields.
>shield shields
>take testudo’s shields and weld them onto a frame
>attach treads to it and mount a machine gun or something
Congrats you made a tank