Did Samurai Ever Use Shields
Although the preference is not to use hand held shields sometimes the samurai class did use shields whilst riding into battle.
Did samurai ever use shields. You can see a picture of that here. Both samurai and ashigaru used shields tate to hide behind both on land and sea these were not hand held shields they were large wood panels. Their sword is also made to be used two handedly for the greatest effect. The samurai started as mounted archers.
Samurai who appeared around in the 10th century or so did not use personal hand held shields. Large armor plates were attached to the shoulders to afford the guy extra protection in place of a personal shield. Were shields ever a part of japanese warfare. Their armour was designed to absorb both arrow hits and sword thrusts.
Japanese actually had shields and their use evolved with the advancing nature of warfare as weapons became more sophisticated. Did samurai ever use shields in battle. Earliest japanese armour is thought to have evolved from the armour used in ancient china. Early japanese foot soldiers did at one time use hand shields dorothy perkins notes the use of wood and leather shields by foot soldiers as early as the mid 6th century.
A samurai on horseback wearing ō yoroi 大鎧 in the beginning soldiers wore their shields so they had two hands to do other stuff like firing arrows using other two handed cqc weapons. I suppose that in the japanese style of fighting a shield would only be a hinderance. There was no use for shields for them because it hindered them from properly using the yumi japanese long bow. The samurai s armor adapted accordingly too to this threat.
I ve heard that they did but i m not convinced. When ashigaru lower class infantry came along they had no use for portable shields either because they were usually armed with spears. Around the 7th century when japanese warfare was very much carried out in the tang style shields were in use but they d fallen out of favour by the late 9th century iirc along with crossbows. Samurais started off as horse archers originally so there basically was no shield required from the beginning.
Upper class japanese warriors bushi or samurai never used a shield since both hands were needed for the bow spear or sword. I ll only pay attention to answers with reliable cited. On why didn t the samurai use shields as often in addition to the inconvenience a hand held shield poses to a horse borne archer one of the clearest reason is because the unique samurai armour the kogusoku and ōsode.