Japanese Use Shields
Hand held shield were used in combination with swords spears or axes in close combat situation.
Japanese use shields. They were mostly mounted archer type calvary and they didn t have the heavy european type warhorses. The japanese cuirass evolved into the more familiar style of body armour worn by the samurai known as the dou or dō with the use of leather straps nerigawa and lacquer for weatherproofing. 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. Japanese archers and infantry did use shields but not the type of shields a person could carry around and use.
Lamellar armour equating hand held shields with the only form of defence. The samurai s armor adapted accordingly too to this threat. Japanese samurai was for a entirely different type of combat. Like all the types of japanese hand held shield they had a wooden handle in the centre.
They were almost all of the time rectangular in shape 100 to 150 cm in length and 50 to 70 cm in width. The unique samurai armour coupled with the. They were planted on the ground. Since you can t use a bow without two hands personal hand held shields became unviable so they instead latched those onto their armor.
Japanese actually had shields and their use evolved with the advancing nature of warfare as weapons became more sophisticated. The japanese stirrup contrary to accepted answer has been in use since 4th 5th century because of xianbei warriors in. Large armor plates were attached to the shoulders to afford the guy extra protection in place of a personal shield. A samurai s cloak horo.
During the heian period 794 1185 the unique japanese samurai armour ō yoroi and dō maru appeared.