> Is why they were wood faced with steel, so blows could glance off
>more often. It was cost was the problem with them, mostly, rather
>than impact or weight.
> Consider what a mace would do to a wood shield; makes it a good
>thought to face it with iron to spread that impact out and stop the
>shield being shattered (as well as help hold the wood together)... ;)
Not a lot of damage judging by the re-enactment demo I saw recently. You'd have to hammer away for some time to damage a wooden shield significantly with pretty much any ancient/medieval weapon. The one exception is the daneaxe, even a few blows with a blunt axe was chopping chunks out of the shield - a sharp one would have split the shield on the first blow.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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