Fighting with the scutum

[Robert Vermaat]

I saw an interestingTV item today...

There was a riot of South Korean rice farmers who nearly broke through the police cordon around the South Korean Senate.

Of course, that was interesting enough. The police were hopelessly undisciplined, fighting man-to-man instead of keeping in one rank.

The most interesting was the way they used the shields. There was some hard fighting, both parties delivering fairly serious blows. I saw one officer with a smallish oval shield, hitting his opponent with the rim of this shield. To great effect, I must say.

Another of his collegues had a big square shield, not unlike a 1st-c. one. He was hitting an opponent with that shield, too, but by holding the top with both hands!

[Goffredo]

Yes over ther years I have seen many interesting TV footage of riots and various types of confrontations between crowds and more-or-less organized police. The japanese and korean footage is always interesting because these guys riot in spectacular ways.

It would be interesting for someone to make a data base of these films...

Jeff

p.s. Everytime there is some violent scene on the news involving crowds I watch closely not because I am morbid or bloodthirsty (at least I don't think so), but because I am a roman army fanatic (a RAT member) and am always trying to develop an intuition on what happened in ancient battles.

[Marius_Ursus]

It sounds like the Koreans could use some more training from the US military. I remember seeing the MP company in Panama training for crowd control, and they formed up in a tight line...much like Romans...and took small steps forward pushing their shields in front of them with short, sharp thrusts and chanting "Kick...ass...kick...ass" to keep time with their steps.

Intimidating and effective.

[Gashford]

We did some training like this years ago and the routine at the time was basically.

Form a tight, two line defense and corall the rioters into an area.

Along the line snatch groups armed with smaller shields and batons would rush forward through a desictnated opening grab a couple of the main rioters and bring them behind the reformed line and give the guy a shoeing ... err arrest him and hold him for questioning.

Kind of made me wonder whether the Legionary and Auxillary would have ever enjoyed a similar relationship? Skirmishing through closed ranks?

All the best

[L C Cinna]

saw something like the thing you described on TV as well. some police guys from the 2nd rank suddenly ran through a gap opened in the front, grabbed someone and pulled him behind the lines while the guys with the big shields stayed in line and sometimes peretended to charge forwards whenever a demonstrator made an attempt to get close and help the person just grabbed.

another thing i once saw on TV was that the police forced the captured demonstrators to run towards the police van with police guys lined up left and right and each one would hit the demonstrator while he ran down that lane. kind of reminded me of some Roman military "tradition" if you know what I mean.

One more thing I once saw mzself while participating in a demonstration against study fees was a unit of policemen forming a closed line with the big "romanesque" shields marching towards us instepwhile knocking on their shields with their sticks. very impressive had something of of that romans vs barbarian thing

[Hibernicus]

RIOT SHIELDS

The most important thing about modern riot shields is that they are almost always "sided strapped" horizontally using a hand and an armstrap.

Thsis is the weakest way to carry a vertical shield. It is the easiest way to carry a shield and maintain a neat orderly front.

To be more effective the riot shields should be side strapped diagonally with the center of gravity of the shield at about the level of the elbow