How would shields affect military tactics if they were still practical?

[StargateMillennium]

This is a curiosity thought. Now, in the modern military shields are a rarity as something that could withstand heavy gun fire is large, expensive, and cumbersome. Due to how badly it weighs down a soldier, they don't use it that often. And when it is used, they only have one guy or a robot hold it and a squad of shield-less guys behind it but that's only for CQB.

But this is all due to how heavy and cumbersome a shield is.

If there were some fictional element, technology, or newly discovered structural design that could allow for the creation of handheld shields that were light weight and could still withstand heavy weapons fire, how do you think tactics would change. Would we see a return of the shield walls? Would they be brought into open battlefields?

[Gatefan1976]

I'm getting me a Thunder hammer to go with my storm shield.

[thekillman]

I don't think much would change. Whatever technology would create such shields could also be used to create better weapons that could puncture those shields.

The only thing i'm really thinking of is something like the Nanosuit from Crysis, but even that didn't change all that much on the whole.

[cosmichobo]

Also the suit worn in Continuum... could protect its wearer - unless the plot found a way around it.

As for real application... would a hand-held shield be practical against a machine gun?

[StargateMillennium]

Also the suit worn in Continuum... could protect its wearer - unless the plot found a way around it.

As for real application... would a hand-held shield be practical against a machine gun?

Real world shields? Eh, depends. Ballistic shields that can withstand heavy firepower are heavy. Really heavy. The ones that are made to withstand continuous gun fire are so heavy they have to be mounted on robots. That's why shield use went down. It became more practical to not get shot rather than to lug around a huge hunk of metal. That's why I posed the question. If there was a metal or material that could act as a lightweight and still durable hand held shield, what would change in terms of tactics?

[AleksisMi]

are we talking riot shields or full body energy shield?


because tanks are the modern form of that and in essence you get a few tanks to roll down the streets of a dangerous zone and use camera systems to target hostiles followed through with a few precise shots from outside the zone or a robotically controlled machine gun, the militarys attack helocopters are scary, , those are not something you will survive, they roll in through the air silently, remote location you may not even see, with sounds more or less neutralized through a very clever sound echoeing device that neutralizes the sounds, and the gun fires, very precisely, better then most people with a sniper rifle could likely do, and its heavy rounds, precisely fired, removes the attacks from existing brutally like geting hit by a tank round, heads explode or limbs are blown off, no explosions, just extraordinary force, i mean maybe that wont happen, but they wont survive.

our military has moved from being seen and being feared with shield walls to ninja strikes from the air and relying on speed and modern armor for the ground.

its brutal and nearly unstopable if they are comming in for a strike, you could in theory stop it from happening maybe, but iwouldnt bother or bet on it working, theirs a reason america doesnt loose planes, except when they plan on it so they can do whatever crazy plans the dark gods want done to appease their madness or.... bizare plans

[AleksisMi]

still if we had riot shields and people started useing non lethal weapons as a international law forbidding murder but allowing people to bloodily beat each other up for resolving of conflicts... interesting things could occure

[AleksisMi]

i was actually doing a dune esque style book series idea when i was in high school i never continued it, but i had worked out quite abit, rules for it, reasons for it, basically space farring people, forbidding any sorta advanced weapons in combat by the military when on the ground, and the whole point was to give people something to do and a lot of it came down to just people wanting to relive the past or live a certain way etc, capturing advanced cities with crazy powerful defense systems on them, but that only to deter pirates or rogue militarys that didnt play by the rules set up by the agreements and the acccords of the navies

[StargateMillennium]

are we talking riot shields or full body energy shield?

I'm thinking hand held shields. Something light and sturdy that can take heavy firepower, relatively easy to access, but is absurdly difficult to mold or requires very specific shapes/sizes to be useful.

Like, I imagine the vehicles would get covered in this stuff but how would ground combat change since it's not practical to give everyone an anti-tank rifle.

Would they utilize shield walls? Or it that asking for a grenade to be chucked at them? Or would it still be one guy with a large shield and a bunch of armed guys behind him?