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In ancient Roman warfare, the testudo or tortoise formation was a type of shield wall formation commonly used by the Roman legions during battles, particularly when they were the attacking force during sieges.
The Roman scutum was a large shield designed to fit with others to form a shield wall but not overlap. Roman legions used an extreme type of shield wall called a testudo formation that covered front, sides and above. In this formation, the outside ranks formed a dense vertical shield wall and inside ranks held shields over their heads, thus ...
Roman military tactics evolved from the type of a small tribal host-seeking local hegemony to massive operations encompassing a world empire. This advance was affected by changing trends in Roman political, social, and economic life, and that of the larger Mediterranean world, but it was also under-girded by a distinctive "Roman way" of war.
A file formation is used for close terrain, often in dense vegetation or when there is low visibility. The file formation is easiest to control, and provides fire to the ranks should an ambush from the side occur. Diamond: Similar to the Wedge and inverted wedge, the diamond formation allows for the fourth section to follow the lead element.
The size of the shield on the chief's left arm denotes his status, and the white colour that he is a married man. [1] Wall painting depicting a Mycenaean Greek "figure eight", 15th century BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens. A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm ...
Descriptions of both shield walls used in attack and as an anti-cavalry formation with spears fixed into the ground exist throughout Roman history, though non-military writers tended to use classical vocabulary in describing such formations as a testudo, its Greek translation chelone (χελώνη), or a phalanx. [15]
Testudo formation, a Roman military tactic which involved a formation of soldiers using their shields to form a tortoise-shell-like protective cover against enemy weapons; Testudo, the Latin variant of the Greek chelys harp, involving a sound-box made from a tortoise shell; Testudo, an obsolete constellation now in the constellation of Pisces
The scutum (Classical Latin: [ˈskuːt̪ʊ̃]; pl.:scuta) was a type of shield used among Italic peoples in antiquity, most notably by the army of ancient Rome starting about the fourth century BC. [1] The Romans adopted it when they switched from the military formation of the hoplite phalanx of the Greeks to the formation with maniples (Latin ...