I've been watching the show vikings and if you were in a battle with non uniformed enemies and allies how would you tell the difference? Did they paint shields different colours? It seems like hand to hand combat becomes so messy that you'd be just as likely to be hacking away at an ally.
It seems like hand to hand combat becomes so messy that you'd be just as likely to be hacking away at an ally.
See, there's the problem. The Hollywood Combat Moshpit that most popular media uses to depict hand-to-hand battles is nice to look at on the screen, but it is very much not how things would go. u/J-Force has some Medieval-specific thoughts in this thread, which also contains one of my previous linkdrops on just this subject.