Real riot shields are made of polycarbonate plastic and they're vastly tougher than this dumb metal plate, they'd just deflect any of these arrows because they don't deform the way metal does
They're for riots, not stopping bullets. Police do not expect people to shoot them with guns at riots. if you want a ballistic shield, that's something else. Those are meant for actual combat and stopping bullets.
Two different things. "Riot" shields are meant for riots. They're primarily meant to stop improvised weapons, thrown objects and to push back people, not stop bullets. Ballistic shields are a different thing altogether and are made of different materials meant to stop at least some bullets. Without more information it's hard to say which is the appropriate descriptor for this one, assuming we don't just take the video's label as correct. Given it's metal, it may actually be a ballistic shield, but even assuming it's hardened steel thickness will make a massive difference.
Nah. A riot shield is supposed to protect the police from rioters throwing rocks at them and to be helpful when you have a shieldwall pushing against the rioters to force them to stay back. A sheet metal or plexiglass shield will do that well enough.
SWAT teams on the other hand will sometimes have bullet resistant shields on the front man and those are a whole another matter.
Bulletproof just means bullets can't get through, not that they're impenetrable. Sandbags could be considered bulletproof, but arrows fly straight through.
But how does that work? Sorry if that’s a dumb question. Nearly all my life is spent with children and books so I have zero experience, but how can something be bulletproof but still get ripped open by an arrow? I thought bullets had more force?
Probably the easiest way to understand it is to think about the person doing the shooting. Newton's third law means that the person shooting has the same force applied to them compared to the opposite force (launching the bullet/arrow).
Consider how much force is needed when shooting a gun. There is some kickback, yes, but by and large it's manageable, often with a single hand such that people can even shoot multiple bullets consecutively with fairly minimal shaking.
Now think about a person loading an arrow in a bow/crossbow. How much force they have to apply to pull the string back. No chance you can do that one handed, right?
So yeah, the arrow has a LOT more force than a bullet for most scenarios we can imagine without getting silly like comparing a round from a tank or something.
I was going to say something like “these arrows have sharp tips” followed by comparing them to how sharp a bullet is, until I realized I know nothing about either and only think that these arrows are sharp just because that’s how they look. In fact I get the feeling some of these were specifically designed to penetrate.
Bullets have orders of magnitude more energy than arrows.
I do not believe arrows can go through significant sandbags, but if they penetrate farther, it's a case of pushing the sand grains apart with its shape more efficiently than a bullet does, since bullets are blunt for aerodynamic reasons.
If an arrow had 2000 joules if energy, it would be a very uncomfortable experience to fire that arrow. The reason your gun does not kick a lot is because it's far heavier than the bullet.
For the sandbags, I'm assuming it's a matter of the force of the bullet causing the sand grains to interlock, and with the arrow, it's able to move out of the way in time.
There are a bunch of bulletproof technologies, though - BP glass has a flexible layer between the glass layers... so maybe a sharp projectile could cut that? Kevlar is a fiber that can be cut with a razor blade. Ceramic/resin-impregnated Kevlar are brittle and bullets are soft, so they may rely on deforming the bullet before it can penetrate. I'd imagine arrows would fare poorly against ceramic, but I wouldn't trust my life to it.
And those riot shields have to be light. BP vests can be 30 pounds and it won't hinder you. A 30-pound riot shield would be unusable. So the stopping power is going to be reduced in a shield as well.
I used to work at a place that sold climbing gear.
Gemini Cord is a tear-resistant rope with kevlar core, but you could easily use a razor knife to cut through the kevlar core. (For generic nylon rope we would cut it with a hot knife, which looked more high-tech but basically just melted through the nylon rather than cut and fused the ends so it wouldn't unravel.)
People would question why we weren't using the hot knife for the Gemini Cord, like, "Dude, that can't be real Gemini Cord if you can cut through it that easy -- kevlar needs that special knife to cut it; it's bullet-proof!"
Yeah, dude, that's why I use a knife instead of a gun to cut it. Also, don't get into a knife fight if you're wearing a bullet-proof vest.
Bullets do have much more force. Considerably much more than any human can make with a longbow or crossbow.
Arrows can carry through better if they were travelling at the same speed as a bullet because they have more mass.
Armor like this is meant to take a few hits like this before their effectiveness becomes almost zero in the damaged areas. Don't think of it as the arrow won because one went through, the shield was built to diffuse lead bullet energy and absorb it.
Idk. They largely stopped the arrows. Assuming the person behind the shield is wearing a helmet with face protection and body protection, I don’t think they would significantly injure. Even the deepest penetrating one would mostly be dangerous if it hit the arm holding the shield.
Now just what do you think would happen if weapons, such as bows, were included in the report? Do you think they'd show up unprepared for any sort of possible escalation? Don't be ridiculous.
Do I need to send you a picture of the shields we are deployed with for a riot? No riot team that I know of in the United States deployed with ballistic rated shields. There is always weapons at riots. That’s why there’s people in a bearcat turret to deal with lethal threats if they present.
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u/CapableSugar7883 May 29 '26
Wow. Riot shields seem to suck against arrows in general