Sling and shield...realistic?

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When you equip a bow, you can't equip a shield. Sounds logical. But when you equip a sling, you can have a shield. I suppose it's in agreement with ADD2 rules? But I wonder is that's realistic. Sure, when you throw the bullet, you only need one hand. But how do you put the bullet in the sling?
I think you need your shield hand for that.

 

I am not 100% sure on this but I always thought that the shield was strapped to the forearm and the hand didnt actually grip onto anything allowing it to used for smaller purposes like loading a sling but not able to weild a weapon, though is may be for smaller shields.

 

You drop the shield to load the sling. Bucklers, afaik, are the only shields you can have strapped to your arm without impeding the loading of a ranged weapon.

 

The romans while not as a regualr troop, did use sling-soldiers, who had a shield strapped to thier left arm, either with on rem and one in the left hand or two straps, so the left hand was free, the only time the left arm is used is for loading, so a relative big shield could and was often carried.

I also believe that some archers infact had bucklers strapped to the left arm in the middle-ages, but im not so sure here.

the fact that you can use towershields and a sling, with no penalties is a bit over the top though, but then again, its a game, not a simulation of reality.

on a side-note, a sling can be operatet with one hand, it aint easy loading, but i did see some people do it.

 

You are right, I never wondered how it was possible to load a sling when you have a shield equipped. You need to lower your shield, strap the bullet, and then re-equip the shield:this costs you quite a time in the combat round! Then again, slings have a base attack rate of 1/round, instead of the bow's 2, so I guess even when you use a shield with it, sling is a balanced weapon. The fact that you can equip any shield with it does not benefit us poor mages though. (but which mage needs a real shield anyway? )

 

A big shield usually has two straps, only one of which would be held. However, one could slip their arm farther through the straps so that the hand strap was on the wrist. It might be slightly awkward to manuever a larger shield so that you could reach the sling-stone pouch, but it is very doable, and can be readjusted to a regular grip fairly quickly.

Realistically, there should probably be a penalty to your AC while using the sling for having to hold the shield that way, but a rule to implement it would be unenjoyably complicated, depending on shield size (since bucklers would prove no difficulty at all) for a single ranged weapon. I'd call it simplicity over realism.

 

I know a guy who can roll a cigarette with one hand while driving a car with a manual transmission. With enough practice, anyone with enough dexterity to use a sling could devise a method for loading a sling proficiently with one hand.