There's also notation in the books of firing a laser at a shield results in an explosion on par with nuclear fusion bombs.

​@dangingerich2559 I seemed to understand because of that there was some sort of understanding not to use laser to assassinate nobles.

A Shields causes Vibrations, in the old Lynch Film they had an very audible HUM Vibrations attracts the Shai-Hulud… Something that was sometimes employed by Fremen to attract Worms

@@Filthee_casual @dangingerich2559 The Shield together with a LasGun (those weren't lasers if I remember rightly) would produce through reflection subatomic reactions equal to kiloton Fission Explosions on both Ends, even with hand-held ones. Vehicular sized could devastate Lands & Continents, large City-wide ones like the Shieldwall the whole planet. And due to the religiously followed ban of the use of any atomic weapons on living Planets, because of the radioactivity involved, thats a no go which would make your own people deliver your head to the current Padishah-Emperor Atomic Weapons where used on space installations and, like Muad'Dib did, as Stone Burners to cut ways through mountains or dig tunnels Which later caused his Blindness, as those Stone burners later were used to ignite troops and as IED's for Terror

Nail gun boxing gloves.

He clarified it's not a real blade. IE: Not metal/sharp

he's from Australia, so it's a necessary clarification

🤣🤣

United Cuttlery sells the real ones too, but they're a bit pricey 😄

@@aaronjones3408 These are the jokes. I’m here all week. Tip your waiter!

True, we are supposed to understand something of the discipline and skill of Duncan and Gurney when it comes to this specialized form of combat. Also, many have made the point of once the shield is breached until the weapon exits the shield it has the freedom to move with speed. I rewatched part one last night and noticed most of those Duncan moments... He performs a slashing attack at one of the joint points of armor like the neck, torso to abdomen, sides of the torso like obliques and armpit. So while he would not have the force to penetrate armor underneath the shield with a piercing attack, he would have the real estate/surface area to perform a slash across the weak points of joints in typical armor setups at nearly full speed once the shield had been breached by the weapon. (also why I think the filmmakers used the red and blue digital effects for the audience's benefit to understand when a shield had been breached).

To add to this, maybe he speeds his blade up once he gets through the shield to deal some more damage since the shield doesn't seem to enact any sort of sliding friction.

He is a sword master hired by a great house and training the single heir. He's also the real main character of Frank Hubert's novels.

​@@Sol-Invictus clones don't count!!

How is a slow blade penetrating armor? It makes no sense.

Yes

heck tey work for oxygen too, so you cant even run fast with shield because you would suffocate :D I think it also poisons air inside so you cant have it on all the time which is just workaround to why not wear it all the time

In Children of Dune (third book of the series) there is a mercenary who is wearing metal armor, its just a breastplate, but its still armour, which is worn over a stillsuit.

@@arturnicaciodeandrade9861 Good afternoon and thank you for taking the time to reply. Is that in the book or the mini series? I shall see if I can do a word search regarding the book to see if armour is mentioned. The metal breastplate would clearly make the stillsuit have to work a lot harder as it would be very hot in the heat on Dune, and any movement would cause the person wearing it to sweat more and more often. Have a lovely day.

@@natashaweikath1487 He already clarified it's in the third book (don't belief that part was ever filmed as the mini-series left out more details from the books.. would have to re-watch it to check). It's mentioned as something special, therefor it's an exception, which means others don't wear (such) armour. Wearing anything on top of a Stillsuit is irrelevant to the loss of water since the suit is suppose to seal in the whole body (except the face) so even higher rate of sweating shouldn't be relevant for the loss of water. What it would affect is your rate of fatigue through the additional weight and possibly heat isolation (sweating is still costing energy and the heat reduction of the Stillsuit has limits). The books never go into details regarding the equipment. We know that not all houses had all soldiers equipped with personal shields (as they are expensive) but they could just skip armour altogether and focus more on the conventional weapons (artillery is mentioned as the key weapon as soon as the shields are missing). It's probably reasonable to assume most have some kind of kevlar or basic plates for splinter protection. Or that Herbert just didn't think about it as it wasn't relevant to the story as he told it.

@@Errtuabyss Hi and thanks for your reply. Yeah in the Children of Dune books they do say about the "armor". "Halleck swept the folds of cloth over Namri's head, came in under and through the cloth with his own knife aimed directly for the face. He felt the point bite home as Namri's body hit him with a hard surface of metal armor beneath the robe. The Fremen emitted one outraged squeal, jerked backward, and fell. He lay there, blood gushing from his mouth as his eyes glared at Halleck then slowly dulled. Halleck blew air through his lips. How could that fool Namri have expected anyone to miss the presence of armor beneath a robe"? We don't have to worry about whether or not other houses had or didn't have shields for their people simply because we are only talking about the fighting on Dune where every drop of water/moisture is precious. You are correct that fighting with any type of armour on, or armor as they say in Children of Dune regarding that scene would drain a person, but also you would have to be consuming all of that water back into your system much more if you had any type of armour on over your stillsuit or you would dehydrate and drop in the heat. The also talk about the sandworm "armor" for Leto, but that is all that is mentioned. Have a lovely day.

The spelling of the word armour is different in those books, they say "armor". In Dune the book whilst on Arrakis they actually do say: "I've taken over a council room topside here. We’ll hold staff there. I want to arrange a new planetary dispersal order with armored squads going out first". So that actually would suggest that there would be "armored" soldiers. Now whether or not this is before they realise the realities of the planet or not, or that they would wear armour in the cities and villages because they couldn't wear shields they don't explain. It is interesting however that in fact it is mentioned, but not for the fremen, just for the Atreides and nobody else. Or maybe they are not talking about the soldiers being "armored" but their vehicles, or it is possible that they meant the squads going out with shields and that could be the meaning of "armor"? I suppose the only person to know is Mr Herbert.

If this were the official explanation, it would solve many problems in such a simple way and I'd be completely satisfied with it

​@@sjorsvanhensdoesn't it say "the slow blade penetrates the shield" instead of the "a slow blade"... assuming ALL blades are slow?

​@@Schwuuuuup yes, that's the explanation

@@Schwuuuuup Then this comment needs to be upvoted. So much useless speculation out there

@@Schwuuuuupdunno, maybe it's "the saw blade penetrates the shield"... they alls should have chainswords!

Which is a reflection of the Medieval era. Sure it was nonstop warfare, but because it was based around melee combat where elite fighters were better than a dozen peasant militia, war was largely a game for nobility. "Game" in that it really was more a dispute settlement than anything. Nobles would struggle against each other in field warfare while the merchant factions, the Chruch, and the peasantry looked on, and largely conducted their business as usual, ready to do business with whoever won. And one of the things that GREATLY limited ancient wars was the fact that resupply and reequipping took so long that one side would eventually lose enough elite warrior (and their gear) that their ability to sustain war failed, and thus a victory was achieved for the opposition. And there was no point in burning the land, razing the towns, and killing the peasants because none of these were really real factors in the other faction's ability to fight short term. After all after a lord lost most of his knights to capture or KIA, could he go to the "knight factory" and churn out another force of men with expensive hand made equipment and 15 years of training. Compare that to the modern day when an entire force is wiped out more civilians are drafted, given 6 weeks training (at best), and the tank and aircraft factories spit out new army's equipment in mere weeks in an all or nothing wartime economy. This is why a full intensity peer vs peer modern war has to revolve around destroying the entire nation of the enemy, including slaughtering their civilians (to deny them skilled workers and new recruits), not just their military forces. War was far from meaningless in those days, it after all determined which faction would have political leadership of a region, and thus set policy. But it also wasn't heinously disruptive and destructive like it is in the modern era: where a long war might mean the total annihilation of civilization itself as economic centers, infrastructure, and populations are directly targeted with the goal to obliterate them to deny the enemy those resources. Which makes modern ware so heinous. To win, one has to destroy the very things they wish to capture in a war, resources, economy, and useful populations.

@@nordoceltic7225 Yes you understand that difference. Its also kind of a reflection of the City State Warfare in Greece too. Limitations on fighting, times of fighting etc. Alot of people just do not understand the concepts of medieval and classical [Greek mostly] warfare decorum. I know its fully a major problem with modern viewers to think, that its horrible for people to play a "game" as it were throwing people into a fight with each other. For entertainment or settling a dispute. When we destroy civilizations for far less, and with less restraint. In the medieval era you didn't want to kill the serfs of a territory they were valuable labor force that would unnecessarily cause issues for a conquering lord. But, this changes especially during the religious wars. Because the beliefs of the conquered people didn't match up...and so many tried to wipe out the opposing view. Although that is not 100% the case in history. Some medieval lords and rulers would allow different religions and political groups in their territory...granted they didn't undermine their authority and ownership of the territory. This shifts when we close in and around the Renaissance and Enlightenment Eras.

well said, this echoes my comment nicely. All war is heabily regulated by the landsraad - despite advanced weapons and armour tech existing it is in breach of treaties to use it - and it will get your house forcibly removed. So much of the dune setting is about the houses backstabbing each other and walking the line on the weapon tech they use.

See now that's what's incredible about Dune. It's so rich with layered worldbuilding, both alien and realistic.

Makes sense, they are High Tech in certain areas and low tech in War.

Like the laser Warheads in Battletech. launch and forget laser clusters.

Funny you should mention the Ixians. They were always skirting juston the edge - and often over the edge - of what was considered "legal" AI technology. A missile guiding system is a computer. Computers are a big no no. And wars fought t between humans after the Butlerian Jihad were very regulated - more like large scale honor duels than wars. Rules were set by the Landsraad regarding weapons allowed, limited theater of operations, etc. All the Dune strategy games basically depict a war exactly like this.

If I remember correctly, it was actually 50/50 whether the shield or the lasgun detonated in a nuclear like explosion. It wasn't necessarily both, but the risk was so high they just stopped using them. Real world this would just lead to using missiles with laser heads so it wouldn't matter which detonated.

@@Michael-kd1ho Glowglobes are fairly ubiquitous in the Dune universe, and those can follow a person around and then go to a pre programmed position in a room upon entry. Seems to me that would be simple enough to guide a missile to a target.

There is an actual (theoretical) weapon that does this, it's called a bomb or nuclear pumped laser. The very basics of it is that a bomb, or missile uses a nuclear warhead that creates lasers when it detonates. This was, apparently, being developed in the '80s under Reagan but was never fully developed of fielded. But bomb pumped lasers are a part of the standard arsenal in the Honor Harrington series of boosk.

Powerful electrical charges can bring down shields, I'd like to see someone with a generator make an electrified halberd that can bring down the shield just before impact then the halberd cuts into the target's shoulder. Or a ranged weapon that uses piezoelectricity, so upon impacting the shield the impact causes the round to make an electrical field, causing a small hole in the shield, and the shaped charge behind the piezoelectric charge will detonate. You'd need a large round for this (larger than 12-gauge shotgun slug?), but it would be a sudden surprise for ranged weapons to make a comeback.

A Macedonian Phalanx would be so powerful against shield users that it's a wonder why it isn't standard doctrine.

@@dragonknightleader1It would be great defensively, and the Atreides when fighting the Harkonnens on the stairs did something similar. Unfortunately the Atreides only had enough men to form a 2-deep 'phalanx', and were later attacked from the rear by Sardaukar. The problem is that a phalanx mainly used long spears, which would be easily batted aside by a shield-wearer and difficult to reposition. The following ranks would have to slowly move their spears forward to penetrate enemy shields (less than 4 inches per second) and try to move them past the ranks in front of them. How do you think a phalanx formation would help in shield combat? Would it be the semi-square formation, the armor, the weapons, the training, or?

@@toddkes5890 the advantage of a spear, besides reach, is that you don't need to swing the weapon as fast to get the needed leverage to penetrate things as you would a sword. I think ideally this would favor a slow moving defensively minded unit most of all.

@@toddkes5890 It's a bit of an assumption that you can just "move the spears out of the way" considering a shorter bladed weapon is going to have less leverage than the spear, on top of the spear users allies also being able to offend you.

Then the enemy will just give up and commit a war crime, using laser weapons.

Wouldn't you just stasis yourself that way? Your own movements might well be hampered by your own shield if you amp it up to much.

I'd expect that this is part of the Sardaukar suits. They can reduce the speed limit on their shield generators to something lower than what others accept, as the oxygen means they don't have to worry about air exchange being limited by the shield. So others trying to fight Sardaukar and expecting a speed limit of 6-9 cm/s, but the Sardaukar have set their shields to 4-5 cm/s and the opponents can't penetrate as easily.

​@@Democlisare lasers not allowed? Pretty sure the Harkonens chases Duncan with a crazy mega laser

@@captnwinkleWell, if you don’t mind setting off a pseudo-nuclear explosion that might kill you as well your target and get your House charged with war crimes, (or if your target doesn’t have a shield, of course), go hog wild with the laser. Shields and lasers don’t mix well.

So what you need is some sort of telescopic blade that will eject itself once you push it slowly through the shield.

@@HumblebeeRulesslowly push through a chisel then hit it with a hammer :D

​@HumblebeeRules Hunter Seeker, but it's not a blade or knife per say.

a shire-sized electric field? Don't threaten me with a good time like that

@@HumblebeeRulesOr, you know, slowly shove the barrel of a gun through, then pull the trigger.

It’s also important to note that the sandworm also has far more strength than a normal human, which is why the teeth of the sandworm can go through the harvester plates.

Do they explain this in the movie?

@@trevor5379 its a movie... so no... they do the approach of "explaining by showing". Even though the David Lynch movie is bad as well, the explaining part was its redeeming "quality".

also the crysknife has poison on it.

With the force of a worm behind them? easy. With the force of a human hand? less so. Doable in some cases, probably.

Something like the bangstick used against sharks would work.

Explosives react poorly to the field See also atomics

This honestly makes me wonder. Where does the kinetic energy that hits the shield goes? Is it dispersed over the whole volume of space protected? Does it goes directly to the emitter?

@@lewisbenzie845 Is that specified anywhere? From what I remember from the books, which was inaccurately portrayed in the movie. Is that when those laser lances hit the shield, that causes something akin to a nuclear explosion. So they are used sparingly and still there are some scenes in the books where stuff violently explodes somewhere in the distance. But that was my thought too, just put the gun inside of the shield and fire or have some kind of mechanism that fires when you touch your oponent or whatever. Should be way more effective than the sword fighting.

Haha, The Gunsword to the rescue. Though it would really depend on if the bullet within the the barrel is also affected.

Or chimical weapons, grenade launchers with proximity detonation, with incendiary or acid grenades... There is many way to bypass a dune shield other than a dagger if you think about it.

I haven't seen their video how to penetrate shield and armor underneath, but pistol would work, just move tip of the barrel through the shield and pull the trigger and bullet will penetrate the armor.

Or even gun gloves, or ancient chinese fire lance... there's so much better options than slashing melee weapons...

Or anything that can push an explosive through and detonate it inside the shield.

Grenade spear. The enemy's shield protects _you_ from the shrapnel.

Monkeys on typewriters

Yes! The gunblade! Finally an use for that. Also maybe a rifle with a bayonet.

As a matter of fact, poison blades are a recurring thing in the settings

that is already how it works if i remember the books correctly(its been ages), the sandworm teeth have incredibly toxic kinda nettles on them that penetrate armor, and the other weapons are techecd up to pretty much penetrate armor without problem(I think monomolecular vibro or something)

Special hand grenade. Slip it past the shield, stick it to the enemy's clothing, pull the pin, withdraw your hand. The explosion takes out the opponent while your shield protects you from all the shrapnel.

I think you overestimate the power of spring-loaded blades… they can do some damage, but become incredibly dangerous for the user the more force it has. And the recoil is terrible. Plus, you still need acceleration distance to convey the most momentum; otherwise you get a pushing impulse that is most likely to rebound your arm away when faced with a hard surface. Gun-sword/gun-axe would suffer the same problem as a normal gun - the shield is close enough to the body that what little part you can push through is just the end of the barrel, and so most of the acceleration of the projectile still happens outside the shield (and the barrel doesn’t stop the shield projector from working inside of it), so you'd just blow up the end of the gun. Barring that the shields work in basically magic-like ways, Frank Herbert was explicit about his purpose of introducing them: to make the societies in the book operate in warfare without relying on conventional projectile weapons. The treaty of the Great Houses doesn’t just cover 'ordinary' nukes, forbidding their use, but also shield-lasgun reaction weapons - which produce a destructive force comparable to an 'Atomic' weapon. Paul breaks this taboo (despite not using it against humans, but to break the shield-wall) against the use of Atomics, and suffers from one being used against him and his troops in turn.

Couldn't they just make super material armour without gaps?

@@tomizatko3138 and exactly how expensive would that be? How time consuming would it be to make even a single set of armour? Remember, AI are outright banned in Dune, even on the very small scale of things. So to automate the process would be extraordinarily difficult and costly, and even if you had a factory complex churning these out, this isn’t a product you’d want to share to your enemies, so you aren’t making any money off of a process of making your army even less sustainable and cost effective than it was already

A few minor correction. Artillery is a bit more nuanced. It was mentioned as mostly obsolete because of the prevalence of shields, but still in use for either targeting infrastructure (without a shield dome) or against opponents without shields (which would be lower houses that can't afford shields for all their troops or civilians). The Harkonnen kept a good number of artillery because of their vast spy network that enables them to do things like they did to the Atreides. Short ranged weapons also do exist (for example Needle Pistols) but are exclusively produced by Ixians, which makes them rare, expensive and partly prohibited (as they use technology that dates back to the time before the Butlerian Jihad). You couldn't equip your military with them, but they are common weapons for assassins and probably bodyguards and such. It's also ironic how much emphasis is put on how shields hard counter laser weapons but somehow they are still widely used in the military. Especially since other weapons are mentioned to not be used for the same reason. Shields always where a big point of discussion about the lore. They are key to how many things work in the world but they do have problems you have to ignore for them to work.

@@Errtuabyss you may be right about the artillery, I haven’t read through the first book to the end yet, but the physical artillery is the Emperors, as far as I’m aware. But my point wasn’t that it wasn’t present but that even a big gun to fire from far away was far more niche and not as commonplace as we might expect in a modern warzone.

​@@tomizatko3138Well. You have to have gaps in armor for movement. Also, you have to see.

Shields in the Dune universe don’t actually stop energy weapons. They have energy weapons in the form of lasers. That’s about it. Shields produced nuclear explosion, wiping out potentially hundreds of thousands of troops and pieces of equipment at a time, when shot with lasers. If I knew your army was attacking me with troops and vehicles equipped with shields, I’d target you with drones and sentry guns equipped with lasers and blow everything to hell. Shields are stupid. They’d only be useful when you could fix the nuclear explosion problem, which can’t be fixed. It’s a permanent design flaw/design phenomenon called the Holtzman effect, named after Tio Holtzman, the inventor of shield technology.

Or if the shield can 'put itself' inside the barrel? I.e. does the shield extend outwards from the emitter at a certain distance from the person's skin then cover the person (1984 Dune), or does the shield start at the person's skin and extend outwards?

This is what I was thinking, even if the shield gets into the barrel, then just make it so the bullet is all the way to the muzzle, you don't really need it to travel through a barrel because you're not shooting long distance. Heck put a damn arrow head on a spring that releases. Press it through the shield, push the button, schooch straight through, dead.

Big problem would be if the bullet passed through the body and hit the shield on the other side wouldn't their be an explosion?

@@henrywalton5967 only the laser weapons cause explosions. Bullets don’t have that problem. They just move way too fast.

@@henrywalton5967That might mean the explosion occurs inside the enemy shield, so all the impact is on their body.

This never explains why projectile killing systems don't happen.

I seem to recall that using a laser against someone using a shield would result in an explosion that would kill both parties, and ballistic firearms are almost completely ineffective, but melee weapons are still plenty effective against a shielded opponent. It’s been a few years, so I’m probably misremembering a lot

@@Ph03nix1 Exactly right. Laser + Shield = Pseudoatomic explosion on both ends. Something to do with the speed of light not being changeable I believe. Pesky light, why won't you slow down! Boom!

@@brandonlaird6876and the explosion is like the size that a nuke makes right?

@@THECHEESELORD69 I'm not 100% sure of the size, but yeah it's definitely large enough they know it's not a traditional explosion. A laser pistol vs a personal shield caused most of a capital city to be destroyed. Also no radiation, just destruction (causes fusion, not fission). I was (probably by myself on this) disappointed to see how many lasers were in the movies. Nobody used a laser in the books between the Butlerian Jihad (10,000 years before) until ~5000 years after the Dune movie took place if I remember correctly. Part of that is because of that interaction, and part is because of how energy inefficient they were.

@@brandonlaird6876 yeah I kid of makes sense that it took them so long to refine the lazers enough to be used on a small scale. The would also be potentially a good weapon for assassinations.

Which is exactly how cavalry pistols in the 17th century were used. You would try to literally touch the enemy before pulling the trigger.

A shark stick is probably close ti ideal sheild breacher.

Gun-kata!

The duke lived because he had on his shild while the others didnt because they didnt have on their shields

@@winningsince1992 Ah i see. Didn't he still get really hurt, though? I haven't seen the movies but I read the original book years ago. It seems like something you shoupd be able to pull off, since part of the reason the shields let anything through is so people can breathe.

@asahearts1 yes but you can turn up the power of the shield not to let things in at all. Also his shield wasn't at full power in the movie. Also Herbert didn't go through full explanations of everything and stuff worked how it worked in the books often. So the shield could also have a built in system the stops harmful gases as well. Also the dune series is heavily political game of thrones type of stuff so they could simply not do gases due to political fallout

in the David Lynch version there are gas masks, face masks if not full helmets everywhere. you could say its to filter out sand or pollution (esp. on Geidie Prime) but could also be for poison gas which we know they use (the tooth!).

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

And chemical and biological weapons would be huge, as with the Baron attempted-poisoning scene

Large HE shells shock waves kill and they are air and air goes through those shields

​@@USS_Grey_GhostConcussion grenades would also be useful in Dune. Especially for clearing rooms.

@@USS_Grey_Ghost Unless the shockwave causes the air molecules to travel faster than the shield's speed limit. This would cause the air molecules to slam into the shield and stop. The momentum might be transferred though.

I was going to say this as well. HOWEVER, this begs the question about what they do everywhere else in the universe that isn't Arakis.

@@joshtiscareno1312 they probably do have proper armor everywhere else... like we see atreidis wear a sort of battle plate when they arive to dune. But the moment someone walks out of the city, they only use the wetsuit

Working as an Orthopaedic practitioner, our main material, plaster of Paris (pop), poly synthetic, Fibre glass and soft cast(as flexible form of fibreglass), unless ridiculously thick couldn't stop a stab. And as for a slash, fibre, pop and poly may all be able to take a few slashes at best while soft cast, which I can cut using a Stanley blade probably wouldn't take much at all.

I'd be more curious to see how it would fair as a weapon! Citation needed, but I've HEARD that in the US, if you strike someone with a cast it's considered a more severe form of assault (again citation needed, but it might be considered a deadly weapon or something) as it's essentially a club attached to the arm.

@@VivaSativaMusic if applied properly they aren't really that heavy, that said I have seen casts that have been applied by someone of less skill, and they are often unnecessarily thick and heavy. But if you have a broken arm, you would probably not want to go hitting people with it, unless fighting for your life, or you're insane.

Test that cast in the Bond movie that destroyed the Dummy. See how it fairs against various armors.

go watch the knights watch rings of power reviews :)

Bloody machicolatioooooooonnzzza

@@CharlesChristianNelson is there much shad yelling?

rapier or one the short one handed spears. Stabbiness + Stick power = great weapon.

the second you try to speed up, the shield belt repulses the blade, even if the tip is past a point. The whole fighting style is to make certain you never go so fast that the shield reacts. Armor on Arrakis is very very VERY rare since wearing it pretty much means either your stilsuit eventually cant keep up and breaks down, or your baked in your armor from the heat.

They do use them in the films but not for actual combat strangely

in the dune lore there are knives/swords that can penetrate steel like butter by vibrating or being a molecule thick, I'm just not sure how distributed that technology is. Also if the shield is pushing against the whole body a bullet won't damage the head

@@moonasha if I hit the head, even of the projectile is stopped by the shield the force will still go into the head, causing brain damage.

@@polishscribe674 No, it won't, because you in fact never hit the head. You are misunderstanding the concept of the shields. The shield would take the force that would be imparted to the head and absorb it, redistributing it to the entire body of the shield, effectively rendering it moot. You would in fact never impart any force at all on the head.

Nope. Shields don't overload from conventional attacks, you need a litterly nuke at point blank ground zero to rip the shields off from atomisation. That's how powerful shields are.

@@tristanbackup2536 and they don't run out of power in 10 minutes without being attached to some kind of at least backpack-sized battery? It's as impressive as broken.

Nice! Shigawire

It’s tech from a billion years in the future, it can be inertial dampener, stasis field, air viscosity modification field, it could be an electrical field with ionizing environment or anything else…

its not the material, its all about speed of the blade that matters. You have to go fast enough to get thru (before your target moves to not get stabbed) but NOT so fast that the shield reacts. There are also hunter killer drones that bore thru the shields and shred the target inside.

I'm pretty sure the characters wouldn't pass up a chance to load guns with any material that isn't blocked by a shield. Even if the material is very weak it can still be shot at high enough velocity to kill if it's wrapped in a strong material or forms the jet of a shaped charge. This is similar to how mistwalker combat works where only metal can be pushed. You just put a bit of metal on a rock knowing that the metal will be stopped but not the rock. The whole shield idea would probably fall apart if any material was immune. Even water.

The shields are pretty consistant though. as the shields are pretty well explained. with lasers ending up being a BIG BOOM, that probably kills both shooter and shield user. with shields being originally designed to stop kinetic damage of bullet variety. And to get through the shield, you need steady, relatively slow pressure. its just that Hollywood can't be consistent at all.

It’s all a matter of knowing the specifics

Slower than a sword swing. Brian Herbert makes a statement on exsct speed but that's not Frank so not canon. During Paul's sword fight with Jamis, he is slowing his blade down when approaching and holding him at knife point not only because he is hesitant to kill him, but because his training is made to work against shields and so a shiekd would stop a normal strike. "The slow blade penetrates the shield" i.e. the fast blade does not.

Howcome the big shield around Arakeen doesn’t attract worms?

Replace with the same thickness of hardened steel and your results will be better though... Most man-portable armor plate is only a few millimeters thick, and you don't need the layers of padding to absorb shock since the shield has already done that. So unless everyone has to wear just one layer of silk or something...

Or like a mech with i really tuned up shield.

Fun fact, the suits they wear actually address this. Those black suits the Fremen (the desert people with blue eyes) are wearing are called Stillsuits and are designed to retain your body's moisture while out in the desert. This helps combat the heat and dehydration you'd expect to face in a desert setting.

@@VegetaLF7 ya, but wouldn't adding extra weight or layers still add unnecessary stress, to the system?

There is a book with this concept. The High Crusade Novel by Poul Anderson

also there is one moree thing i might ad, if you get the barrel of a gun inside the shield you can still shoot, so if you take an anti material rifle(and this is just earths tech you could undoutbly make something even stronger with dune tech) and shoot it at almost point blank, as the shield isnt directly on top of the skin you would either kill or if the materials are strong enough the kinectic force would still be enough to break bones, in adition if you hit the part where the heart is, youre gonna cause ruptures in all blood vessels arround and if you hit the brain you grant them permanent brain damage with the chance of death