Shields?

[Boston]

An arrow will punch through a plain wooden shield, if it hits "dead on". If it hits on a glancing angle (like, say; someone sees the arrow in flight (not impossible), or sees the archer  take aim at them, and moves to avoid it), it will probably bounce off.

Against a shield covered in linen or rawhide, an arrow will either 1) stick in, and not do too much damage, or 2) bounce off. Roman scuta were made of 3 different thicknesses of wood, laminated together with canvas and leather, plus being curved. That curved surface + construction + method of holding (in an overlapping pattern, aka not flat) made it easier for arrows and other missile weapons to be deflected.

Watch some more of the video I posted above. You can see the arrow NOPE its way through the plain shield, but against the rawhide-faced one, it doesn't do all that much.

You have to remember, however, that linen-and-rawhide-faced shields were HEAVY. They were usually used in a "passive" fashion: shieldwall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_wall), testudo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testudo_formation), phalanx (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx), where the weight of your shield was partially held up by the guy next to you, and wasn't really used to defend yourself, but more to "push" against the enemies shield. Plain wooden or wicker shields, however, were much lighter, and could be used to defend yourself more "actively". Also, when used in "1vs1" combat, the shield was as much a second weapon as it was for defense.