Frankish soldiers of Louis the Pious to advance on the walls of Barcelona during the siege of 800–801, by Vikings during the siege of Paris in 885–886, by East Frankish soldiers under king Arnulf of Carinthia during the siege of Bergamo in 894, by Lotharingians under Conrad the Red at the siege of Senlis in 949, by Lotharingian defenders at the siege of Verdun in 984 and by the Crusaders of count Raymond IV of Toulouse during the siege of Nicaea in 1097. The testudo formation was also employed by medieval Arabs, who called it the dabbāba or "crawler". It was employed by Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i in the 906 siege of Tobna (in modern-day Algeria), where he used it to protect sappers as they advanced to the city walls, where they undermined and collapsed a tower, creating a breach for their allies to enter the city. British "riot police" have mastered its use, both as a defensive formation and as "snatch squads", where a targeted individual is swallowed up and held in the testudo while it withdraws from the crowd. During the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv, Ukraine in 2014 the Berkut riot police used the testudo tactic to protect themselves. Israeli forces and American George Floyd protestors have been known to use the formation. Gallery See also Mesopotamian military strategy and tactics Roman infantry tactics References Dio Cassius, Roman History Book 49, 30, ed. Loeb Classical Library Bibliography Cowan, Ross, Roman Battle Tactics 109BC - AD313 (Osprey 2007) Rance, Philip, “The Fulcum, the Late Roman and Byzantine Testudo: the Germanization of Roman Infantry Tactics?” in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 44 (2004) pp. 265–326 Plutarch, Roman Lives, ed. Robin Waterfield Dio Cassius, Roman History Book 49, 30 ed. Loeb Classical Library External links Infantry units and formations of ancient Rome Roman shields Roman tactical formations Tactical formations