Sundering Query

I am a little confused

I have a wooden shield, you have an axe. What's the difference between me blocking your meaty swing with my shield (ie, the axe makes full solid contact with my shield and you do no damage to me), and you aiming for my shield, hitting it and successfully sundering it?

In RL, you do not block an axe blow (or any other kind of blow) with the face of the shield. You block with the _edge_ of the shield, which has a metal rim for the purpose of deflecting weapons. Blocking with the face of the shield very quickly leads to a busted shield.

In D&D, the difference is that blocking an attack with a shield means the attacker didn't roll high enough to beat your total AC including your shield bonus, whereas sundering the shield involves the Sunder action (and provokes an AoO).

You mean ruleswise or from a realistic point of view?

It's a big difference whether the axeman tries to hurt your shieldarm or aims for your head or body.

Hmm...ok, I'll bite

As far as blocking with the rim - how exactly does one do that as far as the rules go? Thus far, my reading through the PH and the DMG hasn't unearthed items being destroyed in the normal day to day use - despite ones' best efforts, you fail to catch the blow on the rim - what happens then? An unintentional sunder?

And yeah, realism as far as possible, but hey, we all make allowances It simply occurred to me that the two actions were one and the same.

Nope. It's a big difference where you accelerate the axe if you want to hit the shield or the guy. And blocking a weapon with a shield just as during a Sunder attempt will easily end in a broken shieldarm. You have to deflect it, not brutally block it.