How realistic was.....

[YMHoward]

the siege scene in the latest robin hood movie? Considering the way they managed to screw up so many other things I am guessing not very, but I haven't seen any others done in movies.

So what say you?

[losthelm]

What robin hood movie?
The new one with russle crowe or Beyond sherwood forest with the Gate?

I hate to say it but robinhood is a stock movie at this point usualy with TV shows doing episodes or cartoon/movies coming out every 8 months or so its hard to keep track.

[YMHoward]

The russell crowe abomination.

[Murdock]

i didn't see it but in the trailer i saw more than enough things that were wrong.


WTF was with those stupid wooden higgins boat things?????

[YMHoward]

When I saw that trailer in cinema I nearly burst out laughing.

Then I watched it on dvd, and can say thank god I didn't buy it or spend money on a cinema seat. Thankfully the landing craft were in only one or two really short scenes. However the final battle scene looked as if the script writer and director took the landing scenes from Saving Private Ryan, stuck everybody in maille with swords and went from there.

Apparently robin hood was a republican. They screwed the story up so much after a while I watched a lot of it on fast forward only pausing when there were interesting armour or clothing.

[James B.]

WTF was with those stupid wooden higgins boat things?????

They were WWII landing boats. They just had wood facades.


I liked the movie myself but it is not a good historical movie it is romanticized medieval; the Victorians would love it.

[Duke Areus]

Searched a little and found this:

Then began the mariners to open the ports of the transports, and let down the bridges, and take out the horses; and the knights began to mount, and they began to marshal the divisions of the host in due order.
Geoffrey de Villehardouin [b.c.1160-d.c.1213]: Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, trans. Frank T. Marzials, (London: J.M. Dent, 1908)


So the fleet came to land, and when they were landed, forth came the knights out of the transports, all mounted; for the transports were built in such fashion that they had doors, which were easily opened, and a bridge was thrust out whereby the knights could come forth to land all mounted.

Robert of Clari's account of the Fourth Crusade

And this:

http://www.historynet.com/fourth-crusade.htm


During the late spring of 1202, the crusaders began to gather at Venice.
.....
At last the fleet could set forth. It included three main ship types. About 40 vessels, called simply ships, were standard Mediterranean heavy cargo ships, two-deckers for the most part, with high fore- and after-castles, twin steering oars and two masts on which triangular lateen sails were hung from long sloping yards. They were slow and unhandy, but their size and height made them effective in defense — or in attack against fixed objectives. Offering mobile support were 60 fighting galleys, rowed not by chained slaves or convicts, but by free and armed Venetian seamen.

The remaining 100 or so ships were uissiers, horse transports. These resembled galleys, but were larger and heavier, with fewer oars. An uissier's hold was divided into stalls for horses, which were firmly strapped into place when the vessel was underway. A doorlike hatch over an entry port in the hull aft could be lowered, drawbridge-fashion, to lead the horses in and out of the hold. These medieval counterparts to the LST (landing ship, tank) allowed knights to go ashore ready for immediate action.



Those sources called the horse transports uissiers. Other names included chelandium, tarida and dromon. They were big galleys capable of carrying 12-30 horses. The big thirty horse taride of Charles I of Sicily shipped 108-110 oars. The doors and ramps were at the stern between two sternposts, so the vessels backed onto the beach to unload and load. They were shallow draft: in Villehardouin's account the knights jumped from the transports into waist-deep water.

So they might not have been exactly accurate uissiers, but perhaps something similar did exist.

Might need to research this more, very interesting.

[Signo]

I think it's impossible that there aren't drawings of such landing ships.

[Gerhard von Liebau]

I think it's impossible that there aren't drawings of such landing ships.

What's your reasoning for that? Untold numbers of material artifacts have been lost in time and will never be discovered through any sort of evidence because none is left. The 12th and 13th centuries give us very little in the way of artistic evidence of material culture... Considering that we have a hard time finding drawings of helmets, swords, armor or just about anything else in detail, why would these ships be so likely to be drawn? If they were drawn, even frequently, why on earth would it be impossible that none of those drawings exist to this day? This is illogical.

-Gerhard

[Signo]

I said that just because the Crusades had an enormous resonance in those days (hell, they still have it today!) so I thought that a lot of artistic material was produced about them, increasing the chance to have at least some depiction of ships and boats carrying them.
Where those kind of boat discarded in later times? There are later tracks of those kind of transports?

p.s. there is no limit on the illogical things we can think

[James B.]

I am going to say it straight up; there is no way in hell those WWII landing boats were good substitutes for medieval crafts, the lines are totally wrong for ship building of that era or any surrounding era.

[Cian of Storvik]

I have only one word to describe my feelings on this matter...

[YMHoward]

Gentlemen, if I could just gently redirect the thread to the question I asked in the first post:

if you have seen the latest russell crowe robin hood shocker, was the siege scene at the start even vaguely realistic?

[Lloyd]

Well, Richard was killed by an arrow during a seige of a French castle. But, I have never seen any evidence that "seigers" tied bags of oil onto portcullis and then fired them (explosively)to burn through the gates.

There are accounts of setting fires at the corners of non-round fortifications in order to weaken the stone for sappers. But, the vast majority of what you see in this scene (including the wide variety of armour types/periods being represented) is for artistic purposes.

Like James, I enjoyed the movie because I went in knowing that it was for entertainment, not historical accuracy. Folks like us, that very much appreciate and want historical accuracy (down to pointed hosen and ceramic cups) are very much in the minority and it is very expensive to produce movies with that degree of authenticity. The general viewing public doesn't know, and doesn't care, about the inaccurracies - so there is no real reason for the producers to spend the extra money to get it right.

I apologize for any/all typos - but I have had a migraine for the past 6 days and I am actually having trouble just seeing the screen.

[Leo Medii]

Searched a little and found this:

Then began the mariners to open the ports of the transports, and let down the bridges, and take out the horses; and the knights began to mount, and they began to marshal the divisions of the host in due order.
Geoffrey de Villehardouin [b.c.1160-d.c.1213]: Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, trans. Frank T. Marzials, (London: J.M. Dent, 1908)


So the fleet came to land, and when they were landed, forth came the knights out of the transports, all mounted; for the transports were built in such fashion that they had doors, which were easily opened, and a bridge was thrust out whereby the knights could come forth to land all mounted.

Robert of Clari's account of the Fourth Crusade

And this:

http://www.historynet.com/fourth-crusade.htm


During the late spring of 1202, the crusaders began to gather at Venice.
.....
At last the fleet could set forth. It included three main ship types. About 40 vessels, called simply ships, were standard Mediterranean heavy cargo ships, two-deckers for the most part, with high fore- and after-castles, twin steering oars and two masts on which triangular lateen sails were hung from long sloping yards. They were slow and unhandy, but their size and height made them effective in defense — or in attack against fixed objectives. Offering mobile support were 60 fighting galleys, rowed not by chained slaves or convicts, but by free and armed Venetian seamen.

The remaining 100 or so ships were uissiers, horse transports. These resembled galleys, but were larger and heavier, with fewer oars. An uissier's hold was divided into stalls for horses, which were firmly strapped into place when the vessel was underway. A doorlike hatch over an entry port in the hull aft could be lowered, drawbridge-fashion, to lead the horses in and out of the hold. These medieval counterparts to the LST (landing ship, tank) allowed knights to go ashore ready for immediate action.



Those sources called the horse transports uissiers. Other names included chelandium, tarida and dromon. They were big galleys capable of carrying 12-30 horses. The big thirty horse taride of Charles I of Sicily shipped 108-110 oars. The doors and ramps were at the stern between two sternposts, so the vessels backed onto the beach to unload and load. They were shallow draft: in Villehardouin's account the knights jumped from the transports into waist-deep water.

So they might not have been exactly accurate uissiers, but perhaps something similar did exist.

Might need to research this more, very interesting.

I find it most interesting that there is more evidence of these "landing crafts" than there is of fighting with two-swords of equal length in Europe! And as such, I won't be bashing this movie. Well, except for the tactical stupididty in the last scene.

[Thorstenn]

And Dragons, and Magic, and giants, and....

As for the movie, I'll need to find it. I missed it completely

Thor.

Searched a little and found this:

Then began the mariners to open the ports of the transports, and let down the bridges, and take out the horses; and the knights began to mount, and they began to marshal the divisions of the host in due order.
Geoffrey de Villehardouin [b.c.1160-d.c.1213]: Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, trans. Frank T. Marzials, (London: J.M. Dent, 1908)


So the fleet came to land, and when they were landed, forth came the knights out of the transports, all mounted; for the transports were built in such fashion that they had doors, which were easily opened, and a bridge was thrust out whereby the knights could come forth to land all mounted.

Robert of Clari's account of the Fourth Crusade

And this:

http://www.historynet.com/fourth-crusade.htm


During the late spring of 1202, the crusaders began to gather at Venice.
.....
At last the fleet could set forth. It included three main ship types. About 40 vessels, called simply ships, were standard Mediterranean heavy cargo ships, two-deckers for the most part, with high fore- and after-castles, twin steering oars and two masts on which triangular lateen sails were hung from long sloping yards. They were slow and unhandy, but their size and height made them effective in defense — or in attack against fixed objectives. Offering mobile support were 60 fighting galleys, rowed not by chained slaves or convicts, but by free and armed Venetian seamen.

The remaining 100 or so ships were uissiers, horse transports. These resembled galleys, but were larger and heavier, with fewer oars. An uissier's hold was divided into stalls for horses, which were firmly strapped into place when the vessel was underway. A doorlike hatch over an entry port in the hull aft could be lowered, drawbridge-fashion, to lead the horses in and out of the hold. These medieval counterparts to the LST (landing ship, tank) allowed knights to go ashore ready for immediate action.



Those sources called the horse transports uissiers. Other names included chelandium, tarida and dromon. They were big galleys capable of carrying 12-30 horses. The big thirty horse taride of Charles I of Sicily shipped 108-110 oars. The doors and ramps were at the stern between two sternposts, so the vessels backed onto the beach to unload and load. They were shallow draft: in Villehardouin's account the knights jumped from the transports into waist-deep water.

So they might not have been exactly accurate uissiers, but perhaps something similar did exist.

Might need to research this more, very interesting.

I find it most interesting that there is more evidence of these "landing crafts" than there is of fighting with two-swords of equal length in Europe! And as such, I won't be bashing this movie. Well, except for the tactical stupididty in the last scene.

[Leo Medii]

Touche!


It's worth a watch. I enjoyed it for nothing but the fun of a Robin Hood flick.

[Ceddie]

Historically, the movie was craptastic. In every respect.

But hollywierd didn’t let me down, it was fun to watch so I was entertained.