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History channel... Vikings... crossbows.

Goshin

Goshin

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Good show, Vikings.

Catching up recently, I saw Frankish soldiers cocking crossbows one-handed while holding them shouldered.

TMK this is not possible with any crossbow intended to kill men, let alone armored men.

Historically the light crossbow was cocked using two hands and the foot-stirrup. Heavier crossbows required more serious tackle, like cranequins and windlass.


I am not expert with the crossbow but I've fiddled with them, and a modern deer-hunting crossbow is too strong to be cocked one-handed in this manner... and deer don't wear mail shirts.

(Daryl does it in Walking Dead too, makes me cringe.)


Discussion? Thoughts? More info?
 
Goshin said:
Good show, Vikings.

Catching up recently, I saw Frankish soldiers cocking crossbows one-handed while holding them shouldered.

TMK this is not possible with any crossbow intended to kill men, let alone armored men.

Historically the light crossbow was cocked using two hands and the foot-stirrup. Heavier crossbows required more serious tackle, like cranequins and windlass.


I am not expert with the crossbow but I've fiddled with them, and a modern deer-hunting crossbow is too strong to be cocked one-handed in this manner... and deer don't wear mail shirts.

(Daryl does it in Walking Dead too, makes me cringe.)


Discussion? Thoughts? More info?
Click to expand...

Many movies take great liberties with what is possible. I beleive that John Wayne, with his role in the Sons of Katie Elder, managed to fire 14 rounds from a revolver.

The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) - Goofs - IMDb

I don't recall the name of the (Candian?) film but a single (police?) motorcycle varied from being painted all white in some scenes to being painted black and white in others all within the same chase scene sequence.
 
Goshin said:
Good show, Vikings.

Catching up recently, I saw Frankish soldiers cocking crossbows one-handed while holding them shouldered.

TMK this is not possible with any crossbow intended to kill men, let alone armored men.

Historically the light crossbow was cocked using two hands and the foot-stirrup. Heavier crossbows required more serious tackle, like cranequins and windlass.


I am not expert with the crossbow but I've fiddled with them, and a modern deer-hunting crossbow is too strong to be cocked one-handed in this manner... and deer don't wear mail shirts.

(Daryl does it in Walking Dead too, makes me cringe.)


Discussion? Thoughts? More info?
Click to expand...

I started watching that and it had a really good story line, but IMO went over the top with blood and gore. It got to the point where the central story was how to get more blood and gore. Boooorrrring!

If you think logically, no population can survive with continuous battles killing of their working age men at the rates they died off on the show.

But! The story line was great and told another way would be an award winner! Maybe I can read the book!
 
chuckiechan said:
I started watching that and it had a really good story line, but IMO went over the top with blood and gore. It got to the point where the central story was how to get more blood and gore. Boooorrrring!

If you think logically, no population can survive with continuous battles killing of their working age men at the rates they died off on the show.

But! The story line was great and told another way would be an award winner! Maybe I can read the book!
Click to expand...



Most Vikings weren't Vikings... that is, they didn't go "viking" (or wyking as some have it), which meant "raiding". More stayed home to farm and fish, historically. Also the ideal target for raids were soft targets with low resistance, and thus low casualties.
 
Kermit and co. covered this part of history years ago:

 
Goshin said:
Most Vikings weren't Vikings... that is, they didn't go "viking" (or wyking as some have it), which meant "raiding". More stayed home to farm and fish, historically. Also the ideal target for raids were soft targets with low resistance, and thus low casualties.
Click to expand...

But we are talking about TV Vikings with the horns on their helmets!

The story is Greenland was called green-land as a marketing ploy to get restless Vikings to move there for free and uncontested farmland. I can imagine this conversation.. "Ragnar, WTF is with all this green land ****?" as Ragnar back slowly in a corner, drawing his sword...
 
Goshin said:
Most Vikings weren't Vikings... that is, they didn't go "viking" (or wyking as some have it), which meant "raiding". More stayed home to farm and fish, historically. Also the ideal target for raids were soft targets with low resistance, and thus low casualties.
Click to expand...
Plus (to add) they were great traders.

And colonizers.

Not just wrt Iceland and Greenland but the Russian nation goes back to them via the Kievan Rus that arose from their (Varangians = the rowers) commingling with native Slavs and constituting the first dynasty.
.
 
It is not a historical show, it is a show produced for entertainment, there are many more questionable things in addition to crossbows in it. If you look into almost any movie or TV show deeply you will find numerous things not possible, just enjoy them for what they are meant to be, entertainment.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Many movies take great liberties with what is possible. I beleive that John Wayne, with his role in the Sons of Katie Elder, managed to fire 14 rounds from a revolver.

The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) - Goofs - IMDb

I don't recall the name of the (Candian?) film but a single (police?) motorcycle varied from being painted all white in some scenes to being painted black and white in others all within the same chase scene sequence.
Click to expand...

Sabre said:
It is not a historical show, it is a show produced for entertainment, there are many more questionable things in addition to crossbows in it. If you look into almost any movie or TV show deeply you will find numerous things not possible, just enjoy them for what they are meant to be, entertainment.
Click to expand...


Obviously, yes.

But there's willing-suspension-of-disbelief, which is important in any fiction, and there are things that impair that.

Watching someone casually **** a crossbow one-handed as if it had a draw weight of five pounds is one of the things that jars me out of WSOD.
 
Goshin said:
Good show, Vikings.

Catching up recently, I saw Frankish soldiers cocking crossbows one-handed while holding them shouldered.

TMK this is not possible with any crossbow intended to kill men, let alone armored men.

Historically the light crossbow was cocked using two hands and the foot-stirrup. Heavier crossbows required more serious tackle, like cranequins and windlass.


I am not expert with the crossbow but I've fiddled with them, and a modern deer-hunting crossbow is too strong to be cocked one-handed in this manner... and deer don't wear mail shirts.

(Daryl does it in Walking Dead too, makes me cringe.)


Discussion? Thoughts? More info?
Click to expand...

I understand that you can't have these shows 100% historical because the battles weren't nearly as bloody, there weren't nearly as many battles, there was a lot more down time than there was action...but....

they can easily be accurate with how a crossbow is loaded!
 
iliveonramen said:
I understand that you can't have these shows 100% historical because the battles weren't nearly as bloody, there weren't nearly as many battles, there was a lot more down time than there was action...but....

they can easily be accurate with how a crossbow is loaded!
Click to expand...


I know right?


And yeah, generally not as bloody. It isn't easy to kill an armored man with period weapons. I understand most battle injuries were bruises, sprains, strains, broken bones and shallow cuts, as armor tended to turn edged and pointed hits into blunt trauma.

Also, I understand a lot of engagements involved one side running away before the body count got very high....
 
Goshin said:
Obviously, yes.

But there's willing-suspension-of-disbelief, which is important in any fiction, and there are things that impair that.

Watching someone casually **** a crossbow one-handed as if it had a draw weight of five pounds is one of the things that jars me out of WSOD.
Click to expand...
yeah, any cross-bow that weak would give the bolt a velocity that anyone could slap out of its trajectory like as if swatting a fly.

These types of things irk me as well, entertainment value be danged.

Like "Vikings" obviously were more concerned with their camera appearance and thus did without helmets altogether. Which the real Vikings wore all the time, considering that head wounds were the most common injury in battle on any side.

Bringing us back to long distance slaying which, to the best of my knowledge, wasn't the rage in those times. What with both sides much rather slumming it out in hand-to-hand style.

If the writers of that series could make up their minds over the timeline they're actually flouncing around in (and all over), one could actually at least address when the longbow started playing a decisive role, outplaying French (not Frankish) crossbows by application of superior ballistic tactics.

It's like older Westerns having Confederate and Union troops going at each other with Winchesters and Peacemakers.

Nitpickery for sure but it wouldn't take that much more effort to attend a little bit to detail.
 
History channel

More apt - Propaganda channel
 
Goshin said:
I know right?


And yeah, generally not as bloody. It isn't easy to kill an armored man with period weapons. I understand most battle injuries were bruises, sprains, strains, broken bones and shallow cuts, as armor tended to turn edged and pointed hits into blunt trauma.

Also, I understand a lot of engagements involved one side running away before the body count got very high....
Click to expand...

Exactly, not great for television.

I also have the same impression as you, most of these guys aren't professional soldiers and it doesn't take much to break their lines. Unless someone has different information that's what the bulk of what I've read tends to agree on. Maybe the guard for a Jarl were professional soldiers but a lot of these raiders...it's human nature...they are there for easy plunder not to fight pitched battles.
 
iliveonramen said:
Exactly, not great for television.

I also have the same impression as you, most of these guys aren't professional soldiers and it doesn't take much to break their lines. Unless someone has different information that's what the bulk of what I've read tends to agree on. Maybe the guard for a Jarl were professional soldiers but a lot of these raiders...it's human nature...they are there for easy plunder not to fight pitched battles.
Click to expand...



One of the TV tropes pages is "Armor is Worthless", about how on tv shows and movies, armor is almost never portrayed as effective at stopping injury; in fact often the opposite.

Swords are often depicted as cutting or stabbing right through armor with little difficulty, which is nonsense.


There's some argument about the effectiveness of mail vs arrows, but a coat-of-plates (brigandine, Visby plate, jack-o-plates) was a common outer layer of armor that would have been effective vs arrows.

Brigandine is the one mistakenly identified as "studded leather" because the studs/nails that held the plates to the outer layer were visible, but the real protection was the overlapping small metal plates between the cloth or leather layers....
 
Goshin said:
Good show, Vikings.

Catching up recently, I saw Frankish soldiers cocking crossbows one-handed while holding them shouldered.

TMK this is not possible with any crossbow intended to kill men, let alone armored men.

Historically the light crossbow was cocked using two hands and the foot-stirrup. Heavier crossbows required more serious tackle, like cranequins and windlass.


I am not expert with the crossbow but I've fiddled with them, and a modern deer-hunting crossbow is too strong to be cocked one-handed in this manner... and deer don't wear mail shirts.

(Daryl does it in Walking Dead too, makes me cringe.)


Discussion? Thoughts? More info?
Click to expand...

It's a TV fiction show, you expect facts?????

So far, it's been an entertaining soap opera, with hot babes, hot dudes for the babes, and we still know next to nothing about the real Ragnar and his sons. Remember Ragnar's brother on the show, Rollo? He was born about 840, Ragnar, about 745, and you're concerned about loading crossbow's as a question of veracity? With one hand, I can load my grandson's nerf crossbow. His sister is faster with her blaster, and can shoot more rounds.

BTW, Wilfred Guissess, Norwegian historical scholar, of sorts, claims Ivar got his name as "Boneless" because he was a contortionist, capable of dislocating his shoulders to work himself into abnormal physical positions. It came to him in a vision while sleeping, the night after he watched a Mel Gibson movie where Mel's character had the same ability with one shoulder. :)

I missed the last episode, caught up with it last evening via On Demand, tonight, the next episode. I'll be watching and leering at the ladies, while my wife is leering at the guys. All in good fun.
 
Goshin said:
Obviously, yes.

But there's willing-suspension-of-disbelief, which is important in any fiction, and there are things that impair that.

Watching someone casually **** a crossbow one-handed as if it had a draw weight of five pounds is one of the things that jars me out of WSOD.
Click to expand...

You know whats worse? I have seen several snakes mis-IDed on nature shows. I was a snake buff as a kid, I would honestly say I can ID about 75% of snakes on planet earth at a glance.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Many movies take great liberties with what is possible. I beleive that John Wayne, with his role in the Sons of Katie Elder, managed to fire 14 rounds from a revolver.
Click to expand...

Only 14? Check out Bruce Willis with his unlimited capacity 1911's:
 
Goshin said:
Good show, Vikings.

Catching up recently, I saw Frankish soldiers cocking crossbows one-handed while holding them shouldered.

TMK this is not possible with any crossbow intended to kill men, let alone armored men.

Historically the light crossbow was cocked using two hands and the foot-stirrup. Heavier crossbows required more serious tackle, like cranequins and windlass.


I am not expert with the crossbow but I've fiddled with them, and a modern deer-hunting crossbow is too strong to be cocked one-handed in this manner... and deer don't wear mail shirts.

(Daryl does it in Walking Dead too, makes me cringe.)


Discussion? Thoughts? More info?
Click to expand...

I have an acquaintance that built replica medieval weapons. His "toy" version that shot tootsie rolls was hard to one hand draw... You are spot on.

Also noted is the "schwing" sound when drawing a sword. Most scabbards were wood, leather or other material that would not make that noise.

Or the cutting edge to cutting edge sword fighting... Good way to destroy your blade...

The list goes on and on... Hollywood weapons. Pffft.
 
Do they have any female warriors in the show?

Famous Viking Warrior Was a Woman, DNA Reveals
More than a millennium ago in what’s now southeastern Sweden, a wealthy Viking warrior was laid to rest, in a resplendent grave filled with swords, arrowheads, and two sacrificed horses. The site reflected the ideal of Viking male warrior life, or so many archaeologists had thought.

New DNA analyses of the bones, however, confirm a revelatory find: the grave belonged to a woman.
(. . .)
Viking lore had long hinted that not all warriors were men. One early tenth-century Irish text tells of Inghen Ruaidh (“Red Girl”), a female warrior who led a Viking fleet to Ireland. And Zori notes that numerous Viking sagas, such as the 13th-century Saga of the Volsungs, tell of “shield-maidens” fighting alongside male warriors.
Click to expand...
 
Goshin said:
One of the TV tropes pages is "Armor is Worthless", about how on tv shows and movies, armor is almost never portrayed as effective at stopping injury; in fact often the opposite.

Swords are often depicted as cutting or stabbing right through armor with little difficulty, which is nonsense.


There's some argument about the effectiveness of mail vs arrows, but a coat-of-plates (brigandine, Visby plate, jack-o-plates) was a common outer layer of armor that would have been effective vs arrows.

Brigandine is the one mistakenly identified as "studded leather" because the studs/nails that held the plates to the outer layer were visible, but the real protection was the overlapping small metal plates between the cloth or leather layers....
Click to expand...

The Mongols wore silk shirts under their mail. It acted like primate Kevlar. If an arrow penetrated the mail they would grab the cloth around the would and extract the point as it often would not penetrate fully and often resulted in simple flesh wounds..
 
Goshin said:
Most Vikings weren't Vikings... that is, they didn't go "viking" (or wyking as some have it), which meant "raiding". More stayed home to farm and fish, historically. Also the ideal target for raids were soft targets with low resistance, and thus low casualties.
Click to expand...

Exactly. My wife maintains - vigorously - that all her viking ancestors were gentle peace-loving traders. The vikings were good guys; as they make clear on the five 1000 year old rune stones within walking distance of whence I type.
 
iliveonramen said:
I understand that you can't have these shows 100% historical because the battles weren't nearly as bloody, there weren't nearly as many battles, there was a lot more down time than there was action...but....

they can easily be accurate with how a crossbow is loaded!
Click to expand...

It is a dull process. Much like most films involving flintlock and matchlock weapons pretty much skip over the reloading of those weapons. And almost no movie about ancient armies (outside of Biblical ones) ever mention the importance of slingers. The Romans made extensive use of this weapon, as did most militaries into the medieval period (and it is still used in modern times).
 
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