The same goes for the Taliban, though they were noticeably more careful with their words given the to them more obvious risk of offending their demographic. There were a few seconds devoted to the history of the Troubles, and that was it. Nothing about the peace process, the different factions etc. Simplistic views of history need to be challenged, not reinforced. Breathtakingly enough, despite this Geiger says —. Yet nothing in the show reflects this awareness of the sensitive issues at hand not his fault I suppose.
He goes on;. Guilty consciences about controversial weapons but not the murderous terrorists deploying them salved, we can all move on. Max, you seem like an intelligent and thinking chap.
Get the feck away from this trainwreck as soon as you can. On to the completely unscientific testing, which includes such choice quotes as;. Had they gone with a real IRA slingshot — ones used as petrol bomb projectors , it would have thrown out their back-of-a-fag-packet calculations.
It got worse. The Rocket Propelled Grenade test was faked. The backblast was rubbish CGI, and there was a careful and drastic cut to the projectile itself in flight, which flew in a most untypical manner with a suspicious-looking smoke trail, and might actually have placed the cameraman forward of the launcher.
No, it was fake alright. This is likely because actual RPGs are impossible to get outside of hot sandy places, and quite a lot more dangerous than small arms. These will have been different or cleaned weapons. The final giveaway is that after supposed firing, the muddy weapons remain just as muddy — none has been removed by the cycling of the action.
At least they tried to get real results and resorted to fakery, rather than planning it before filming even began. Honestly, it might as well have been against Chaka Khan. At least as far as the Scottish kit went, weapons, uniform, equipment and historical details were all wildly inaccurate.
Kilt, spiked targe, dirk and claymore all date from a minimum of years later. The result of the zulu spear going through it is therefore utterly bogus, as the mild-steel links would simply open up and allow the point through, where the real rivetted iron or steel links would easily resist it.
Unrivetted mail is not represented in the European historical record for a reason — it would have been a lot of work and weight to wear for little actual protection. Absolutely bizarre. Worth watching only for connoisseurs of car crash TV like myself! However, the computer programme that he wrangles is highly suspect, involving punching numbers into a spreadsheet which is then interpreted over a series of encounters using a modified piece of computer game code.
At least he sounds Irish. Taliban Fahim Fazli — boy mujahideen he may have been he does seem favourable toward the Taliban , but he is now a film actor. Not one academic historian amongst them. Bigging oneself up over and above your experience and qualifications is common in entertainment, where you are after all only playing a role. But if a programme desires subject specialists, it should hire them. But at least his role as host in such shows makes a certain amount of sense given his background as a stage and screen fight director, and he clearly does have a certain amount of specialist knowledge about arms and armour.
Not so these people, none of whom could legitimately be described as historians, even if they do play one on TV. Finally, there are many out there who study historical swordfighting techniques based upon primary source — why were none of them employed? Even as entertainment — recommended only for the terminally hard of thinking or those like me morbidly fascinated by bad TV.
A student of the past with an interest in the weird things that so many of us believe in. View all posts by bshistorian. The entire network seems to be filled with garbage programming. Sir, I salute you! I feel honoured to have pipped the mighty Brooker to the post but heartily recommend said programme;. Although, unfortunately, Channel 4 On Demand can, and is. My favourite bit is where the IRA guy locks the Taliban guy in the bus and waves the bomb remote at him through the window.
After all, he is in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel so he must know a lot about Irish history. By your faulty logic, it sounds like it does. Stop emailing you? I sent you one email to give you the chance to show some credentials — a published article, a book, any relevant background or experience. You ignored it. As for Natalie, Frank has it covered. I care about the misrepresentation of the past for nothing but entertainment, ratings and profit.
I will readily concede that Deadliest Warrior is very entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. Hmm, for not caring so much about this, you sure have a lot of time on your hands to research and write so much about it and the people involved in the production. To me, your article was not so focused on fact vs fiction, but rather more about putting people down. All that does is make YOU look unprofessional. They seem to be planning everything to be very close. It felt hugely scripted, hardly accurate and hardly proper scientific.
I don't know if im right but it looked like agility and supporting weapons had no effect in the system whatsoever. Pure muscle seem to win most of the time. That just didn't make sense.
Example: 'Spoiler' Ninja vs Spartan We all know that the effect of pepperspray is pretty intense right? I saw people hyperventilating, puking etc. The ninja seem to use something like that, but also pulverised glass for the eyes.
Would a Spartan warrior really blink his eyes one time and go on fighting? Just because he was trained to have physical pain?
That just sounds rubbish. Out of a battles the ninja could these sort of tricks over and over again. Because the spartan warrior was made just like a roman warrior to fight entire armies.
To work in a group, forming one big shield and deal devastating attacks to huge and not agile moving masses of flesh. The ninja is a one on one specialist. But leaving a man cripple on the ground as the effect of glass or pepper in your eye will lead to the same thing. A ninjato in you neck, which is an instant kill. I got the feeling the system did not counter these sort of combo attacks, if you could call i that.
There seem to be a lot more of these plot holes. Which at times can get really frustrating. But when your looking for good fun and the effect that some weapons have, do watch. You'll enjoy it! This show is kind of a guilty pleasure. I watch it, I laugh, and sometimes, I even learn something - despite the inaccuracies and sometimes rather obviously bias.
What this show really is is a role-playing game with historical figures, and the simulation is the results of the program rolling the dice. It's a fun and interesting show The change in line up, the introduction of the new pretentious and really unlikable computer guy totally ruined the show. I've watched the first 2 episodes 1.
Gladiator vs Apache Warrior and 2. Viking vs Samurai and was very impressed. The show uses a lot of the high tech data devices like Sports Science and goes as in-depth as possible in the shows time slot. It uses multiple factors in deciding who would win the fights. That range from distance to weapons used. The use of modern day experts in the cultures make for great trash talking.
Other fights to look forward to include Spartans, ninja's and pirates. If your interested in the history of warriors throughout time and can believe in the science deciding the winner then this show is a must watch. And even they aren't that great. The show itself takes an interesting, if unoriginal idea, of pitting warriors of different eras against each other.
A few problems though. However, some of the guests to have impressive skills I speak of course of the ninja guys. On the other hand, the fight at the end can be pretty cool. While this is certain to attract a certain type of viewer, watch only the first and last 5 minutes if you at all value the integrity of television.
Deadliest Warrior turns out to be decent schlock entertainment, but like many good contemporary shows, turns out to be fairly informative. The notion that you could actually determine who is the deadliest warrior in history is silly, not because they compare warriors from completely different times who could've never met anyway, but rather because the match-ups are all out of context -- Gladiator vs.
The show features a few regulars and then some guest warriors who specialize not only in knowledge of the particular warriors but who also are masters of the particular fighting styles and weapons of their particular historical warrior as well. The two different modern warrior groups usually trash-talk each other in goofy machismo fashion; I think they're being serious but it's good for a laugh.
Each show demonstrates the period weapons and their capability against fairly realistic human analogs. For instance, they smash in the head of a dummy with a tomahawk, and the dummy is a simulated skull with simulated brain matter surrounded by ballistics gel. When the skull flies apart, so does the brain matter; it's pretty graphic even though it's just a dummy.
There are a few extremely impressive demonstrations of skill by the guest warriors, so that's cool to see. The "computer program" they run at the end to determine who would win the most times out of appears to be some cheesy spreadsheet.
I'm sure there's more to it, but they offer zero in terms of methodology, adding to the goofiness. The final battle simulation at the very end is pretty cool though, and it nicely ties in all of the weapons that were tested in the lab. In all, I gave this show a 7 because despite several cornball facets to it, it really is entertaining to watch, occasionally funny, pretty interesting and -- the best part -- informative.
I watch it with my two middle-school sons and they love it, and the show always evokes some good discussions of martial history between us. Oh, and although I can find no indication of who the narrator is, it sounds exactly like David Wenham from RedGroundBlackSnake 8 August This show is very intellectual and enjoyable, and yet, like almost any other show on television, but it is not perfect.
Perhaps my favorite match-ups are the ancient match-ups because their weaponry is more interesting. The show revolves around pitting two warriors who have never clashed in history against each other in a simulation program, which I should warn you is not always consistent with the tests done by the doctor, scientist, and weapons experts.
And also, I'll even admit, there are some plot-holes between the historical factors of each warrior, but it is filled more so with consistent and accurate information about each trooper. A funny thing about this show is that the weapons experts are always joking about the other sides' warrior, and since I don't hate the show, I can see and admit that none of them mean any offense to each other.
Also, nearly all of the experts will describe their warrior as doing nothing but fight, this is obviously not something to take literally. There are also tests against armor and on vehicle that I wish they would do, but still, it is a good show with flaws. There is not a single legitimately bad episode in this show. I recommend it for anyone who is up for some informative and yet entertaining material.
Where to begin with this show Lets start with what I like about it. Learning about the weapons of each group is great, the tests are accurate at measuring damage. The trash talking is kind of funny. Now what to what I don't like They test a lot of one on one battles where as the the groups may not fight in one on one.
The mongols fought as a group and had the largest empire in history, the commanche got pushed out by the US government in a short period of time. Also a skill factor comes in, the mongol warrior was trained in martial arts, none of that was tested or taken into variable. Other issues include unreasonable testing. Of course the army with steel armor is going to win against the army with leather armor. Sun Tzu was a genius in warfare, Vlad was just a lunatic who killed a lot of people.
Strategy in this episode would have been a huge variable. It also was a one on one battle. This is a huge issue, if you wanted to compare them, they should have done at least a 5 man simulation. GSG9 is Germany's elite counter terrorist team. The gave an edge to SWAT for unsound reasons, their assault rifle, and special weapon. Reality is the mid range assault rifles of each group are equal, there is no edge to either. Swat was not. Another issue, GSG9 is a single group, not in every major city, so there is little variation.
SWAT is in every major city, and they all vary. Overall for a show. Tactics, fighting style, logistics, experience, and other highly important factors in a fight are ignored. Any military professional will tell you that weapons are a small part of the entire package and to focus on only weapons is already going into the hypothetical blind.
This extremely narrow tactical focus leads to some absurd moments, for example in episode 6 where a former Spetsnaz operative argues that a headshot through the nose is deadlier than being shot between the eyes.
Here at RationalWiki, we recommend against being shot in either location. The last major problem is that battles were simulated as a one-on-one, head-on fight though this was later changed for the most part to five-on-five squad battles. The vast majority of battles were and are not fought one-on-one, and many kinds of warriors did not fight head-on.
For example, during the first episode of the entire show, Apache vs. Gladiator , the Apache expert comments on how unrealistic it would be for an Apache to engage in face-to-face "honorable" combat. This show loves weapons, and it shows. One might think that, with the show's love of them, this is where the real work happens, but you'd be mistaken. Testing methods run from worthless to little more than a weapons demo version of a show trial. The first strike against the testing is that the "experts" are the ones to demonstrate the weapons.
This voids all data from the tests as the factors are now gathered from data gathered from the testers rather than from the weapons being tested. These match ups, for lack of a better term, tend to go from debatably balanced a legitimate US Army Green Beret versus a legitimate GRU Spetsnaz to completely one-sided a world champion wild west firearms marksman versus a "relative of a mobster" with a Tommy Gun.
The show also is very dismissive of weapons that are less lethal, or simply lack raw killing power and ignore the tactical use, ease of operation, logistical considerations, and other factors besides pure damage the weapon can deal. Liberal use of CGI also was common on the show, mostly to "sweeten" explosive weapons to give them the Hollywood fireball rather than the shock-wave and shrapnel of how those weapons truly work.
Weapons were also forced to follow popular image rather than how well they worked in reality. Maybe there was a noncompete clause, or maybe the producers didn't want to seem like they were copying the History Channel? Who knows? So we have the SEALs vs.
The outcome is ambiguous at the moment, since the SEALs need two more weapons in their arsenal to be on level with the Spetznaz. It's instead subtle foreshadowing, where the winners of the Season 3 fight will be pitched in a fantasy battle vs.
Community Showcase More. Follow TV Tropes. You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account. Some possible if a bit off-the-wall ideas behind the backstories of the simulations. The Slytherin Studios program is a quantum computer, capable of creating alternate realities.
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