History Main / ArtisticLicenseShips

* In Film/SpiderManHomecoming, a malfunctioning weapon cuts the Staten Island Ferry in half lengthwise, in the middle of the Hudson River. Somehow, the ferry doesn't immediately sink from all of its major compartments below the waterline being flooded, and somehow, the spilled fuel from fuel tanks and the split engine room apppears to neither gush into the river nor ignite in a raging inferno. Spidey trys to hold the two halves together, as if that would actually do anything besides allowing both halves to stay near each other as they sank. Then Iron Man welds the ship back together with his supertech... but still, the issue of thousands of gallons of water in the engine room is not addressed.

** During one scene a torpedo is dropped by a helicopter on a submarine, but then remotely detonated by the helicopter's mothership prior to impact in order to fake the destruction of the sub. This is in reality impossible. The torpedo depicted in the movie is a US Mk 46, and once you have put one in the water--assuming it's working correctly--it will search for and then chase after its target until it either detonates or runs out of fuel. This would have been TruthInTelevision if the ship had launched the torpedo, as most ships and submarines could launch torpedos connected to control wires which would led operators basically control it by remote control to a certain degree, which would give it the advantage of being able to ignore decoys or other countermeasures, though the torpedo guidance system itself is still what is used to steer it towards it's target[[labelnote:*]]In other movies featuring torpedo combat, whenever you see a ship immediately fire back after a torpedo has been launched, it is in part to force the other ship to cut it's wires prematurely, making the torpedo do the work itself where it can be more easily dodged or countered.[[/labelnote]]. But no platform, even today, has the ability to remote detonate a torpedo wirelessly.
** The film portrays the caterpillar drive as making the submarine ultra-quiet because the propellor isn't moving. In reality a nuclear submarine's biggest noise source are the cooling pumps on the reactor. In real life a diesel-electric sub is far quieter, with the tradeoff being a reduced underwater operating duration.

** At one point the crew needs to move a shell by hand from one turret to another and though straining, five of them are able to do so. An actual 16" shell weighs 2,700 pounds (1,225kg, or 1.35 tons), even presuming they could lift and carry such a weight, there is no way they would be able to fit it through the corridors and into another turret.

** During one scene a torpedo is dropped by a helicopter on a submarine, but then remotely detonated by the helicopter's mothership prior to impact in order to fake the destruction of the sub. This is in reality impossible. The torpedo depicted in the movie is a US Mk 46, and once you have put one in the water--assuming it's working correctly--it will search for and then chase after its target until it either detonates or runs out of fuel.

* There are a fair number of older ''TabletopGame/{{Harpoon}}'' scenarios that pit a Soviet carrier group against an American one. The actual Soviet use of the "''Kiev''"(armed with ''really'' shitty Yak-38 jump jets) and "''Moskva''" (which actually was a ''helicopter'' carrier) classes were to defend areas for missile submarines, not engage in a suicidal tangle against a ''Nimitz'' group, unless the latter got close to the Soviet mainland. If the Soviets were going to take on a U.S. CBG (Carrier Battle Group), they'd use submarines and/or land-based aircraft. Even then, the Motherland would lose ''a lot'' of units in the process. ''Harpoon'' predates the current ubiquity of AEGIS ships in the USN, meaning there was a greatly increased risk of the heartstopping "[[UsefulNotes/MnogoNukesOtherNavalNukes SS-N-12 SANDBOX]] detected. METHOD: Visual" happening. This did not stay true for long after the game's release though.

** Sailing a ship is more involved than it is in most games, but greatly simplified compared to real life. Convenient pulleys are operated to open, close, and turn the sails, while all that's required to steer the ship is the wheel. No climbing the rigging to manually adjust the sails required. Furthermore, a full-sized galleon can only be crewed by up to four players, and even one player can sail one if they try.

* Disney's ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' features the ''Ulysses'', a {{Steampunk}} submarine the size of two aircraft carriers that can dive as deep as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In real life, submarines of that size cannot dive that deep because the high pressure underwater would cause their hulls to implode-the bigger the ship, the more pressure it has to deal with. The ''Ulysses'' would have trouble getting even that far because its steampunk engine would consume all interior oxygen if it dove underwater, and as a result the crew would all die of asphyxiation. Real-life diesel submarines exist, but ordinarily they can only use their diesel engines at or near the surface where they use a snorkel to draw in air. For completely submerged operation, most use electric engines powered by batteries, but this greatly limits their submerged range. Attempts to carry oxygen on board for a combustion engine were never really succesful, until Kockums developed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-independent_propulsion AIP]] stirling engines.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' episode ''To Another Shore'', Special Agent Faraday threatens to to shut a supervillain's sub with Trident missiles. The Trident is an intercontinental ballistic missile that carries a nuclear warhead. It's not a missile that would be used against a submarine that's submerged, nor against anything that's close enough to be seen.

* Disney's ''Disney/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' features the ''Ulysses'', a {{Steampunk}} submarine the size of two aircraft carriers that can dive as deep as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In real life, submarines of that size cannot dive that deep because the high pressure underwater would cause their hulls to implode-the bigger the ship, the more pressure it has to deal with. The ''Ulysses'' would have trouble getting even that far because its steampunk engine would consume all interior oxygen if it dove underwater, and as a result the crew would all die of asphyxiation. Real-life diesel submarines exist, but ordinarily they can only use their diesel engines at or near the surface where they use a snorkel to draw in air. For completely submerged operation, most use electric engines powered by batteries, but this greatly limits their submerged range. Attempts to carry oxygen on board for a combustion engine were never really succesful, until Kockums developed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-independent_propulsion AIP]] stirling engines.

* Invoked InUniverse in the second novel of the ''ComicBook/XWingSeries''. The Rogues find a freighter named ''Contruum's Pride''. Lt Cracken, a native of Contruum, takes one look at its IFF and declares that it's hostile: Due to the naming conventions for spaceships on Contruum, if it had really been part of their merchant marine, ''Pride'' would have been named for an animal or a river, not a virtue, something that was restricted for warships.

* The ''Gangplank Galleon'' in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'' might just be the single largest traditional sailing vessel in any video game. The first five levels of the game take place there, and any one of them alone would make it far larger than any real sailing ship. [[https://i.imgur.com/GnOIBbb.png Pirate Panic]] shows us a ridiculously long and elaborate top deck, [[https://i.imgur.com/nAVhCLY.png Mainbrace Mayhem]] features absurdly tall masts with many sails, and [[https://i.imgur.com/Zkf521i.png Lockjaw's Locker]] takes place in the hold, which is apparently at least as deep and expansive as a salt mine. The remaining two levels, Gangplank Galley and Topsail Trouble, are repeats of the deck and mast themes, respectively. All of these give the impression that the Gangplank Galleon isn't a ship so much as a ship-themed EldritchLocation, though it appears as a somewhat normal galleon on the overworld map. Later in the game, a nameless shipwreck in Krem Quay features three more ship levels, all of them equally as ridiculous as the ones from earlier. The Gangplank Galleon also featured in the first ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'', where it was much more normal, serving as the setting of the final boss fight, with the strangest thing about it being that it only had one mast with one sail.
* Sailing a ship in ''VideoGame/SeaOfThieves'' is more involved than it is in most games, but greatly simplified compared to real life. Convenient pulleys are operated to open, close, and turn the sails, while all that's required to steer the ship is the wheel. No climbing the rigging to manually adjust the sails required. Several features of real ships are also notably absent or unused. The anchor is operated from a capstan on deck, but the anchor itself is never seen. None of the ships have shrouds, even though they have the chainplates they would be attached to, and instead a ladder on the back of the mast is used to climb up to and down from the crow's nest. All ships have cannons on the top deck, but none below deck in what is usually called the gun deck, and the galleon even has gun ports down there! Of course, most of this is in the name of the RuleOfFun.

** The production crew seem to think that a 50,000 ton warship can perform handbrake turns.

* Music/JohnnyHorton's ''Sink the Bismarck'', set during the Battle of Denmark Strait and the following pursuit of the Bismarck, gets several facts about the German warship wrong. Contrary to what the song states, the ''Bismarck'' did not "have the biggest guns", as her 15-inch guns were smaller than the 16-inch guns carried by the "Big Seven" (which she found herself on the wrong end of when HMS ''Rodney'' intercepted her) and, at the time of the events of the song, the American battleships ''North Carolina'' and '' Washington'' had just been commissioned with the newest, most powerful 16-inch cannons yet mounted by any battleship, the 16-inch Mk 6 45-caliber cannon, which was capable of firing the new 2700 lb "super heavy" armor-piercing shell, unlike the previous 16-inch Mk 1 45-caliber cannon used by the preceding ''Colorado''-class. '' Bismarck'' was also not "the fastest ship to sail the seas", with many cruisers, battlecruisers (including the '' Hood'' that ''Bismarck'' famously sunk), and destroyers being able to top her 30 knot top speed. Even among battleships, ''Bismarck'' at best tied for that top speed, being matched with the French battleship ''Richelieu'', Italian battleships ''Littorio'' and ''Vittorio Veneto'', and Japanesee battleships ''Kongo'', ''Hiei'', ''Haruna'', and ''Kirishima''. Furthermore, her own sister ship, ''Tirpitz'', was slightly faster due to having significantly more powerful engines (while ''Bismarck'' could barely make 30 knots, ''Tirpitz'' could nearly hit 31 knots). Lastly, while ''Bismarck'' was not the largest ship in the world (several passenger liners, including the famous ''Titanic'' and her sister ships had been larger, and at the time, RMS ''Queen Mary'' held the crown of largest operational passenger ship with a displacement of nearly 82 kilotons, dwarfing ''Bismarck'''s roughly 42 kilotons displacement), she was the largest battleship in the world by displacement at the time of her commissioning. However, by the time the song takes place, she no longer held that title, having been surpassed by her sister ship, ''Tirpitz'', which displaced about 1200 tons more, though that is technically still consistent with the song's statement that "the Germans had the biggest ship", provided that the lyric is taken to only refer to warships.
** Also the verse '''In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun''' sounds like [[ArtisticLicenseHistory kind of an understatement]], as the British had been at war for over a year and a half.

This was also deliberately invoked, out of superstition. It was common to depict ships with the flags pointing in the "wrong" direction (e.g. toward the stern), because to depict them actually sailing--in a physically possible wind that made the sails and the flags point in the same direction--was considered bad luck. Sailors are famous for being superstitious, after all.

*** The HMS ''Agincourt'', a WWI era Dreadnought armed with a whopping fourteen 12" guns in seven twin turrets (no other battleship ever built had more than twelve guns of that size or larger), provides another example of what firing a broadside looks like: "the resulting sheet of flame was big enough to create the impression that a battle cruiser had blown up; it was awe inspiring."[[note]]At the Battle of Jutland, where this account was penned, by the time ''Agincourt'' opened fire the British sadly had three examples of exactly what it looked like when one of their battlecruisers blew up.[[/note]]

See also the UsefulNotes on UsefulNotes/NavalGazing. Not related to [[{{Shipping}} artistic ships]].

* Music/JohnnyHorton's ''Sink the Bismarck'', set during the Battle of Denmark Strait and the following pursuit of the Bismarck, gets several facts about the German warship wrong. Contrary to what the song states, the ''Bismarck'' did not "have the biggest guns", as her 15-inch guns were smaller than the 16-inch guns carried by the "Big Seven" (which she found herself on the wrong end of when HMS ''Rodney'' intercepted her) and, at the time of the events of the song, the American battleships ''North Carolina'' and '' Washington'' had just been commissioned with the newest, most powerful 16-inch cannons yet mounted by any battleship, the 16-inch Mk 6 45-caliber cannon, which was capable of firing the new 2700 lb "super heavy" armor-piercing shell, unlike the previous 16-inch Mk 1 45-caliber cannon used by the preceding ''Colorado''-class. '' Bismarck'' was also not "the fastest ship to sail the seas", with many cruisers, battlecruisers (including the '' Hood'' that ''Bismarck'' famously sunk), and destroyers being able to top her 30 knot top speed. Even among battleships, ''Bismarck'' at best tied for that top speed, being matched with the French battleship ''Richelieu'', Italian battleships ''Littorio'' and ''Vittorio Veneto'', and Japanesee battleships ''Kongo'', ''Hiei'', ''Haruna'', and ''Kirishima''. Lastly, while ''Bismarck'' was not the largest ship in the world (several passenger liners, including the famous ''Titanic'' and her sister ships had been larger, and at the time, RMS ''Queen Mary'' held the crown of largest operational passenger ship with a displacement of nearly 82 kilotons), she was the largest commissioned battleship in the world by displacement at the time of her commissioning. However, by the time the song takes place, she no longer held that title, having been surpassed by her sister ship, ''Tirpitz'', which displaced about 1200 tons more, though that is technically still consistent with the song's statement that "the Germans had the biggest ship", provided that the lyric is taken to only refer to warships.

* Music/JohnnyHorton's ''Sink the Bismarck'', set during the Battle of Denmark Strait and the following pursuit of the Bismarck, gets several facts about the German warship wrong. Contrary to what the song states, the ''Bismarck'' did not "have the biggest guns", as her 15-inch guns were smaller than the 16-inch guns carried by the "Big Seven" (which she found herself on the wrong end of when HMS ''Rodney'' intercepted her) and, at the time of the events of the song, the American battleships ''North Carolina'' and '' Washington'' had just been commissioned with the newest, most powerful 16-inch cannons yet mounted by any battleship, the 16-inch Mk 6 45-caliber cannon, which was capable of firing the new 2700 lb "super heavy" armor-piercing shell, unlike the previous 16-inch Mk 1 45-caliber cannon. '' Bismarck'' was also not "the fastest ship to sail the seas", with many cruisers, battlecruisers (including the '' Hood'' that ''Bismarck'' famously sunk), and destroyers being able to top her 30 knot top speed. Even among battleships, ''Bismarck'' at best tied for that top speed, being matched with the French battleship ''Richelieu'', Italian battleships ''Littorio'' and ''Vittorio Veneto'', and Japanesee battleships ''Kongo'', ''Hiei'', ''Haruna'', and ''Kirishima''. Lastly, while ''Bismarck'' was the largest commissioned battleship in the world by displacement at the time of her commissioning, by the time the song takes place, she no longer held that title, having been surpassed by her sister ship, ''Tirpitz'', though that is technically still consistent with the song's statement that "the Germans had the biggest ship".
** Also the verse '''In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun''' sounds like a [[ArtisticLicenseHistory kind of understatement]].

** Also the verse ''In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun'' sounds like [[ArtisticLicenceHistory kind of understatement]].

* There are a fair number of older ''TabletopGame/{{Harpoon}}'' scenarios that pit a Soviet carrier group against an American one. The actual Soviet use of the "''Kiev''"(armed with ''really'' shitty Yak-38 jump jets) and "''Moskva''" (which actually was a ''helicopter'' carrier) classes were to defend areas for missile submarines, not engage in a suicidal tangle against a ''Nimitz'' group, unless the latter got close to the Soviet mainland. If the Soviets were going to take on a U.S. CBG (Carrier Battle Group), they'd use submarines and/or land-based aircraft. Even then, the Motherland would lose ''a lot'' of units in the process. ''Harpoon'' predates the current ubiquitousness of AEGIS ships in the USN, meaning there was a greatly increased risk of the heartstopping "[[UsefulNotes/MnogoNukesOtherNavalNukes SS-N-12 SANDBOX]] detected. METHOD: Visual" happening. This did not stay true for long after the game's release though.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' was supposed to feature a ''La Fayette''-class frigate like the movie did; the ship actually looks nothing like the ''La Fayette'' and rather more like an American ''Kidd''-class destroyer.

** The third game has one level set in New York harbor, which is an active battleground between American and Russian ships. Quite apart from the aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, ''Tarantul'' missile corvettes, and ''submarines'' slugging it out at Napoleonic ranges, there's the whole bit about having an SSGN just offshore instead of at standoff distances, or the insanely short minimal range on those SS-N-19s.
** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' in general is just awful about this. In the same battle, you drive over the sunken USS Nimitz (CVN-68), which is stationed in Washington state. Even worse was in 2, when the Sixth Fleet was transplanted from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.

* ''Series/TheVitalSpark1965'' Had the main cabin of the titular vessel, a Clyde Puffer, situated in what ought to be the engine room below the wheelhouse. This allowed the interior scenes to take place in a typical sitcom room, suitable for the camera work of the day, instead of replicating the tiny forecabin that a real Clyde Puffer would have. The 1994 remake, ''Series/TheTalesOfParaHandy, depicted the layout of a Puffer more faithfully though

* ''Film/{{U571}}'' wasn't much more accurate in its ship displays than its accuracy to historical events. One of the more glaring errors is how roomy the captured U-Boat is. Compare this to "Film/DasBoot" in which even the officers having dinner are required to stand up and stuff themselves into a corner whenever someone needs to get through.

** Apparently a museum ship can be brought up to fighting condition in under a few hours, complete with fuel and ammunition. The USS ''Iowa'' took 2 years to recommission in 1980's.

* Invoked InUniverse in the second novel of the ''ComicBook/XWingSeries''. The Rogues find a freighter named ''Pride of Contruum's Pride''. Lt Cracken, a native of Contruum, takes one look at its IFF and declares that it's hostile: Due to the naming conventions for spaceships on Contruum, if it had really been part of their merchant marine, ''Pride'' would have been named for an animal or a river, not a virtue, something that was restricted for warships.