Top 10 Historical Inaccuracies: Assassin's Creed

05. Guns on the Sail Deck (AC3/AC4/Rogue)

The Sail Deck on ships of the era depicted is a serious, all business space in which lines - and often sails - are handled. For that reason you NEVER place anything larger than a swivel gun on the Sail Deck, because putting a long gun on it would interfere with sail handling...

But that is not the only point to that!

Placing the long guns - on later vessels these can weigh over a ton - would also alter the center of balance of the ship, making it top-heavy. That would result - when it tries to sail in heavy seas - in the ship literally flipping over (capsizing) and sinking!

No, long guns are placed on the GUN DECK, which is lower in the ship to keep their weight below the pitch level. That's why when you see real ships of the era go into battle in films the first thing you see is all these little doors opening low on the ship, and then you hear the Gun Captains calling “run out the guns!”

In fact on larger ships there were often several Gun Decks - but only ONE Sail Deck - for obvious reasons. And of course the larger the ship, the more men and confusion was possible on the Sail Deck.

So no, we are not being petty here, this is just all wrong!