We all have topics of interest to us wherein our knowledge might surpass that of the public at large. They can be centered about our professions, hobbies, or often both. One of them, for me, has been a lifelong interest in firearms, particularly those of the 19th Century. I find them fascinating, and have devoted a lifetime to their study and use.
With that in mind, I would like to share this image. It was sent to me by a shooting buddy who shares my interest. It shows, ostensibly, a Civil War era Confederate sniper armed with a British Whitworth rifle. Everything the caption says is true. That is, however, where any connection to reality simply ends. The number of errors presented in the actual image are beyond the pale - the artist got absolutely nothing right.
We see a thoroughly modern scope mounted in the most utterly contrived fashion. We see cartridges in a cartridge belt -this was a muzzle loader. We see the lock on the wrong side of the rifle. We see far too short and stout of a barrel, we see the stock very poorly represented, and on and on. It's one of those "the longer you look..." kinds of things, where he got every single detail wrong.
Someone put a lot of work into developing that image, either painting it, drawing it, computer rendering it, or whatever. A lot of work into everything but researching it. Why? Why bother, only to have gotten everything about it so entirely wrong?
Stuff like this sometimes makes me wonder about the veracity of other things I see on the internet. Representations of things I know little or nothing about. So, I have to ask, what similar sorts of things have you guys seen that you have found to be so entirely wrong as to be laughable, yet passed off as some sort of a serious attempt to portray the subject matter? I'm sure the internet is rife with this kind of "information".