There's some discussion here:
http://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2010 ... ing-ships/
The comments and replies in that blog are pretty interesting.
It seems like some people in Wales (where the scenes were recorded, if I am not mistaken) have seen the landing craft, shortly before they were prepared for the shooting, and it seems like they were (or at least one was a) leftover(s) from "Saving Private Ryan".
It's debatable whether there were such landing craft or not, but it seems that
Niketas Choniates (ca. *1155 - 1215), Byzantine Greek historian, at least reported about "round" landing craft being used during the Fourth Crusade (which was planned as an invasion of Egypt, in order to get to Jerusalem (and conquer it), but which was then carried out at Constantinople instead. Logistically, some sort of landing craft would have made sense, if they wanted to approach the beaches of Egypt in full gear. I can't imagine that they looked like WW2 landing craft though.
The Brits may correct me, but I think Robin Hood (well, as the legend suggests) was in England while Richard was imprisoned AFTER the
3rd crusade.
I don't know anything about at what year Ridley Scott imagines this landing craft scene may have happened, since I only saw the trailer, but in case his take would be that it happened before the 4th Crusade, say the scene depicts some events during the 3rd crusade, as in portraying a "young" Robin Hood before he went back to England, then he's mixing/making up things entirely. As some landing craft had only be used during the 4th crusade (IF at all).
Geoffrey of Villehardouin (1160 - ca. 1212) wrote a chronicle ("On the Conquest of Constanople", in old French), probably reporting about some events, in prose form btw. Another source would be Gunther of Pairis, a German monk, with his work "Historia Constantinopolitana".
Anyway, who's this Phillips (or Philips) guy ppl keep talking about in the comments?
Graham Philips?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Phi ... ppearances
Maybe that's the guy ppl are talking about, as he has quite some books covering the medieval era in his portfolio:
Like "Robin Hood: The Man behind the Myth" (with Martin Keatman), 1995
It seems like ppl keep saying that it was someone called 'Philips" who came up with the landing craft theory, where some say the author went over the top, though, because he misinterpreted Choniates' accounts in a way that he turned the "round" landing vessels into dedicated WW2 types of landing craft.
Another little discussion:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0955308/boa ... #159318906