Factual error: The film is set during the war and there is a Toyota forklift driving around in one of the dock scenes....

Factual error: In the ship yard after the party, one of the navy crew is working on a sub and he is using a yellow plastic handled grinder. All tools in this era were metal handled. He's also wearing tennis shoes.

Continuity: In the start of the film Matthew McConaughey is sitting on a porch at a wedding reception smoking a cigar, in one shot he has a stub left then in the next it's a new one.

Factual error: The language the American soldier and the secret-service officer use is grammatically correct German, but the pronunciation is very bad. No born German would ever be fooled by it.

Factual error: U-571 was sunk on January 8, 1944, by an Australian Sunderland. She was previously damaged by an Allied destroyer on March 22, 1943, but managed to come back to the base. All supply submarines (Type XIV or Type VIIF) were actually sunk by Allied planes or surface ships. I know that the movie is entertaining rather than historical, but why didn't the movie makers choose boats that disappeared without a trace instead?

Plot hole: The submarine gets buzzed by a single engine German fighter. They are somewhere between the US coast and Greenland. The Germans had no aircraft carriers nor bases in the area. Since it was not a float plane how did the fighter get there? It could not possibly have flown the several thousand miles from continental Europe.

Factual error: Although the type of mission depicted in the movie did occur, it was not Americans that were known to do them. Canadian and British teams were specialized to do this mission.

Continuity: Just after the sub surfaces and the crew arrives on the conning tower, the sub's deck is totally dry.

Continuity: When the German destroyer is with U-571, look at the ship. Notice in the first shots there are 2 gun turrets on either side. Yet in the later shots during the final battle there's only one turret. In addition, right before the turrets are shown turning to fire, look at the ship again - they are already aimed at the U-boat. I guess the Germans felt the need to do this two times.

Continuity: Just after shooting the radio room on the German destroyer, U-571 submerges so quickly that the sailors do not manage to plug the gun. After a few moments when the boat goes from 180 to 200 meters there is a short shot from the above when we can clearly see that the gun is perfectly plugged.

Revealing: At the end of the movie, when the aft torpedo blows up the ship, the pieces that fly into the air hit the water and there is no splash. Obviously computer generated.

Factual error: The "German" airplane which spots the crew before the destroyer scene is actually a Napier Sabre powered Blackburn Firebrand in German markings. The Firebrand was a British aircraft.

Factual error: When the marine commando shows the sailor his "luggage" (the boxes of explosives) to be loaded onto the submarine, some of the boxes have orange Explosive B placards. Those are Dept. of Transportation placards. The D.O.T. didn't exist until 1966 and the placards were not used until later than that.

Factual error: In the film U-751 the torpedoes were shown leaving a trail of bubbles behind them. The type of torpedo which did that was the G7a 'T1' torpedo - which was pre-war issue. At the time of the film the standard torpedo of the Ubootwaffe was the improved G7e 'T2' torpedo which did not leave a trail of bubbles due to a different motor design.

Factual error: The yard set has a red and white stop sign. Stop signs during WWII were yellow with black letters

Continuity: When Tyler is unhandcuffing Tank and Mazzola's body is lying beside him, in the long shot of the scene, it looks like Tank and Mazzola are a few feet away from each other. But in the overhead shot, they're right beside each other.

Continuity: During the first mission briefing, the commander is pointing to the map and you can clearly see the top secret photos of the enigma sitting by the manila envelope, but right after that shot he pulls the photos out of the envelope and hands them to people.

Continuity: In both scenes when the sub is being depth charged, how come the lights keep coming on even though you see them blowing out?

Revealing: When the U-571's crew member starts firing the MG-34 at the survivors in the rowboat, you can see the ammo belt is all blanks.

Audio problem: When the U-boat captain is called onto deck,he orders his machine gunner to fire at the sailors who are rowing towards them. As soon as he fires the ammo belt gets used up straight away, however the sound of the gun carries on for a short while longer.