U-571

U-571 (2000)

20 mistakes since 20 Mar '17, 00:00

(3 votes)

Character mistake: At the beginning of the movie, the German sub gets surprised and severely damaged by a destroyer. The sonar man first notices the enemy destroyer approaching, but only a short time before the destroyer is already literally on top of the sub. German sonar at the time had the capacity to detect ships up to more than 7 miles away, so the sonar man really had to be asleep at his sonar station not to notice the destroyer approaching. (00:03:40)

Factual error: When the Americans are initially scrambling to figure out how the German submarine works, Rabbit opens a torpedo breech door, closes it and reports to Tyler "We have four fish, tubes are flooded." They are obviously not all flooded, otherwise Rabbit would just have flooded the compartment by opening the breech. (00:53:12)

Deadmarsh28

Character mistake: After accurately depth charging U-571, the German destroyer crew suddenly turns out to be almost comically and unrealistically incompetent at the end of the movie. Not only do they barely hit U-571 with their guns, but they also can't keep up with the sub. But even with both submarine diesel engines running flank speed (of which U-571 only has one badly damaged engine operational), a common WWII destroyer would easily be twice as fast as a Type VII U-boat. The destroyer could swiftly close the distance and could either ram U-571 or cross the sub's wake to bring all its weapons to bear and make it more difficult to get hit by the sub. Of course the destroyer doesn't do that but stays perfectly in U-571's wake for an easy kill shot from its stern tube. In reality, it was considered an incredible feat to sink a destroyer with a torpedo, since they were agile at full speed, could easily dodge torpedoes and had shallow draft. This destroyer crew however, seems actively trying to get killed.

Factual error: In reality, the planned boarding of the disabled sub would have been doomed to fail once the American and German subs met. Whenever German U-boats or ships met at sea, they were required to exchange a secret signal, usually consisting of a challenge-and-response using differently colored signal pistols. These signals changed daily and the Americans had no way of knowing this information.

Factual error: After the Americans have stormed the German sub, they find the Germans tried to destroy the Enigma code books by throwing them into the bilge water, which is just below the deckplates in the torpedo room. However, there was actually a lot of room for machinery and reserve torpedoes under the deckplates, which means that the torpedo room would have to be flooded by more than 3 feet deep to even reach the deckplates. This means the whole torpedo room would have been flooded with at least 6.000 gallons of water, rendering the boat likely completely unstable, unfit to dive and overflooding the batteries in the room next to it, which released poisonous chlorine gas when in contact with sea water. Not to mention that this much water could only have been caused by a major leak, but neither Germans or Americans seem to be particularly concerned by any leaks or by the amount of water in the boat.

Factual error: Several times the movie shows two torpedoes side by side, fired off simultaneously. This was not possible in German U-Boats, a simple timer prevented this and delayed firing the second or more torpedo by a few seconds. Torpedoes in WWII were prone to premature detonation and without this mechanism, one premature detonation could ignite a whole salvo, a significant risk of killing the sub that fired them.

Deadmarsh28

Factual error: It takes a whole of two minutes from the discovery of the boarding party and the cry "Alarm" till the first Americans even enter the command central of U-571, and another almost 90 seconds till they secure the radio room. German subs were under strict orders to destroy all secret material the instant they had reason to believe a boarding was probable. To that end, all code books were printed in water-soluble inks on water-soluble paper, and even the electrical connections inside the rotors of the enigma machine were seawater-soluble. (Admittedly the latter was more with the idea of enemies salvaging sunk boats in mind, and I have no information on how fast that decay would have happened) All it would have taken is to lift up one of the floor plates and drop the stuff into the bilge below. And yes, since German subs of the era didn't have answering machines, the radio room would be manned around the clock. For that reason, boarding actions of that sort had to be above all lightning-fast. Dramatic as the fight scene is, in reality it would have ensured that the boarding party came away empty-handed. (00:38:30 - 00:41:45)

Doc

Factual error: The movie used 3 "dive" commands and 3 blasts of the klaxon to dive. This is incorrect. The command to dive is repeated twice and the diving klaxon is sounded twice. Command to surface is 3 and 3.

Other mistake: As the Germans open fire on the British sailors in a life boat, there is a panning shot of the crew. In this shot, a hair (or scratch) that made its way onto the film itself is visible on screen. (00:27:20)

Ssiscool

U-571 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Just after unveiling the Nazi plates on the SS-33, there are 3 seamen wearing brown jackets next to the deck gun. When the shot changes there are 4. (00:25:00)

Ssiscool

Visible crew/equipment: Just as the SS-33 sets off we see the crew on board say "all ahead two thirds". As they say this the camera moves behind a ladder resulting in a camera shadow on the ladder. (00:20:50)

Ssiscool

U-571 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the mission briefing, the position of the Top Secret folder changes from the centre of the map to the side of the map between instant cuts. (00:23:30)

Ssiscool

U-571 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Tyler states he doesn't know what's going on to a few seamen and tells them to do their jobs. As the shot changes the seamen have all disappeared from the background. (00:14:50)

Ssiscool

U-571 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Tyler is out on the deck, he has his hand raised. When the "boat secure" order is shouted it's now lowered and holding on to his glass. (00:12:10)

Ssiscool

Factual error: When the German "destroyer" is attacking, it drops a steady stream of depth charges. I reality, depth charge attacks were made by locating the sub on sonar and dropping a pattern of five or ten charges at a time when the escort ship was above the target. These were set for the estimated depth and would have gone off at roughly the same time.

madseavets

Factual error: When Rabbit first checks the German sub's torpedo tubes, we catch a glimpse of the torpedo loaded in the tube, its propulsion screws visible. It is loaded incorrectly and missing the piston-type device put in behind the torpedo which pushes the torpedo out via compressed air. This torpedo wouldn't go anywhere when fired. (00:53:12)

Deadmarsh28

Plot hole: The Americans disguise S-33 as a German Type VII U-boat to pose as the German resupply boat. This is a pretty bad idea, since all resupply boats are of the Type IXV and not Type VII. Of course in a severe storm the differences between types might go unnoticed, but the plan could not rely on that alone. In good visibility, any able German watchman would be able to spot the difference quickly.

Factual error: The American crew tries to fool the German destroyer by launching a corpse and debris through the torpedo tubes. However, at more than 150 meters depth this would have been pretty much suicide. The outer torpedo doors of a Type VII sub were not designed to be opened in depths exceeding 20 meters. At 150 meters, the crew probably would have been unable to open them in the first place, but even if they did the brutal water pressure would have likely severely destroyed the outer and inner torpedo doors and caused the submarine to be flooded and crushed in seconds.

Plot hole: At the beginning of the movie, the German commander sends a radio transmission with the damaged sub's position at "AL 85-32." The German Kriegsmarine divided up the Atlantic in grid squares like these, but "AL 85-32" means the damaged sub is just roughly 375 miles west of Ireland, but more than 2700 miles from the US east coast. There is no way on earth the Americans beat the Germans to this location, especially since the German supply sub is already en route. Funny enough considering the controversy about the movie, for this position the British would have been in perfect position to intercept.

Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, the German commander wants to send an emergency message with coordinates to the BdU, the German Submarine Command, to send help. The scene is subtitled in English with "To Berlin: Location 85-32." However, the command post at the time was based in Lorient, France and not in Berlin. (00:08:05)

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Suggested correction: He didn't send the message to the BdU, his message was send to the OKM (OberKommando der Marine), which had its headquarters in Berlin, because it involved the enigma code (although the movie is only loosely based on historic events). These kinds of messages were always send to Berlin. This is because the OKM answered to the OKH, which in turn answered to Hitler who was of course also in Berlin. This is their concern, not that of the BdU.

lionhead

Of course he does, the commander literally says to the radioman "Ruf an BdU absetzen: Position AL 85-32. Alle Maschinen ausgefallen, manövrierunfähig, erwarten Hilfe" or "Send transmission to BdU: Position AL 85-32. All engines out of service, unable to manoeuvre, we expect help." This was correct procedure, proper chain of command would always be to contact the BdU, not the OKM. Also the integrity of the enigma was probably not a concern at that time, the crew would have ample time to destroy all sensitive materials if they were in danger. The German commander's main concern was to get his sub back up and running.

Right, I couldn't understand that part before. But you are right.

lionhead

Chief Klough: Those Krauts sure know how to build a boat.

More quotes from U-571

Trivia: Matthew McConaughey didn't like his character's background, so he asked that it be changed from the original, not being promoted because he was a drunk, to basically never making a decision that might cost someone their life.

David Robertson

More trivia for U-571

Question: At first we learn that Tyler is not getting his own submarine, but then a few scenes later and he's being fired from the navy. What happened?

Answer: Technically he's not getting fired, but Dahlgren did not recommend Tyler for his own command, and he won't get a promotion without Dahlgren's recommendation. Therefore, Tyler's only choices are to keep being an executive officer (which is possible but not what he wants, not to mention Tyler feels betrayed by Dahlgren and isn't sure he wants to continue working with him), or leave the navy entirely.

Aerinah

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