Corrected entry: When the Dallas loses contact with Red October, why did they assume it "disappeared"? Wouldn't the more likely scenario be that it went silent (dead in the water) and they might be about to crash into them? Seems like an unlikely and risky assumption. When Ramius declared abandon ship, wouldn't the radio/comms operator break radio silence and contact the Russian fleet to declare an emergency, thus alerting the crew to the Captian's ruse and defection? If not, how would the fleet supposedly find them as the Captain implied to the doctor? Seems like an overlooked flaw in his plan.
wizard_of_gore
25th Jul 2018
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Correction: If the sub was no longer visible on passive sonar all that means is they stopped making noise. The logical and far more likely assumption to be made is that the Red October went dead in the water (think the Crazy Ivan scene when the Dallas went dead in the water so the Red October could not see them on sonar), and they should have stopped and gone quiet, not continued on what was likely a collision course with the Red October. As you said yourself, they had never encountered a silent submarine before, so why would they make the assumption Red October had evaded their sonar instead of the very logical and likely explanation that they simply stopped their engines and were no longer moving? Major factual error in the film.
Correction: How would breaking radio silence ruin the plan? The crew thinks the ship's radioactive (thus they are willing to abandon) ; later they'll tell the Soviet leaders that same story (when finally returned home).
20th Jan 2015
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Corrected entry: As Red October enters the river, a large sonar dispenser pod can be seen on the rudder. Typhoon class subs don't have those. The large tear-shaped towed array dispensers are present on Sierra II and Akula-class submarines, but not Typhoons.
Correction: The Red October is a brand new design, not a typical Typhoon class. She has many new features, such as the caterpillar drive, so it's entirely possible that she has such a sonar array.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Correction: You're listing two mistakes here, but I will only address the first one. No one actually thinks the sub "disappeared." Jones is stating that the sub disappeared from sonar, which was unexpected. They had never encountered a sub that had completely silent propulsion before, so they had no idea what to make of the fact that it suddenly disappeared from sonar.
wizard_of_gore ★