Corrected entry: After the sub has hit bottom while attempting to pass through Gibraltar, the captain leans in to examine the depth gauge and a blonde woman is visible to the far left of the scene under the captain's extended arm.
Corrected entry: When Johann the engineer cracks during a depth charge barrage, the skipper hurriedly retrieves his pistol. After Johann is subdued, the weary skipper lays the weapon down unfired. It is a Walther P.38, but a postwar model, as revealed by the grips and alloy frame. Also, a lieutenant commander would probably have had a Walther PPK or Navy Mauser.
Correction: The fact this alleged P-38 has P-1 (Post War grips) Does not mean a thing. You cannot see if it has an alloy frame and pre WW2 Allloy frames did exist and were called P-38's. The pre ww2 Walther P-38's were called HP's and they had these POST war grips (p-1 grips) check your sources!, These were the original P-38 grips, who is to say were this captain aquired the gun? U-boat commanders could have carried Colt 45's.
But you can see, by how far the serrations on the slide go forward, that this pistol has a post-1968 reinforced slide. That, together with the post-war service grips, makes it almost certainly a P1.
Corrected entry: The skipper of the WESER welcomes the U-boat's first officer and calls him Kapitänleutnant (Lt. Captain), although it must obvious to him that the man is no more than a Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant). An Oberleutnant shows two narrow golden rings on his sleeve, while a Kapitänleutnant shows one narrow between two wide rings. (02:16:35)
Correction: This is a character mistake.
Corrected entry: In the underwater scene following the first depth charge attack the large calibre machine-gun behind the conning tower can't be seen. Was this a different boat or model?
Correction: When a submarine submerged, the AA machine guns would be taken below, as would the breech mechanism of the gun.
Corrected entry: In order to make sure the cast looked the part and had the pale, pasty complexion that the real submariners would have had from being cooped up in the sub for such a long period, they were kept indoors for the shoot's duration.
Correction: This would have risked disrupting filming due to actors passing out from Vitamin D deficiency - quite apart from the fact that some of the film is shot outdoors. The sallow, pasty look was a brilliant make up job by Alfred Rasche and Ago and Rudiger von Sperl.
Corrected entry: Herbert Grönemeyer, the actor who plays the reporter, has become famous in Germany as a pop singer. As far as I know, "Das Boot" was the only acting role he ever had.
Correction: Actually he appeared in 7 movies from 1976 to 1985 including Das Boot.
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie, as the sub sinks, it disappears below the surface of the water, and we should see a large amount of bubbles as air is forced out the open hatch of the conning tower by the water flowing in. Even if the conning tower hatch was closed, there should be air bubbling out from somewhere as it is displaced by the water.
Correction: No, we shouldn't. The submarine is holed in the attack and since the hatch is open it is an 'open system', hydraulically speaking. Water pressure forces water into the holes in the hull and the air is displaced through the hatch. This means that by the time the hatch itself sinks to the surface of the water there will be no air left in the hull.
Correction: There's no woman in the shot, it's a crewman and he has a beard.