Question: Does the Red October not have a signal light on the periscope like the Dallas? It's a little ridiculous that they have to ping them to acknowledge them.
Answer: Red October would certainly have a signal light. If Dallas thought they were talking to the ready to defect Captain, I can't think of a more dangerous way to ask him to reply. Ordering the sonar signal certainly alerted the entire crew that something very unusual was going on. Plot error for sure.
No plot hole. Ramius explains the first and second ping to his crew as "(re)-confirming range to target." If they had seen him toggling a bunch of morse code via the signal light, they would either have recognized the morse code themselves or at a minimum wondered whom he was talking to and what about.
Continuity mistake: When Ryan is helo'ed to the Dallas it does not have a DSRV attached, but they use one later in the movie to board Red October.
Suggested correction: In the film more than 24 hours pass between the time Ryan gets on Dallas and when they show the DSRV attached to her. If you remember earlier in the movie it was stated that they could have the DSRV anywhere in the world in 24 hours. Therefore, one may assume that this time was used to get the DSRV to the Dallas.
Dallas was in the middle of tracking Red October and would have to have broken off the tracking (as it did anyway to pick up Ryan) in order for a sub tender to meet Dallas, place the DSRV on her, and then Dallas would have to hightail it back to find Red October. Plus getting the DSRV out to Dallas seems like a critical part of the story. While some scenes end up on the cutting room floor in every movie one has to wonder why there wasn't even a mention about having to surface for the DSRV.
Dallas didn't need to track the Red October anymore because the extraction point was already arranged, so it was very plausible the Dallas could get access to the DSRV.
Corrected entry: Near the beginning of the movie, Ramius is in his cabin with one of the crew members and they are getting ready to read their orders. The safe containing the orders has 2 locks, one on top of the other, requiring two separate keys. Ramius takes his key and puts it into the lower lock, then gets the key from his comrade for the upper lock. But the next camera shot shows a key already in the upper lock, and Ramius apparently using the key he had just gotten from the other guy to turn the lower lock.
Correction: He is turning both keys with both hands at the same time, the other hand is kind of obscured so it looks like he just put the key in the lower lock.
Look closely and you will see the political officer's key is a reddish color inserted into the lower lock, and the captain's silver key is in the top lock. Thus, it is a continuity mistake.
Corrected entry: This could be an error done on purpose to simplify the audience understanding. When the Russian Alpha fires on the Red October towards the movie's end, the torpedo's course is stated as 315. Ramius then tells Ryan to steer the sub to a course of 315 to head into the torpedo. That's wrong. If the torpedo were on a bearing of 315, the sub would need to be on a bearing of 135 to be heading directly into it.
Correction: The torpedo fired at Red October is reported at bearing 315. Then Red October seers a course of 315. That is accurate to set a collision course with the torpedo.
How? Both objects would then be on a heading of 315 thereby going in the same direction, not heading into each other. If the torpedo was traveling on a bearing of 315, the reciprocal heading would be 180° opposite, or 135.
When they detect the torpedo the Russian says there is a torpedo in the water bearing 315, meaning the torpedo is 315° from them, not that its course is 315. Ramius then orders the sub to head in the direction of 315 which is the direction they detected the torpedo as coming from.
The torpedo's bearing is 315 from the sub's position, but has a COURSE of 135, towards the sub.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the chief, Jonesy and Beaumont are training, the chief refers to Jonesy as a seaman. In the navy, a seaman is E-3. When the XO takes Jonesy to see the captain about the noise he washed through the computer, Jonesy is wearing a shirt that has a bird and 2 chevrons on it. That means Jonesy is a second class petty officer (that is an E-5).
Correction: I disagree with the correction. The Chief would not call Jonesy "seaman" just because he was referring to a story in the past. He would call him "Petty Officer Jones", or "Mr. Jones" or "ST2 Jones", but not "Seaman Jones." In the credits, they list Courtney B. Vance as Seaman Jones. This is a mistake. He has the insignia of a Petty Officer 2nd Class on his sleeve.
Correction: The Chief is telling Seaman Beaumont a story about Jonesy's past in effort to indicate that Jonesy was not always so "know it all" and was once in Seaman Beaumont's shoes. His statement "Seaman Jones here." was clear navy jargon to tell Beaumont of when the story occured, not what Jones' current rank is.
This is still a valid mistake. Later in the movie one of the other officers refers to Jones as Seaman Jones again. They would never call him Seaman as a Second Class.
Corrected entry: The scene-setting type at the start of the film identifies the events as happening in November 1984. However, the character Jack Ryan is dropped off at Heathrow Airport by a Range Rover clearly sporting a number plate identifying it as a 'C' registration car. 'C' registrations were not issued until August 1985.
Correction: The C plate on the range rover could be right,'C'plates were actualy issued on 1984/85 vehicles-depending when the vehicle was built/registered.
A construction date in the UK is irreverent to the registration plate. A car can be built in December 1984 (B registration at the time) and first registered in December 1986 and thus given a D registration as that's what was being issued at the time, depending on when someone buys it. The DVLA in the UK will never release a registration early. So the vehicle shown, was registered after 1st August 1985. The film is set in 1984, so should show a B registration number plate.
Question: During the ending sequence (with the Alpha) the Red October is running on the screws instead of the caterpillar. Now, we know the "reactor leak" was fake...and we know that the caterpillar was working normally (right after Ramius says "let us turn South" you see the Red October dive over a canyon wall with the screws not moving hence the caterpillar running). Wouldn't it have been wiser to run on the caterpillar during the ending?
Answer: The caterpillar drive was inoperable. The reactor leak was staged by the defecting officers, but the sabotage to the caterpillar (by the undercover KGB agent posing as the cook) was real.
Chosen answer: No, (mentioned in the book, not the film), the caterpillar can only drive Red October at a little over 1/2 her top speed. Speed is far more important than silence at this point.
Answer: The caterpillar was repaired but later after the crew exited screws were on and caterpillar was operation. The Russian fleet was still on there tail you still should be on silent drive. Movie shows them running on normal propulsion. Possible movie boo boo. Makes no sense.
The Caterpillar is not silent, it just does not sound like a sub. This is how the Dallas was able to track Red October even when it was running on the caterpillar. The Dallas just need to know what it sounded like. Presumably The Alpha knows what to listen for so speed would be important.
Factual error: When Ryan is brought on board the Dallas, Captain Mancuso climbs down from the conning tower, through the hatch next to the control room of the sub. He then walks/runs down two flights of stairs and enters a short corridor where Ryan is now dropped on the floor by the safety diver and another crewman. I am unsure of the exact location of the lower hatch of the escape trunk on a 688 sub, but I suspect it would be on mid deck. When the camera turns to face Mancuso again you see the curvature of the hull next to him, suggesting this takes place on an upper floor on the sub. So why did he run down two stairs to seconds later end up on the top floor of a sub with only three floors inside the pressure hull?
Suggested correction: All escape trunks on all submarines are on the top of the pressure hull. The lower hatch would be a few feet below the top of the pressure hull. The only deck (floor) to be able to reach the escape trunk is the upper level (top floor), so the shot must show the curvature of the hull. If it didn't, then it would be a factual error.
On 688 class submarines such as the USS Dallas, the forward escape trunk lower hatch is immediately aft of Crew's Mess in Forward Compartment Middle Level.
Chosen answer: The literal translation is "Vilnius Principal", but that doesn't sound as imposing.
Schoolmaster is correct. Nastavnik means male teacher or instructor, i.e. a schoolmaster. It does not mean "Principal/Headmaster/Head Teacher."