Other mistake: A German U-boat could dive in less than 30 seconds. By the time the boarding party even got to the conning tower the boat would already have been submerged.
Doc
6th Nov 2003
U-571 (2000)
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Suggested correction: Just because it can, doesn't mean it has to. Not a mistake.
Yes mistake. The order to crash dive is heard. On a German sub the cry "Alarm!" always implied an order to crash dive as quickly as possible. A bit later the order to dive is given again. Practice on German subs was to open the quick-release vents as soon as the prompt "hatch latched" was given - in case of air attack often before that, meaning the vents were already open while crew members were still dropping through the hatch, resulting in the last guy getting an involuntary shower. True, the boat couldn't have dived in record time because they had no way in the ship, but still, at the very least the first thing the boarding party should have needed to do after taking the Central of U-571 should have been to close the vents and blow the tanks.
27th Aug 2001
U-571 (2000)
Factual error: 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.
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Suggested correction: This is explained in the film saying that the plane came from the destroyer on a recon mission.
If that is the explanation the film gives, it is a mistake in is own right. Firstly, destroyers did not carry recon planes, and secondly, recon planes are always equipped with floats, because they were launched from the ship by a catapult, but had to land on the water next to the ship to be lifted aboard by a crane.
27th Aug 2001
U-571 (2000)
Factual error: Depth charges explode at a distance of some 10 meters from the boat without any fatal effect. In reality fatal (i.e. destroying) distance was some 50 meters. (00:06:00)
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Suggested correction: The second sentence is in error. Hull-rupture maximum distance is approximately FIVE meters. K-gun DISPERSION range was selectable from the attacking DD or DE: (1) Mk-6 at 50, 75, and 120 yards, (2) Mk-9 at 60, 90, and 150 yards. Citation: http://uboat.net/allies/technical/depth_charges.htm states "The pressure hull of the U-boat was strong enough to withstand anything but a charge exploding 10 or 20 feet from its hull.", and http://www.math.iitb.ac.in/~manishk/msc_project/OR-Notes-Mirror/OR-Notes/mscmga.ms.ic.ac.uk/jeb/or/intro.html states "As mentioned above the standard 250lb depth charge was believed to have a lethal radius of only 5-6 metres."
I have seen German sources which suggest any depth charge going off closer than 100 meters would be instantly deadly. I don't know where those sites you cite get their info from, but descriptions of battles from the era of from a submariner's perspective make it look extremely unlikely that bombs of the stats which you describe would have been an effective weapon at all.
100 metres is 330ft. If depth charges were that effective, the Battle of the Atlantic would have been won in days. Escort ships used to drop ten charges in a pattern to sandwich the sub when they exploded.
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