Who is right? Wolfgang Petersen or SH Team?

[Harald_Lange]

I just watched Das Boot (again :) ),

I noticed that just after they charge the convoy and spot the destroyer bearing down on them through the fog, they crash dive. ( I love the way they all pile to the bow to weight it down. )

The Commander orders ahead 2 thirds whilst they are fleeing the destroyer, and then just after it changes direction and comes towards them, he drops it to ahead one-third, then they are promptly depth charged.

Surely this is running the engine too noisily to evade a destroyer? Who's historically correct here?

[Mittelwaechter]

Das Boot is a movie - and tries to show a more or less accurate picture of the U-Boot warfare. Due to drama or limited information the movie Kaleun may use less optimal orders - just to entertain a 'non-expert' audience.

As long as a DD closed in at high speed, a Kaleun would have ordered high revolutions to gain distance, but would have dropped back to slow after some time to enable his own hydrophone operator to listen for the actual speed of the DD - simply to adapt his own tactics.
If the DD would have had slowed down the Kaleun would have assumed it tries to establish contact and would have rigged for silence and very slow speed.
If the DD would have had kept its speed - rushing the last known position to drop depth charges - the Kaleun would have further tried to gain distance.

[Sailor Steve]

Also in the movie they remain at silent speed, then accelerate after the depth charges are already exploding and it's too late to do anything about it. When you hear the destroyer accelerating to avoid the blast from its own charges, then it's time to accelerate, because he's already commited to dropping. As Mittelwaechter pointed out, the movie is designed to help a general audience understand what's going on. With that in mind technical details are more hindrance than help.

[RConch]

Also if you hear the splash of the depth charges coming off the DD. That distinct splash noise. You got about 20 seconds to think and react.

[Kapt Z]

I agree with the other posts that "Das Boot" is an amazing movie, but meant for a general audience not just Battle of the Atlantic buffs like us.

Really, when you think about it, Petersen did a great job of mixing pretty accurate details and yet keeping the action understandable to the average movie viewer.

Enjoy the film, but don't look for too many good SH3 tips in it.

[Hinrich Schwab]

Das Boot is an epic movie based of historical fiction. The technical details, while accurate in many respects, aren't present beyond a certain point. What the movie was trying to portray was the jockeying between a destroyer, looking for an attack path that will place the sub in the blast radius of its pattern, and the sub trying to exploit the destroyer's baffles and disturbances caused by depth charges. As much as I love both the movie and the book, the stunts we pull in the sims are a bit more realistic...then again, the prospect of game over is great motivation.:D

To put this into perspective, the scene where U-96 encounters its first destroyer, Der Alte ranges the destroyer at 6000 meters with intent to fire a spread. Given the rot-gut weather at that point in the story, ranging that far out with any degree of accuracy would have been a wonder, but taking a shot would have been out of the question. It was too far away. Of course, the audience doesn't know this. However, it makes good drama and that is the point of the movie.:)

If you want some real fun, learn a bit of German and compare the English subtitles to the actual spoken German dialogue. The scene where u-96 encounters Thomsen at sea is particularly egregious in the Original-Uncut version.

[flag4]

I just watched Das Boot (again :) ),

I noticed that just after they charge the convoy and spot the destroyer bearing down on them through the fog, they crash dive. ( I love the way they all pile to the bow to weight it down. )

The Commander orders ahead 2 thirds whilst they are fleeing the destroyer, and then just after it changes direction and comes towards them, he drops it to ahead one-third, then they are promptly depth charged.

Surely this is running the engine too noisily to evade a destroyer? Who's historically correct here?

i bet the director writer et al laboured for hours days weeks and months over these particulars - awsome!