i'm thinkin that could be a translation thing, but yeah, "blow ballast" would result in submerging. in U571 the order givin was the same or blow all ballast, or something similar

I don't know about WW1 Germans, but in WW2 and later "blow ballast" is the order given to empty the tanks, forcing the boat to surface.

In U-571 Harvey Keitel also gave three blasts on the klaxon and said "Dive, dive!" Three blasts is to surface, two is to dive. I wouldn't use that movie as an example of anything, except maybe how to make a bad movie.

oh, right, he he:ping:

:o

Let's think about it. There are "ballast tanks" on every sub. The purpose of such a tank is to make the sub float, or to sink, or to have neutral buoyancy in order to maintain a certain depth (such as periscope depth).

The way this is done is by flooding the tanks with ballast (water) to make the boat sink, blowing compressed air into the tanks to make the boat rise by forcing out ballast (water), and by fiddling around with taking on and blowing out ballast (water) until neutral buoyancy and trim has been achieved.

Bottom line is, "blowing ballast" involves expelling water out of the ballast tanks and replacing it with air. This causes the boat to rise.

U-571 was an entertaining movie, but it had more to do with action than with submarines. The submarine was just a convenient location for the action to be set ;)

DH