well the entire movie was realistic fiction, therefore it was based on real events but didnt ACTUALLY happen. Of course it didnt. therefore it didnt matter if it was captured on U-110 or U-999 it wasnt based on an actual event it was based on the submarine war in general.

and yes steve i did have roughly this same conversation, but still dont hate U 571 JUST because of its inaccuracy. It wasnt that bad a movie when overlooking its historical fallacies. but to be honest the beginning was fairly accurate, when they calculated the information and all.

You say it "didn't matter matter if it was captured on U-110 or U-999 it wasnt based on an actual event it was based on the submarine war in general"

The blatant distortion certainly mattered to some....and below says it all.

i was saying the MOVIE didnt actually happen. yes i know british captured it. But guess what. it was a destroyer that did it. it wouldnt be a sub movie if it took place all on a destroyer. again it wasnt trying to imitate that actual event, rather tell a realistical fiction story about a different set of events. However, they shouldve acknowleged (which im PRETTY sure that they did) that the bulldog was the real capturer.

he apologized cause people reacted the wrong way it was very bad publicity, not that he distorted the truth. he told people what really happened, just not in the bulk of the movie, and created a fictional story as, again, a MOVIE. not a documentary.

If your doing an entirely different event that doesnt pertain to the real one, then it doesnt matter if its named u-110 or u-999 because it wasnt based on the real event, but on a fictional one. he didnt tell people that "this is exactly the event that happened", and said otherwise.

Don't forget the single engine German fighter flying around out in the middle of the Atlantic. I guess the Graf Zeppelin finally made it out of port in this movie?

But it gets even sillier than that, because IIRC in that same scene, the sub captain tells his crew to act normal, and has to prevent one of them from manning the AA guns.

As if the German pilot would be able to tell if anything is suspicious or not as he buzzes the u-boat.

And wouldn't the correct, and least suspicious thing to do simply be to crash dive?

Sounds like a large part of Das Boot.

It's annoying because the real stories of the war are so much more interesting than the crap Hollywood thinks it has to make up.

If they stuck some pontoons on the aircraft it would have been accurate, but then its hard for the movie going public to take such an aircraft as a threat unless they were familiar with WWII aircraft.

Also they may have just had a BF-109 sitting around somewhere they rented, I imagine there is not many Arado floatplanes remaining in the world.

sounds like you havent actually watched it Hmmmmmmmmm? the fighter was running a recon screen for a destroyer, however maybe it was launched from a cruiser that was maybe a hundred miles away perhaps o.O? maybe it was the Koln? or the lutzow? however it is inaccurate to have german ships out in the atlantic, as they rarely went out. however this wasnt as blatent, because theyre very well couldve been german destroyers if they wanted to be out there. there couldntve been such an underawter battle, however.

and the captain told them to stay calm and not do anything stupid. He had to keep the guy actually MANNING the flak gun to not shoot, because another guy was shouting at him and telling him to shoot down the aircraft.

they couldnt crash dive because it was too late before they spotted the plane, and the captured german prisoner (which was, in fact, the captain of the uboat, but they didnt know that) sabatoged hydralics and other systems, and killed mezzola, who was the guy who shouted at the guy manning the flak gun to shoot the aircraft. then he was subdued again.

and if they shot and missed the plane, it wouldve radioed in that they were aboard the uboat, and the integrity of the mission ( and their lives) wouldve been compromised.


and, yes while das boot had alot of sitting around, but it had action as well, and very dramatic action too. i doubt you went out on patrol and had all that happen. a normal patrol in real life and in the game consists of rarely sighting ships, and once you found one you sankit clean a quick. some of us dont like going after convoys because of destroyers, like real captains did, and rather sink single and stragglers.

Two things...

1 USN tactics early in the war dictated a submerged attack using sonar only was superior to a periscope attack since it was believed that passive sonar bearings would provide sufficient data for the TDC. It did not, however active sonar was used occasionally to provide data for the TDC, Thunder Below documented one of these occasions.

2 There was one incident of a submerged Sub vs. Sub kill in the war. It was with a British sub against a German U Boat. But I think the Brit sub used active sonar.
EDIT: Found it...

i know that there was 1 underwater sinking. But your forgetting that the resupply subs germany used had no torpedo tubes. the movie had to put this in however, because that was a crucial point in the story.

IIRC during Drumbbeat the Germans refueled their Type VII using their Type IXs coming off patrol.

I'm kinda vague on the movie (not seen it in about a year) but it could be argued that the "Resupply Sub" was just a normal sub tasked with the mission. All they were doing was caring diesel parts to get U-571's engines running so she could get back to port, they did not need any large stores of provisions or torpedoes that a Resupply Sub is designed to transport.

I did watch it, back in 01 or 02. Sue me if I don't remember ever detail of the movie correctly.


With no pontoons?

I don't remember, did the Germans have any reason to think that the Americans had stolen the U-boat? According to the wiki article, the German destroyer captain didn't consider them a threat, until they fired on it - so it seems like this entire plane sequence was just to build false tension.

Oh, and the article made me remember the scene where the Germans murder the merchant crew survivors. Which I guess was put in the movie to tell us dumb viewers that we should be rooting against them.

God, I really hate Hollywood sometimes. You'd think that considering the number of screenwriters trying to break into the business, only the very best would rise to the top. But you'd be wrong. :nope:

Remember the CAM ship... ;)

yea. the wiki article is vauge, though. The plane part showed how the crew was split and at the breaking point. mezzola kept yelling at trigger to fire the AA gun when the plane was making a pass cause it was on an attack vector. it didnt attack, and trigger didnt fire, but the captain then socked mazzola in the face for being FAR out of line.

no pontoons though. it wasnt a floatplane, and that was inaccurate too.


the scene where the germans shot the survivors was inaccurate, too, but showed the atrocities of war, as a symbol. while germans may not have taken prisoners all the time, they helped out survivors and sent them on their way usually.

those 2 things are inaccurate, but not BLATENTLY. the germans couldve easily shot survivors, and its possible, and they werent that far from the coast so a land based recon plane is possible too.

Talking bout sub movies I thought the movie 'Below' was really good :oops: Good as in horror theme to it, well not really a horror at all more based on thriller - when the sailor sees the ghost of himself through the port hole that was kinda freaky and some good shots of a fleet boat whether it was for real or a damn model i don't know but was an exciting part anyway! :D

U571 was a good fictional action flick. Nothing more. But good anyways

'Below' was a pretty good movie. Gave me goosebumps, and that doesn't happen often these days when I watch a horror film.

I saw the last half of Below on TV a about six months ago. Not bad. :up: