IRL (dumb?) question
 

Did U-boats bring any few small arms with it on a patrol, such as an MP-40 or so?

i think they did
and they had 2 mg34s in the conning tower

They carried a few Schmeisers, some pistols and a few rifles. LOL the MP 40s wouldn't be produced for another 40 or so years.

At the beginning of the war boarding parties would inspect neutral ships for contraband cargo. This practice was soon discontinued.

They had fire arms and sub-machine guns to protect themselves from boarding parties and to give them protection when they boarded enemy ships. I don't know how many they had but I doubt there were enough for the whole crew.

I remember in Das Boot, when the chief machinist (Wolfgang IIRC) goes crazy, Der Alte comes with a revolver ready to shoot him.

Just a nitpick, but the thing that is usually called a "Schmeisser" was the MP 40, curiously Schmeisser himself was not even involved in its development.

it wasnt a revolver
it was a walter p38

Right. And I found something interesting about it.
Taken from IMDB.com
"Anachronisms: In one scene the Skipper goes to his cabin and retrieves his service pistol, a 9mm P.38 Walther. The weapon in the movie is actually a post-war Iterarms version sold in the sixties and seventies."

Well to be honest alot of authentic things from WW2 are hard to get.

If it looks good enough to pass inspection at a glance for all 12 seconds that its visible then I don't think it matters which decade its from.

We could also say:

Anachronism: None of the actors in the movie actually served in WW2 and the entire production is not real footage of a u-boat.:rotfl:

:eek: Are you saying Das Boot is fake? OMG, OMG, ach du lieber, someone hand me an authentic P-38 so I can shoot myself!!!

here ya go *hands brag a walter p38* have fun now:rotfl:

Ins't it Walther? I'm sorry but I just can't imagine a dangerous gun being made by a guy named Walter.

sorry to hijak, but since we are asking questions about IRL - in Das Boot, what were the red and blue lights which flashed alternately just above the helmsman, mounted on the bulkhead?

They seemed to flash fast sometimes, and slowly other times.

I think - but I don't know for sure - they indicated either the change of the speed or the rudder. I remember one scene, probably from the longest version, in which there's a diesel command and when the bald guy sets the machines to the desired speed the lights flash.

ahhh ok - I might have a better insight into it if I actually knew what they were saying - I got the 4.5 hour original mini-series, german only, no subtitles. I can pickup a occasional commands and words in the sub just from what i've learnt from German on SH3, but no doubt 90% of whats being said I have no idea about.

Does anyone also know what the bulb fixed to some mechanical device was? I believe it was in the command room, somewhere slightly aft, perhaps behind the conning tower ladder. It seemed to have bubbling water in it, and it was being studied by the Kaleun and another officer when something suddenly goes wrong.