Das Boot

[SqL]

I love this film, but atack scenes are not realistic.
How come, destroyer surprised the u-boat crew when they were attacking convoy ? That scene and few other I have to ignore. Besides its a great film.

I remember my u-boat passion started when I saw the music video from . I've allways wondered, did they used real VIIC ? How did they made those storm scenes, they look so real.

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by SqL

How come, destroyer surprised the u-boat crew when they were attacking convoy ?

All the destroyers were attacking another U-boat on the other side of the convoy.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by SqL

I love this film, but atack scenes are not realistic.
How come, destroyer surprised the u-boat crew when they were attacking convoy ? That scene and few other I have to ignore. Besides its a great film.

Why is that unrealistic? u-boats didn't usually get surprised by destroyers, but it did happen. One of the main points about the book and the movie seems to be that anything and everything goes wrong, from start to finish.

I've allways wondered, did they used real VIIC ? How did they made those storm scenes, they look so real.

No. For the inside they built a full-scale interior on a platform that could rock up and down and back and forth. For the bridge scenes they built a model of the conning tower and filmed with backdrops, and giant fans and water hoses for the storms. For the external scenes they built several different sized models, including a full-sized one for 'leaving the harbor'. That model was borrowed for Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

If you look closely at the long shots of the sub cruising, you can see that the crew on the bridge are not moving. In those scenes the crew are also models. The scene in which Frentzen falls and is injured really happened. They thought it looked good on camera so they worked it into the movie.

[SqL]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

All the destroyers were attacking another U-boat on the other side of the convoy.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Why is that unrealistic? u-boats didn't usually get surprised by destroyers, but it did happen. One of the main points about the book and the movie seems to be that anything and everything goes wrong, from start to finish.

Nonsens.

I remember ther was a complete silence before the atack. And then suddenly they saw destroyer near by. WTF? They didnt heard him comming ? How come ? Was sonar man sleeping ?

No. It was just made to create drama. So that scene is not realistic.

And one thing. I dont remember exactly but I think they saw the convoy through binoculars and went full speed ahead emerged or something like that, I cant remember now, but there was something I thought it was not realistic or stupid risky.

Nevertheless I ignore it, and it is still one of my top favorite movies. Thats unquestionable.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by SqL

Nonsens.

I remember ther was a complete silence before the atack. And then suddenly they saw destroyer near by. WTF? They didnt heard him comming ? How come ? Was sonar man sleeping ?

U-boat hydrophones don't work on the surface. Not nonsense at all. Also on the surface at full speed the diesels make a lot of noise, so not "complete silence" by a long shot.

And one thing. I dont remember exactly but I think they saw the convoy through binoculars and went full speed ahead emerged or something like that, I cant remember now, but there was something I thought it was not realistic or stupid risky.

Possibly, unless they were out of position, or possibly thought all the destroyers were dealing with boats on the other side of the convoy.

There are several unrealistic things in the movie. You don't mention any of them. Just this one, and you're wrong.

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by SqL

Nonsens.

Wrong.

Originally Posted by The Captain, before giving order to attack.

Might they be chasing one of ours on the other side?

Also, what you say about the sonar man not hearing the destroyer? There are more than enough explanations:

a) In the film, the sonar man is seen being the Radio man and Medic.

b) Hydrophones are useless when on the surface, and the U-boat was going at least at 15 Knots.

[SqL]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

U-boat hydrophones don't work on the surface. Not nonsense at all. Also on the surface at full speed the diesels make a lot of noise, so not "complete silence" by a long shot.

Ok, I found talking about two different scenes. I found one,

Looks more like a cavalry charge rather then silent u-boat atack. Just think about it. Which one of us playing SH would risk like that to be detected and exposed. It looks like FAIL. In real life no one would do such a thing. If they could see the convoy with the binoculars so they could be seen also by the enemy.

Now the second scene

Looks like the destroyer teleported. Or maby its the second destroyer? Ok, could be... But why they didn't heard him comming? Because its just to create drama.
It would be realistic if they were in move, and destroyer came from starboard.

My friends, it happend only in book and movie to create dynamic action and drama for unaware mass public.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

There are several unrealistic things in the movie. You don't mention any of them.

Yeah for sure though I cant't remember at the moment, but certainly ther are more bugs. Those two I mention are just a needle in the eye for me.

[Cybermat47]

^^^^

Of course, you're absolutely right!
No real U-boat captain would be so stupid! The only ones we know actually did such idiot things, were the greatest submarine captains of all time, sinking around 20,000 tons in EVERY SINGLE ATTACK!

[CCIP]

Actually if you read historical accounts of U-boat combat, you'll see plenty of this happening. For example, look at E.B. Gasaway's "Grey Wolf, Grey Sea", which is written from historical accounts of the U-124. There is more than one incident in that boat's history where it was surprised by escorts on the surface, including the one that, on April 2, 1943, resulted in the boat's demise. And this is a recurring theme throughout U-boat warfare, not just one boat's story. The fact is that visibility conditions are not a universal given. The Silent Hunter games to date actually do a really poor job of representing that, because visual contact there is even and fixed all around - DO NOT use SH as an authoritative guide on visibility in U-boat tactics. Likewise, you really have to take SH with a grain of salt when it comes to escort tactics. I would go as far as to say that SH is actually very unrealistic in these aspect, while the scene from Das Boot is very realistic. Visibility on the North Atlantic, especially at night, is extremely unpredictable. There are drifting mists even on clear nights, and there are plenty of indications that the attack in Das Boot was taking place in less than ideal weather conditions following an intense storm, and it's not unlikely that there were still rain squalls in the area. The moon was appearing and disappearing from cloud cover, further complicating things. A darkened ship in a patch of mist could practically run over a U-boat, even unintentionally. In fact, that even happened historically. Heck, look at the Titanic, which successfully ran into an iceberg in this same geographical area, despite the fact that it was sailing in peacetime, with lights, without the pressures of an ongoing attack.

U-boat attack tactics were themselves founded on taking advantage of the problems of visibility. Your assumption that "if you can see the convoy, then they can see you" is flat-out wrong, because the small, low-profile U-boat always had a visibility advantage at night over a big, tall ship, which had a much bigger reflective surface and could cast big shadows. U-boats were designed from the start to sneak up on the surface unseen, where they would simply blend in with the ocean. As long as they did not go too fast, the U-boats did not generate a foam wake, while the big ships almost always did. Many tests were made, long before the war, to verify this phenomenon - and they found that in ideal conditions for a U-boat attack, a large surface ship could be seen by a U-boat from as much as several kilometers away, while the U-boat could approach to within 300 meters or closer on the surface without being seen. Many claimed - not without reasons - that a U-boat traveling on the surface at several knots of speed, with decks awash, facing its target was basically invisible at night - and inaudible to hydrophones and active sonar thanks to the echoes and refraction from the waves on the surface. It was correctly theorized that a U-boat on the surface at night was much stealthier to visual and sound detection than a submerged U-boat. This is what Doenitz's entire wolfpack doctrine was based on - night surface attack. For a while, it more or less worked brilliantly. The most successful tactic early in the war was actually sailing directly into the convoy on the surface from behind, getting into the middle of it, and attacking with all tubes - and in some cases, the U-boats even left the convoy on the surface afterwards, never diving through the whole attack. That is literally impossible in SH, yet that's how it really went. U-boat commanders correctly assumed that they were very hard to see, especially if the enemy had no idea what they were looking for or couldn't guess where the attack was coming from - after all, who'd think to look right in the middle of the convoy? And even if they did, diving in the middle of the convoy meant that the noise of all the ships would hide the U-boat pretty effectively. But that assumed that the enemy needed to see or hear the U-boat at all... more on that later.

Escort ships are small too. Assuming they move slowly, they can be hard to see. U-boat tactics, however, assumed that they would move quickly while searching for a U-boat on the surface, and would reveal themselves with lights and foam wakes - otherwise, they were blind and slow. The chance of them catching a U-boat while going blind and slow is obviously not great. Possible, but not likely. So as long as we assume that both sides rely on visual and sound contact, yes, U-boats had an advantage, and it was in the interest of the fast escort ships to force a U-boat under as quickly as possible while defending a convoy. This meant that U-boats would always have plenty of time to see the danger approaching and dive. Big advantage. In theory.

But what that scene is really about is actually something a lot more important: the fact that U-boats, from a certain point in the war, were actually at a massive disadvantage on the surface, because of allied radar. The Captain seems puzzled in that scene at how the destroyer snuck up, and I think that is exactly what happened in that scene - radar. The destroyer probably had early radar contact and was already coming up on the U-boat, which would've had no idea it was there, especially if the visibility was less than ideal. They could not have heard it - as others have stated, hydrophones do not work on the surface. U-boats at this point in the war did not have radar warning receivers or even any idea that the enemy was equipped with such radar equipment. Even later in the war when they had receivers, those were notoriously unreliable and often did not actually extend to frequencies used by allied radar. The result was that they would have expected lights and flares to be fired from long distance, and destroyers speeding at the boat with "bone in teeth" from first indication of contact. In fact the smart escort captain who knew what his ship's radar could do would be creeping towards the U-boat at low speed, only lighting up when the sub was in the no-escape zone. All other indications seem to point to the fact that on that (fictional) night, the (fictional) U-96 ran into an experienced and clever escort commander who knew what he was doing, and was equipped with some working form of early radar. There is ample evidence that even as late as early 1943 many experienced U-boat commanders still did not believe that the enemy was equipped with this kind of radar, and assumed that ships suddenly appearing on top of them was just a fluke or a mistake on their part, which led to fatal errors - and the movie supposedly takes place in late 1941, when virtually any U-boat crew would've considered the idea of the enemy effective ASW radar preposterous. They simply assumed that visibility would always be on the smaller U-boat's side - and they were wrong, just that far from every Allied ship was equipped or trained to use radar effectively at that point. That was gradually changing, and that's what Das Boot definitely portrays.

This is in fact a realistic scene. I would go as far as to argue that dozens of U-boats were probably sunk in exactly that situation, after being attacked by a surface ship tracking them on radar, whose approach they did not - and could not - detect.

[Dowly]

Excellent post CCIP

[SqL]

CCIP - nice post, very good arguments which I can't argue. I've checked information about wolf pack surface attack, and it's seems you were right... and I was wrong. Respect.

[CCIP]

No worries, sorry to get on my lecturing horse. Just thought I'd give a good write-up about what I knew, I do not mean to be patronizing in any way
It's fun to test and study assumptions though.

The SH games are awesome and Das Boot is pretty awesome. Both really need grains of salt though when it comes to figuring out what was the 'truth', though. Because you're definitely right when you say there's dramatic exaggaration in Das Boot, but there is also some very 'gamey' simplifications even in the best of SH unfortunately.

I hope someday there is a new sub sim that deals with the issue of visibility in a little more detail. I've always dreamed of being able to sneak around fog banks and rain squalls and dodge destroyers coming out of them.

[SqL]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I hope someday there is a new sub sim that deals with the issue of visibility in a little more detail. I've always dreamed of being able to sneak around fog banks and rain squalls and dodge destroyers coming out of them.

Thats a nice dream.
Regards commander

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by SqL

Nonsens.

I remember ther was a complete silence before the atack. And then suddenly they saw destroyer near by. WTF? They didnt heard him comming ? How come ? Was sonar man sleeping ?

No. It was just made to create drama. So that scene is not realistic.

It is you who are mistaken. There were two major types of hydrophone arrays on U-Boats. The GHG and the KDB. The GHG was a fixed array on both broadsides of the boat, but had both a forward and aft baffle, where the U-Boat could not detect anything. It was useless on the surface because all it would pick up was the diesels and surface chop.

The KDB eliminated the forward baffle and the after baffle was mitigated if the sub was at a full stop and sufficient time had passed for previous cavitation to fade. However, it was utterly worthless on the surface because the soundhead was a mini-mast that was mounted to the deck. It was above water when surfaced.

As far a destroyers sneaking up on U-Boats. It did happen...a lot. Destroyers would get a fix on the U-Boat and determine its course. It would then turn into its baffles and get enough steam to generate speed. Then, it would stop its screws and drift towards the U-Boat using its momentum as propulsion. Even submerged, there would be nothing for the hydrophones to pick up because the escort is drifting and not technically underway. Granted, the scene in Das Boot could be argued as overdramatized, U-Boats getting jumped by destroyers in this manner DID happen.