Goofs

The Nazi emblem placed on the S-33 is conspicuously missing in later scenes.

After the U-571 deck gun fires at the destroyer, wrecking the radio room and mast, the crew hurry back to the conning towers as the U-Boat dives. In doing so, they fail to replace the watertight cover on the barrel of the gun (shown in close-up as the crew scramble for the tower), yet moments later, as the U-Boat passes under the destroyer after submerging, the cover can clearly be seen on the end of the barrel.

U-Boats stored the ammunition for their deck guns within the hull; however, before the U-571 fires on the German destroyer, no shell is brought topsides for the gun.

When "Rabbit" Parker comes back from blowing garbage and Mazzola's body, Tyler is wearing a coat. Three seconds later Tyler has no coat.

When U571 first meets the German destroyer there are two ships used to play the Z49. In most shots the ship has five turrets but as the small launch comes up next to U571 and the Lt says the line "Tell them to go away" in the next shot of the ship you can see it only has two.

In the engagement with the other U-Boat, U-571 fires four torpedoes in quick succession without taking on trim water, yet the U-Boat does not change depth or trim. Each torpedo weighted from 1.5 to 2 tons. The sudden removal of that weight would cause a submarine's bow to move upwards if not countered. This is one reason why normal practice was to space the firing of torpedoes by 8 to 10 seconds, which allowed the submarine to take on water to compensate for the lost weight.

Several scenes show depth charges dropping and exploding within a few feet of the submerged U-571. Detonations anywhere near this close would cause catastrophic hull damage and the boat would be sunk.

The German destroyer is shown blown to little bits in a huge ball of flame from one torpedo. This would not have happened, especially in the bow shot depicted. One torpedo might create a 30 foot hole in the bow, and possibly the ship would have sunk, and possibly it might have stayed afloat, as many navy ships with sealable compartments did.

The CPO said that he had been depth-charged in WWl in a US sub by a German destroyer near Murmansk. This would have never happened. First, US subs did not operate there or at all in Europe then. The closest allied subs would have been British ones hunting German ships in the Baltic. Why would a US sub in WW l or ll be any where near Murmansk , which wasn't even a port then, it was Archangel? Any ships heading that way would be allied vessels with supplies for the Russians, and subs had only one use, to sink enemy merchant vessels. And what would a German destroyer be doing there, hunting subs that couldn't attack any German ships. The German fleet almost never left the Baltic or North Sea and when they did, it would be a major task force. A lone destroyer operating 1000s of miles from port in frigid enemy waters to hunt subs that wouldn't be there in the first place makes no sense.

The German recon aircraft appears to be a Messerschmidt 109. However, the head on view is that of another aircraft (wrong wings). The big question is: What is a German fighter doing in the middle of the Atlantic? There were no German aircraft carriers. Recon aircraft were float planes, launched from catapults.

This is a fictional film. In reality, the submarine U-571 was never actually captured. The submarines U-559 and U-110 were the ones captured with the codebooks but by the British Navy in August 1941, four months before the United States entered the war.

A black character has a prominent place in the movie, from the crew of the U.S. sub. While sub crews were not fully integrated at the time, African-Americans did serve, as shown here, as messmen and stewards.

Several times the American crew of U-571 mentions that the starboard engine is out, but every time you see an underwater shot both of the screws are turning equally. Submarine propulsion screws can be driven either by the motor-generator or the diesel. Both screws could be run with only one engine (the other side being run on electric).

It was the British who managed to get hold of the machine in May 1941, not the US Navy crew capturing it by boarding a U-boat. While the US Navy probably would not have boarded a U-boat before they joined WWII, the title card at the beginning explicitly states that the film takes place in May 1942, six months after the US became involved. Furthermore, the film acknowledges the successful British attempt a year earlier and, once again, is depicting a fictional operation, not a factual one.

As shown in the movie, the code book which cracked Enigma during the Battle of the Atlantic was the long weather code book. This was only captured once - by the British. Subsequent attempts by the US failed as the book would dissolve on contact with water. The film does not purport to be telling a true story; a notice at the end acknowledges the real-life ships whose crews captured Enigmas.

At several points, when the Germans are discussing how they need someone to fix their engines, the word "Mechaniker" is used, which is very similar to the English word "Mechanic". However, in the German Navy, "Mechaniker" was a rating for torpedo personnel and had nothing to do with the ship's engines. The proper term, and what the Germans should have been saying (especially to each other) is "Maschinist" which is someone trained to operate and repair ship's engines.

When the U-571 sends its distress message, the toothed wheels of the Enigma machine are visible while three characters of text are typed. The right-hand wheel should advance with every character, but it clearly does not; in a close-up we see it advance correctly once, then on the next character it just starts to move and falls back. Presumably the filmmakers used a real wartime Enigma machine that, after 55 years, was not in good working order.

While the officers are eating aboard the 33 boat, Seaman Wentz steps in and says they picked up a radar contact at 070; however, the 33 boat does not have a radar antenna.

When the raiding party get into U-571's galley the cook falls back against the (steel) hull when shot and it moves under his weight.

When the German recon aircraft appears and the camera moves into the aircraft, the gauges are pointing at zero.

Considering the nature of food aboard a WWII submarine, the idea of a sailor deliberately crushing an egg just to tell a story is preposterous. The other sailors would have not been very forgiving.

When the American submarine is having plates welded to it to make it look like the Nazi sub, the welder kneeling down is wearing a pair of Adidas trainers.

The chief petty officer is wearing anchor insignia on the collar of his khaki shirt, but these were not introduced until 1959.

At the entrance to the Naval yard, there is a stop sign in the foreground. Stop signs of that era were yellow with black lettering and not red with white lettering.

In one scene several American sailors are wearing German uniforms with the swastika insignia on opposite sides of their shirts. In another scene, American sailors in dress uniforms are wearing ribbon bars for awards that did not exist in 1942.

When the shipyard is working on the 33 boat, one of the shipyard workers is clearly seen using a present day yellow DeWalt grinder.

The machine gun that the Germans are using to massacre the British sailors in the lifeboat is an MG-34, which had a rate of fire of roughly 900 rounds per minute. The audio is of a machine gun firing much slower, at around 500 rpm.

When Lt. Tyler and Mazzola are outside on the submarine and a German plane is flying over; when Mazzola yells, his mouth is saying something totally different than what is coming through on the audio.

In the scene with the life boat, the machine gun used is clearly a MG-42 or some variant, however, when the machine gun is fired the sound we hear is more similar to a .50 caliber Browning, a gun used by the US army, not a Nazi u-boat.

The S-33 starts from Kittery, Maine ("PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD" on building behind welders), but in Lt. Hirsch's briefing, the map clearly shows the U-571's triangulated position at 52°N, 29°W. This is over 2,000 miles from Portsmouth, NH, but only about 1,200 miles from Lorient, France. The resupply sub left Lorient before the S-33 left Portsmouth (known from the times of day and also because Hirsch knows about it), and the U-571 is drifting east, too, so how could the S-33 possibly get there first?

After Tyler decides to head for Lands End (England) the next morning shows an exterior surface shot of U-571 running on the surface at dawn. The sun was rising a few degrees forward of their port beam, indicating that U-571 was heading south, not NNE as they would if heading to Land's End from their Mid-Atlantic position.

A comment was made that Chief Klough was to have said he was depth charged off "Murmansk" (and even the closed-captioning said that) but the proper reference is "Merignac" a French city then at the end of an estuary but now close to Bordeaux, France.

At the beginning of the movie when the U-571 is under depth charge attack from the British destroyer, the order is given to surface the sub due to damage. When they surface, the Captain reports "All clear!" and orders lookouts to the bridge. What happened to the British destroyer that was just attacking them? It should have still been nearby and would have seen them surface.

When the Americans are disguising themselves in German uniforms, several of the crew members are seen wearing high level German combat medals, such as the Iron Cross and German Cross. German submarine crews never wore medals at sea and this would have been a dead giveaway that the Americans were impostors. While it is possible the American submarine crew simply didn't know this, it is extremely unlikely that an intelligence officer like Lieutenant Hirsch would have failed to recognize this issue, especially since it could have put the entire mission in jeopardy.

It is claimed that the U-571 is meeting a supply U-boat. It supposedly is this supply submarine which sinks the S-33. At the time of the movie the German supply submarine was the Type XIV, commonly known in English as the "Milk Cow". Such a submarine could not possibly sink the S-33, since the Type XIV was not equipped with torpedo tubes.

S33 is supposedly made to look like a German sub but another German sub sinks them. At night, in a storm the other sub would not be able to identify them, but if it was sent on a mission to rescue a sub, why would it shoot first and ask questions later? Wouldn't they have tried to identify it as definitely not the ship they were supposed to rescue with their Aldis lamp as the S-33 had done minutes before with U-571?

Radioman Wentz asks the lieutenant not to let the crew know he is half German, yet he hasn't changed his last name, so it is already obvious to anyone who cares that he has German heritage.

When the German sailor is machine gunning the life boat, he is holding the ammunition belt up himself. There were several other German sailors present, and one of them would have fed the belt for the gunner. Feeding his own ammo belt means he could only shoot one-handed, not the best technique when firing at the enemy.

When S-33 first dives Chief Klough gives three dive alarms saying "Dive! Dive! Dive!". Actual diving procedure requires two alarms sounded accompanied by "Dive! Dive!

When the Executive Officer mustered the S-33 crew on the pier, first he obviously did not count the number present, and secondly he incorrectly reported the crew as "All present AND accounted for". Crew members are either "present" OR "accounted for/not accounted for". They cannot be both at the same time.

Hirsch says that the sub was attacked and presumably disabled "last night at 0300 hours". This is impossible for several reasons; for one thing, the S-33 could not have been sent out when it was. He must mean the previous night.

In the scene in which the men are in bunks and Mazzola is talking about a girl he met, he says when he's not "getting anywhere" with her, he uses his secret weapon: the story of the S-26. He then says, "She was running a test dive down off Norfolk. Shaft seal failed. She sunk to 400 feet." This is incorrect. The S-26 was accidentally struck by PC-460 (USS Sturdy) and sank during night patrol maneuvers in the Gulf of Panama in January of 1942.