re: Raiders of the Lost Ark (flaws)

quote:

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You do know that WW2 submarines spent 90% of their time on the surface, right? If they dove, they had one of two options:
1. Run on snorkle, sucking air from the surface
2. Run on batteries, which is limited to the charge they batteries held.

Boats traveled faster on the surface.

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yep that's a good start, the Germans captured a Dutch sub with an experimental snorkel on it, and advanced the design, by WW2 they had the best snorkel tech. Not only did Uboats travel faster on the surface, they could of course run w/ diesels and charge their batteries at the same time.

Also at night time it was generally SAFER, for them at the surface (snorkel depth) since allied ships often had sonar that could detect them well submerged under water but running just at the surface neither sonar or radar could spot them without being very close.


As for the movie, I thought their ship left from Cairo and they (somehow) caught the sub shortly after, so I don't see how the Atlantic was involved.

At that time the British navy was widely scattered around the Atlantic and the Indian ocean guarding convoys and providing defense from German war ships docked on the French coast. Recall that when the Bismark broke out they(Admiralty) had to recall ships from numerous places to have the ability to stop it.

The Brits where getting clobbered in North Africa by Rommel and having a bad go of it trying to hold the Greek islands, I believe the U-boat sailed for Italy or Syria, not sure, but also there was relatively no allied air cover over the Mediterranean at that time, so the Uboats would have had little reason to fear allied air attacks just then.

While swimming from a ship to a moving Uboat is completely redonkulous,, given the numerous giant round boulder traps and other silliness, that particular issue is hardly further fetched than the rest of the movie.