MovieChat Forums > Das Boot (1982) Discussion > Why not fire the torpedoes?

Why not fire the torpedoes?

posted 8 years ago by benth04
2 replies | jump to latest

I've been thinking about this for quite some time - but without getting it done...
With the Boat lying on the bottom, some 270 meters down, could the crew not have fired the torpedoes? They were not inside the boat’s pressure hull, so no risk of damaging that.
The warheads could probably have been defused, so they would not have the risk of an explosion, damaging the boat.
With four in the front tubes and two aft, the boat would have become some nine tons lighter. She would have gone off the bottom of the sea like a champagne cork, so if the Royal Navy were still there, waiting for her, they could only have gotten her with anti-aircraft guns 😀

[–] monkeyboy77080 8 years ago

I think the pressure outside might have been too great for the torpedo hatches to hold back and could potentially allow flooding inside the boat. Also even if the above statement wasn't true, you don't know what the terrain around the sub is like, you the viewer does but not the Captain or crew. For all they know they could have fired and gotten jammed against the rocks and could have made it impossible to possibly surface.

[–] CreosoteXmp37 (294) 4 years ago

The weight of the torpedos definitely made the boat less buoyant, but the high pressure air needed to launch them would leave that much less for the purpose of expelling the flood water in the bilge. It was expelling this water what enabled them to finally surface.