Movies and Films
This is the forum for Movie and Film discussions. Again, our topic is naval warfare in WWII for the most part.
Re:Crimson Tide -- U - 572 ( Hirsacker )
Posted by:
J.T. McDaniel
()
Date: August 12, 2002 10:38PM
<HTML>The major flaw I see in Crimson Tide is that the plot is based on a boomer captain who insists on ignoring normal procedure and launching without receiving a clear order to do so. In real life, anyone that unstable would have been weeded out long before getting that sort of command and, if somehow he hadn't, it is highly unlikely he'd have found enough fellow psychopaths among the officers and crew to pull off a "counter-revolt." There would have been no need to claim medical incapacity to justify his relief, either. The grounds would have been a more straitforward one of disobedience to lawful orders. (That is, the standing order NOT to launch without a confirmed and authenticated order to do so. All Hackman's character had was an order to prepare for a possible launch, not an actual launch order, so deciding that he should launch his missiles under the circumstances would have been unlawful.)
Mind you, it would make a pretty boring movie if Alabama just came up to periscope depth, stuck up an antenna, and said, "Say again. I didn't copy all that." A broken radio wouldn't matter. SOP in that case would be to stand down until the radio was fixed and a definite launch order was received.
American submarine commanders in the nuclear age are all engineers, most of them with an engineer's obsession with precision and exactly following procedure. If you're looking for officers with a tendency to extemporaneous behavior, your best bet would be in an aircraft carrier's ready room. A sub driver's goal in combat is to be the ultimate sneaky bugger and blow the other guy out of the water -- or launch his missiles, if that's the order -- before the enemy has any idea he's there.
J.T. McDaniel</HTML>
Mind you, it would make a pretty boring movie if Alabama just came up to periscope depth, stuck up an antenna, and said, "Say again. I didn't copy all that." A broken radio wouldn't matter. SOP in that case would be to stand down until the radio was fixed and a definite launch order was received.
American submarine commanders in the nuclear age are all engineers, most of them with an engineer's obsession with precision and exactly following procedure. If you're looking for officers with a tendency to extemporaneous behavior, your best bet would be in an aircraft carrier's ready room. A sub driver's goal in combat is to be the ultimate sneaky bugger and blow the other guy out of the water -- or launch his missiles, if that's the order -- before the enemy has any idea he's there.
J.T. McDaniel</HTML>
