How did Indy get inside the submarine?
I always wondered that.
shareIt never submerged and he just rode on top.
shareThere was deleted footage that showed Indy on the surface attached to the submerged sub by his whip. Thank goodness they cut that out. The scene is still problematic, though. How long is he riding the hull of the sub? It's hard to tell have far a distance the sub travelled based on the animated map we are shown. Remember, he awoke in the morning after a night's sleep on Katanga's ship, so presumably he hadn't eaten any breakfast. If he was riding on top for any extended period he would be hungry, thirsty, and likely severely dehydrated and suffering from exposure. Luckily, the story moves along so fast we don't really have time to ponder these questions.
share
How long is he riding the hull of the sub?
A full day, maybe longer going by the map that shows the route the sub took to the island. He would be very hungry and very thirsty one would presume.
share
And his whip is always conveniently exactly the length he needs it to be in any given situation. He he. That whip also has amazing adhesive powers.
Another of the impenetrable mysteries: What happened to the sailor and officer he knocks out and relieves of their clothes in the sub hangar? We're they not missed? Didn't they ever come to? Did Indy summarily execute them by breaking their necks and disposing of their bodies? Is Indy a cold-blooded psychopath? Lol.
It would have been cool if we got like a 20 minute drawn out scene of Indy riding the top of the sub
shareYes, a 20 minute drawn out scene of Indy riding the top of the sub would eliminate so many plot holes.
shareYea that would have been a cool scene for sure to see him riding the top of that sub for all that time on screen
shareyeah it would have been awesome . The sea , the sky . I bet occasionally he'd turn to face the other way too!
Yea it would have been a nice way to add 20 minutes of run time to the film. Maybe catch some glimpses of dolphins, sharks or whales swimming beside the sub
shareYeah. Also we they could have shown him taking a big dump through the access hatch...
shareNah, I think that would have been too much. An extra 20 min of run time watching him ride the sub only would have been a perfect addition to this film
sharePlenty of time in the 20 minutes to show him at least finishing his dump. Nothing graphic. Just him standing back up and buckling his pants...
shareThat was my assumption as well... but I wasn't sure how common it was for subs to ride along the surface. I wonder if that conserves fuel.
shareThey could go faster for further on the surface when in friendly waters.
share
Underwater, the type 7 U-Boat used no fuel, but ran on batteries. It's range on batteries was about 90 miles, after which it would have to surface to charge its batteries.
In the case of Raiders, it took place in peacetime 1936 so there would be no reason for the sub to dive as it would get to the island much faster on the surface.
Submarines made daily trim dives, as per regulation. And peace-time, schmease-time - when not at war, you train for it. Not just to keep the skills sharp (although that's essential), but also to break the monotony. When I was in the navy, they gave us all sorts of mundane tasks just to keep us from being idle. Like cleaning the insides of fluorescent light coverings, measuring the lengths of all fire hoses, etc. Serving on a mine layer, we had a bloated crew for the everyday tasks of running the ship - some 50 crew, with 10 on active duty at any given time (not counting general quarters). It was servicing the mines that required such a large crew, but that took up only a fraction of the time at sea. This meant a lot of nothing going on, and that's bad for discipline.
A type VII uboat, much the same situation: about 50 crew, of which 7-12 are required for the running of the vessel. 4-5 of these are lookouts, posted topside at all times when surfaced. To leave 80% of the crew with nothing to do, especially in cramped quarters (we had it quite spacious on our boat), poor air quality etc., you got to give them stuff to do. So you have drills, and lots of them.
And even with all the aforementioned reasons to dive every day, sometimes several times a day, there's another very good reason to dive in this case: so the people on the cargo ship wouldn't know which direction it went. The only reason to intercept the vessel with a uboat is because the uboat has the unique ability to dive. There is no other reason to send a uboat - a corvette or destroyer would be infinitely better suited, both in terms of speed and safety. Why send a uboat? Because it can dive.
All of the above is moot in any case, because the uboat in Raiders did dive. We see and hear the skipper giving the command ("Tauchen! Tauchen das Boot."), and the command is repeated by the crew, who promptly carry out the command in full view of the camera. We then see the skipper peering through the scope, which he would have no cause to do if they were surfaced - then he'd go topside for a much better view, and use the UZO as needed.
Submarines made daily trim dives, as per regulation.
This is still fiction (I don't know German regulations during that time), and the writers can write the story any way they need. Since this was peacetime, we don't know that the sub even had a full crew, a trained crew, or even a mechanical problem that might have made a dive problematic. Maybe it was headed back for maintenance or maybe it was pulled out of maintenance when called upon to transport the ark to the island.
There is no other reason to send a uboat - a corvette or destroyer would be infinitely better suited, both in terms of speed and safety. Why send a uboat? Because it can dive.
Or because that's what was available near by. There was no tactical reason to dive and they didn't need speed to get to the island. The tramp steamer certainly wasn't going to follow the sub, and even knowing the general compass direction the sub was heading would mean little since the sub would be out of sight in 10 miles or so heading to an island several hundreds of miles away.
All of the above is moot in any case, because the uboat in Raiders did dive. We see and hear the skipper giving the command ("Tauchen! Tauchen das Boot."), and the command is repeated by the crew, who promptly carry out the command in full view of the camera.
It's pretty clear that the story was changed from the first draft because the shooting script differed from what they shot in many ways. Originally, Indy was supposed to strap himself to the periscope with his whip for the trip, but they changed their mind and deleted that (supposedly was at least party filmed). True - they didn't reshoot that scene when the dive command was given.
share
U-boats only dived when signs of other vessels were detected (visually or via radar warning receiver etc.) or to listen with the hydrophone when visibility on the surface was worse than acoustics would be underwater, meaning in bad visibility, you can hear further than you could see.
WW2 u-boats had to rely on batteries for underwater travel, or use later snorkel technology to keep the diesels supplied with air, which is why surface travel was the norm until late war when radar forced the u-boats below surface most of the time (see snorkel...). Batteries had low charges, for just a couple hours for a meager speed of 2-3 knots, meaning it is completely unsuited to actually travel by battery.
Usual surface travel speed was around 8 knots, for fuel conservation, while ~17-19 knots could be expected as maximum speed, depending on the exact type of boat (in this case it could be a VIIB or C).
Checking the map provided by the movie, which is inaccurate by the way but close enough, the u-boat traveled roughly 440 nm, which would mean it took about 2 days and 7 hours to reach their destination, Anafi.
While I weirdly enjoyed over-analyzing this, it has to be said that the whole scene is obviously nonsense to begin with. We see the u-boat at the surface for quite a while but uncrewed, which would just never happen. The watch enters the bridge as soon as the boat surfaces (really the moment it breaches the water line) and until the last moment on the surface, when the diving process was already underway. Obviously this was done so Indy can even get aboard, but yeah... it's nonsense. :D
Also, they would obviously be on the conning tower at all times when surfaced and there's no way to hide. The movie makes it seem the sub traveled casually, with an unmanned conning tower, just looking through the periscope which was obviously not useful for surface travel (vibrations, tiny field of view, basically no situational awareness at all).
Love this movie regardless. xD
To add to all that, when the uboat docks on the island, Indy is watching the uboat come in from his hidden position in the pen - how did he manage to get there before the uboat?
shareEven if it didn't submerge, I've always wondered how he knew it wouldn't when he decided to ride it.
shareIt never submerged and he just rode on top.
It did submerge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8LDp1hgWVY share