Crimson Tide/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Could Have Avoided This Plot - Ultimately, the entire conflict on the boat makes no sense. There are multiple ballistic missile submarines in the US deterrent fleet, as well as the land-based silos. Any one of them can hit the target from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere within 30 minutes. The Alabama's failure to launch immediately upon receiving the first message would have been noted within five minutes[1], and one of the available backup units would have been ordered to launch instead. By the time they've finished their whole drama with the Akula attack, recovering from the damage, and fixing their radio, the one-hour launch window is already gone and either one of the backups has already taken out the target or else the whole mission has been aborted. They are literally fighting over nothing -- whatever was going to happen re: 'World War III today or not?' up on the surface has already happened and its too late for them to change it.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome - Two words: Roll Tide.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Captain Ramsey threatening to kill Petty Officer Hilaire to force Weaps to open the safe for the firing trigger.
  • Nightmare Fuel - The claustrophobia of being trapped in a sinking sub approaching crush depth and having no idea if the repair crews can save your bacon or either a) being the men trapped behind a closed hatch in a flooding compartment or b) being the man who closed it. This Troper is claustrophobic and nearly drowned and can't watch the scene without puckering mightily in several places.
  1. ICBM launches are literally visible from orbit, and every major nation has satellites dedicated solely to the job of watching for them.