Goofs

As the van pulls out of the traffic it has no number plate, then as it rides down the hill a smashed one is visible on the front bumper.

When Irina is first seen dead in the bath, her eyes are closed. Later she is seen again, several times and her eyes are clearly open.

When Michael Caine decks the two punks on the train for their racist behavior, look closely as the train pulls into the station. On the left of the screen seen through the train window is the roundel sign for ALDWYCH (which is probably where it was shot). As he leaves the train, the sign suddenly changes to PADDINGTON.

When Preston and Barry tail Petrovsky to his home. Preston is wearing a blue padded anorak when he knocks at the neighbours' house to 'read the meter'. Next time we see him, the blue anorak has been replaced with a black leather jacket.

The van's blue number plate gets smashed when trying to escape the traffic jam, yet is intact later.

In the NCO club, a US Air Force Chief Master Sargent is standing behind Ross with his hat on. When indoors and in uniform military members are required to remove their hats (except for armed guards and other special conditions). In most on-base clubs, this breach of protocol would require the offender to buy a round for the house.

Soviet officers wear service caps instead of fur-caps in winter, which is obvious uniform rules violation.

Valeri and Irina assemble the bomb with their bare hands. Irrespective of the radiation risk, uranium is highly toxic by skin contact - they would both have become very seriously ill shortly afterwards.

The train departed Colchester station without any kind of dispatch from a train guard or platform staff.

Soviet officers have got the wrong tabs on greatcoat lapels - black with no goldish frames. They also have service caps with the wrong cap bands - made of black plastic instead of goldish cords.

The armorer only loaded one blank into Ross's pistol before he shoots Irina in bed after their tryst, as the slide is seen to lock back on firing, indicating a now empty magazine.

Petrovsky, in the bar, says to McWherter, "I usually stop [drinking] after a gallon or so." A Soviet officer would only use metric measurements. Even so, as a Soviet expert on Britain, he still would not describe the amount of alcohol using American standards.

When Valeri Petrofsky is driving down a country lane in a blue ford, the crew/equipment in front of it can be seen on the reflection on the front of the car.

Reflected in the side of the blue van when it is driving off road.

During the film, a KGB agent is said to be traveling by rail from London to Colchester, yet he is shown catching a train from St Pancras Station, which serves the Midlands region of England. The only way to travel by train from London to Colchester (which is in East Anglia) is from Liverpool Street Station.

The whole antagonists' scheme is doomed from the beginning. The detonation epicenter of such bomb can be traced down to 10 meters or better - one only needs to check where the circle of destruction has its center point. Therefore, it would have been immediately known that this was not a bomb from the base, which would automatically put the suspicion on the Soviet Union. This hole could have been rectified if Pavlov had to smuggle the bomb into the base.

Wynne-Evans tells Preston that the uranium ball needed for the bomb "would take a strong man to lift two-handed" as "uranium is twice as heavy as lead", yet Irena has no trouble at all, even loading it into its container at almost arms length .