Japanese Submarines

Were the men volunteers?
Class types?
I believe they made the biggest ones by far?
How many did they produce before, and during the war?

 

Class RO-100 and RO-35 (RO-35 was larger) comparible with the british U class

Specification;

Type: Coast sub
Length: 60.9 m
Width: 6.1 m
Deep: 3.5 m
Engines: Diesel 820kw
Electric 570kw
Speed: Above water 14 knots
Under water 8 knots
Armament: 76mm gun four 553mm torpedo tubes in the front
Crew: 38

The subs proved unsuccesfull, only 10 confirmed allied ships were sanked by these class. Total production about 40 pieces, almost all lost.

Class I-15

Specification;

Type: Long range sub
Length:108.6 m
Width: 9.3 m
Deep: 5.1 m
Engines: Diesel 9245 kw
Electric 1490 kw
Speed: Above water 23,5 knots
Under water 8 knots
Armament: 140mm gun two 25mm aa gun six 533mm torpedo tubes front and one airplane Yokosuka E14Y1
Crew: 100

One of the better subs although the airplane ejection and boarding procedure costed too much time.

Class Ha-201 or STS

Specification;

Type: Coast sub
Length:53 m
Width: 4 m
Deep: 3.4 m
Engines: Diesel 298 kw
Electric 930 kw
Speed: Above water 10,5 knots
Under water 13 knots
Armament: one 7.7mm mg and two 533mm torpedo tubes front
Crew: 22

Source: Waffen des zweiten welrkriegs Chris Bishop

And further a sub that could carry a mini sub

a variety of mini subs, kamikaze as well as normal mini subs.

 

There was also the I-400 class, allthough only two of them was completed ( I-400 and I-401 ). With their 122m these submarines were the largest of the war. They were equipped with a water-tight hangar, large enough to house three Aichi M6A1 Seiran bombers.

 

I think that is the model on display in a museum.

Captured in dry dock?

 

That would be intersting, a submarine launching bombers.

Were they used/effective?

 

They were on their way to attack the U.S. fleet when Japan surrendered. I´ll have to get back to you on the details.

 

They were originally intended to torpedo the Panama Canal and interfere with American reinforcment of the Pacific.

Japanese sub doctrine was limited to scouting and attacks on warships. Japanese subs hit and damaged the CV Saratoga twice early in the war, sank the CV Wasp, and sank the damaged CV Yorktown at Midway. The damaged light AA crusier Juneau was probably sunk by a Japanese sub following the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and the heavy crusier Indianaopolis was sunk near the end of the war. Overall Japanese subs were very ineffective. They never went after the long and exposed Allied suppply lines in the Pacific ala German Wolfpacks. Sinking frieghters was not worthy of a Samurai.

 

Some japanese submarines were used to trade with Germany.
They got to occupied France, brought the germans some raw materials and instead got information on new technologies.

 

Some of those technologies were simply pictures of the jet engines (later in the war I believe). The Japanese built an entire new fighter around the jet engines, even though all they had to go on was pictures, not schematics.

 

Japanese subs did a lot of damage along the Pacific coast of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon.
The Merchant fleets were always in danger, with so many palces for these subs to hide along such a vast and unforgiving coast line. Fog, wind and rain like no has ever seen limited air recon by the USAAF and the RCAF.

 

I never knew that other sub fleets than the German U-Boat arm did any serious damage on Allied shipping. Great! I'm learnding!

 

Hmm, are you sure about this, MP? It's my impression that the Japanese for some reason or another (most likely that it was more prestigeous and honorable) usually attacked only warships with their subs...

Best regards!

- Mr.Bluenote.

 

The first day of the war for the USA a Japanese submarine commander sunk an American merchant vessal.

My sources come from a book called, "War On Our Doorstep". I have posted this in a much earlier posting and it will take someone like ROEL to sift through the posts to place this in the Library.
Nice of you to volunteer Roel, you are the man.

 

Hmm, how does it mention how much tonnage was sunk in the Pacific compared to the Atlantic and how much of that tonnage was merchant men compared to warships?

I'm pretty certain that the IJN's submarines nearly allways went after warships, where the Germans, as we of course all know, went after merchant men!

Best regards!


- Mr.B.

 

Japanese submarines would not pass up the chance to sink merchantmen, but it wasn't their primary duty or responsibility, which was considered to be scouting and attaking warships. There were some deliberate cruises trying to scare the Americans into over reacting to a potential threat.
Many Japanese submarines spent the war carrying supplies to bypassed island garrisons, which was hardly a glorious thing to do. They would have been better off interfering with Allied supply lines in the Pacific.

 

Agreed!

 

Japanese subs

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"That would be intersting, a submarine launching bombers. Were they used/effective?"
On one occasion, the Japanese used a submarine floatplane to make a pair of bombing attacks in Oregon. What's in Oregon that's worth attacking? Well, apparently the Japanese were not a member of Greenpeace, as their target was a forest. They had hoped to start a forest fire, but one set of bombs merely left a scorched mark and the other didn't. The event failed even to cause public disorder of any great magnitude, and as far as I can tell, the sum of US reaction was to temporarily move a few P-38's to a different airfield and to send a platoon of G-Men traipsing over the Oregon coast.
Submarines refueled the flying boats that inflicted the "Second Pearl Harbor" attack; arguably this did the Japanese great harm.
I tend to be of the opinion that seaplane-carrying was a mistake by the Japanese; if you look at the loss rate of IJN subs, you'll see that these big ones suffered especially high casualties. Big unwieldy targets--what d'ya expect?
Japanese also tried to stir things up by tossing a few shells at shore targets in the US and Canada. Attacks against merchant shipping on the Pacific coast were truly mild as measured by any yardstick other than the subsequent failure of the IJN to pursue anti-commerce warfare.

 

18 each of the RO-35 and RO-100 classes were built to my knowledge. Neither of them were very successful as all but one RO-100 were sunk while the two classes combined were credited with only four minor warships and six cargo ships between them.

The I-15 class was probably the most successful Japanese submarine of the war. The class was responsible for the sinking of eight warships, including the USS Wasp, and 59 merchantmen. Only one of the 20 built survived the war.

I-40 class and I-54 class; Modified I-15 class subs made to carry Kaiten suicide subs. Six I-40 and three I-54 completed. Were these in addition to the 20 I-15 class subs built ?

Ha-201 class; Only ten were completed to my knowledge.

I-400 class; 2 completed by the end of the war.

Is this all, barely 70 submarines ?

 

The Japanese had more than a hundred submarines during the war.