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Two Sunken Japanese Submarines Found Off Hawaii
Ponca City, We love you writes "The NY Times reports that two World War II Japanese submarines, including one meant to carry aircraft for attacks on American cities, have been found in deep water off Hawaii where they were sunk in 1946. Specifically designed for a stealth attack on the US East Coast — perhaps targeting Washington, DC and New York City — the 'samurai subs' were fast, far-ranging, and some carried folding-wing aircraft. Five Japanese submarines were captured by American forces at the end of the war and taken to Pearl Harbor for study, then towed to sea and torpedoed, probably to avoid having to share any of their technology with the Russian military. One of the Japanese craft, the I-201, was covered with a rubberized coating on the hull, an innovation intended to make it less apparent to sonar or radar; it was capable of speeds of about 20 knots while submerged, making it among the fastest diesel submarines ever made. The other, the I-14, much larger and slower, was designed to carry two small planes, Aichi M6A Seirans that could be brought onto the deck and launched by a catapult. The submarines were meant to threaten the United States directly, but none of the attacks occurred because the subs were developed too late in the war, and American intelligence was too good. 'It's very moving to see objects like this underwater,' says Hans Van Tilburg of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 'because it's a very peaceful environment, but these subs were designed for aggression.'"
Speaking as a guy who's spent time on modern boats, anyone who can get the opportunity to tour a submarine should do so without delay. It's awesome to see photos, but it's even better when you seen the insides at work.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
It's very moving to see objects like this underwater
Compared to those damn flying submarines...
some nerds like history.
Back in tha day, they had to use a big boom arm for ships without a deck. For recovery, the aircraft would land next to the ship/sub and a big crane would just hoist them out of the water. this page shows a pretty similar process for an old OS2U-3 Kingfisher. Some pretty cool pix at the bottom of the page. I wouldn't want to be the pilot during recovery.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Earth's only hope for survival will be to resurrect these two subs as spaceships to kick some Gamilon ass.
"Leader Dessslok, it's as if we're fighting a ghost ship! How can an old Earth submarine defeat all of Gamilon?"
Hurry Starforce, there are only 57 days before all life on Earth becomes extinct!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
And yes the aircraft were recoverable by the sub crew: they were seaplanes, and would be picked up by a crane aboard the sub.
You can read a summary of US-mainland attacks here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_United_States_territory_in_North_America_during_World_War_II#Japanese_assaults
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
Well, it's a teaser. It always amazes me at how advanced the Germans and Japanese were in some things, and just how arrogant and stupid the Americans were. (Of course the same could be said for all participants, but as victors, the Americans wrote the history after the war.)
American Generals refused to believe the early reports of the speed and agility of the Zero. British Generals refused to fund the development of the jet engine until the Germans fielded theirs.
Now I learn that the Japanese were playing with submarine stealth technology.
Lots of good stuff for geeks; just gotta do your homework and not wait to be spoonfed.
Yet the countries with the advanced high-tech military hardware still fell to the swarming hordes that out-produced them materially. A lesson the US probably should keep in mind going into the 21st century.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The 25 Museum Submarines Located Across The USA - Listed In Order Of Launch Date
Thank God those whales and dolphins bombed Hiroshima or we might have had to face more of these things.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A little tangential here, but it may be interesting to engineering nerds.
I got a description of some of the workings of standard carrier catapults from a co-worker who used to be stationed on one. This is maybe 20 years old, so our tech may have changed since then. Apparently they have (had?) a supply of hour-glass shaped steel widgets on board color-coded to match the aircraft being launched. When it was time to launch, they would grab the appropriate size/color and insert it as an intentional weak-link in line with the cable before firing up the winch. When the cable was properly tensioned, the steel widget would break and release the cable throwing the plane into the air.
Kind of a neat design idea if you can't just haul the cable along fast enough to throw the plane.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
The Allies also had plenty of leading edge technology. It is hard to have a consistent edge across the entire spectrum. The Allies had more advanced technology in certain areas such as the cavity magnetron for radar, strategic bombers such as the B-17, Avro Lancaster and B-29, fighter aircraft such as the Spitfire, tanks such as the T-34 and IS-2, Bazooka, Katyusha MLRS, code breaking such as ULTRA and MAGIC intercepts. Victory at the Battle of Midway was possible because the USA knew of the attack beforehand from code breaking for example.
As Stalin once said, quantity has a quality of its own. It's great it you can produce one tank that will kill five of the enemy's; until of course your enemy starts producing six tanks for every one of yours.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
The Allies also had plenty of leading edge technology. It is hard to have a consistent edge across the entire spectrum.
Of course the allies led in technology. That's why they won the war. There's a certain luxury to develop new technologies when you're fighting at arm's length (in the case of Britain post 1940 and the US) vs being right in the thick of things. The Soviets had already won the tank design part - as early as 1941 I believe it was von Rundstedt that commented, on inspecting a captured Soviet T-34: "If ever the Soviets can mass produce this tank, we've lost the war". Individually German tanks were far superior. However they were far more complex, resulting in engineering, maintenance and manufacturing difficulties. The Soviets had a good simple design that could take a beating and was easy to make and maintain.
Germany was, after the start of Barbarossa and the stall in the offensive, in a fight for her life. That leaves very little budget for R&D. And with 20-20 hind-sight too much of it went to tank and artillery development (a losing proposition because they were going to be beaten by sheer numbers anyway), and not enough of it to asymmetric warfare like U-Boats or aircraft. Imagine a Germany capable of sealing off the North Atlantic with hordes of type XXI U-boats, or bombing the Ural tank factories and the Norfolk shipyards with long range bombers (read about the Amerika Bomber project that got cancelled)/strategic rockets!
The Japanese were never going to win, period, unless Germany managed a complete victory in Europe and took on the US. Yamamoto even knew this before the war started. They were too small, and trying to grab too much of an empire.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.