OT: Sen Toku

[Black_Knyght]

Phoenix-D said:
Behind, really. All I'm seeing from that link is a midget underwater aircraft carrier. An impressive technical achievement, but..very limited ammo and only three planes. They'd be utterly annhiliated in an attack, and even if they all made it back the carrier didn't have much ammo. (they could only attack once with torpedos, for example).

The smallest atomic bomb developed during the war weighed 4000 kg; the only way the Sen Toku could have attacked with nukes is if Japan somehow made a bomb 20% that size. Wikipedia lists its maximum depth as 100m, less than US subs of the time.

Something you need to bear in mind is the way things were at that time.

1)The US, realistically, had little to no real coastal defenses

2)The Japanese tendency towards suicide attacks

3)The effect even a small atomic bomb, such as the ones planned, would have had.

While I don't know for certain what Wikipdeia says about them, the Discovery Channel experts put their depth and abilities beyond the capabilities of American technology of the time.

[Hunpecked]

The 100m depth figure for the Sen Toku subs is also reported in Black_Knyght's original reference. Given the unique requirement of pressure-proofing an aircraft hangar and its large hatch(es), 100m seems quite plausible. As for the subs being "beyond the capabilities of American technology", that's probably true in the same sense that the US B-29 was "beyond" Japan's technology, i.e. technically feasible, but requiring considerable investment, development, and operational experience.

I'm skeptical of the claim that the subs were developed to deliver "small" atomic bombs to mainland US targets. Submarine aircraft carriers weren't unusual in the Japanese Navy (41 such subs total); the Sen Toku class seems like a logical continuation of the concept. More importantly, the Japanese were nowhere near a working nuclear weapon. They hadn't even achieved a sustained nuclear chain reaction, a prerequisite that the Americans achieved some three years before their first nuclear test.

[Black_Knyght]

As I understood it, the Japanese weren't developing the atomic weapon themselves, but were instead depending on an arrangement of some kind with the Germans for it.

Admittedly it would've required more time than either side ultimately had, but the concept itself was a scary one.

As for the commonality of Japanese sub-carriers, the Sen Toku clearly steps outside of that mold in size, purpose of design, and military intent.