Take a look.
Submarine Aircraft Carriers

I'm just curious as to how many members of the forum were aware of this?
Did you know these hybrids were considered to be used to attack the US mainland by Japanese in WW2?

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"Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains save both!" - Erwin Rommel

Yeah I had read bout this somewher. An interesting concept, But fatally flawed in one respect. To act as an effective delivery platform it lacked weight of numbers to be useful.

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Thoughts on Military History
Cornish Scale Modellers
Ross' Military Modelling and Art

I can believe that.

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"Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains save both!" - Erwin Rommel

Actually, these subs weren't "considered" to have been used in the attacks on mainland America, they are confirmed to have been used. Warrant Flying Officer Nobuo Fujita, flew a float plane off IJN submarine I-25 (I-25 was also the same sub that shelled Fort Stevens with its deck gun). There is even a small memorial at the sight he bombed in Oregon, and, Fujitasan actually made several trips to Oregon. He planted a sapling in the crater his bomb made, and he gave his 400-year old familty sword to the town of Brookings, where the bombs landed. I am saddened to say that Fujitasan passed away back in 1997 and his ashes are buried at the bomb site. His obituary actually made the Chicago Tribune.

The subs themselves were an very good idea. The concept behind them was for the sub to surface and launch the spotter plane. The plane would then search out targets of opportunity and then return to the sub, which would then proceed to the target. This would greatly increase the effectiveness of the subs. Unfortunately, as Mahross pointed out, there were too few made. And, quite a few of them were converted to carry Kaiten suicide subs.

I-58 was ironically one of the most successful in that she sank the USS Indianapolis using her torpedoes. I-19 fired the torpedoes that crippled and doomed the USS Wasp and severely damaged the USS North Carolina and sunk the USS O'Brien. All three of these ships were hit from a single spread of torpedoes!

Just imagine how succesful the German wolf packs could have been if they had had planes with which to search out enemy convoys!


Here's a link to some info on the attacks:
http://history1900s.about.com/librar...esebombwc1.htm

Here is a link to a great IJN sight with some more information on these subs:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/ss.htm

[ 19. June 2005, 12:52 AM: Message edited by: Mock26 ]

I am cwertain that the seaplane carrier was far more usefull to the Imperial Navy than to the Kriegsmarine, considering the vast expance the Pacific ocean is. Had the Condor squadrons in Norway been able to cooridiate in any way with the Wolf packs the results would have been far better for them and served the purpose as you describe.

The Blue Max

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"I'd rather have a German Division in front of me, than a French division behind me"

Gen. George S. Patton

More on Nobuo Fujita:

Mainland United States has never been bombed . . . WRONG!

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Bachstelze or Foche-Achgelis manned rotary kite I knew about. How about V1 on a sub post war era.

Carbonero - The Missile Era

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Regards, Richard

I knew about the bombing of Oregon and of the aircraft carrier subs. Now this is interesting. Actual testing of missiles off of a sub. I also read (cannot find the site now) of the Germans having plans to launch V-2s off of U-boats but did not implement. They had exchanged technical information with the Japanese and were intending on using the aircraft carrier subs to launch these V-2s.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

The Japanese 'Sen-Toku' type submarines were large double hull aircraft-carrying submarines.

The orginal design called for only two aircraft but later it was decided to enlarge the boats to accomodate three floatplane bombers.

And what did they expect to achieve with such massive numbers?

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1942 : Japanese bomb U.S. mainland

On this day in 1942, a Japanese floatplane drops incendiary bombs on an Oregon state forest-the first and only air attack on the U.S. mainland in the war.

Launching from the Japanese sub I-25, Nobuo Fujita piloted his light aircraft over the state of Oregon and firebombed Mount Emily, alighting a state forest--and ensuring his place in the history books as the only man to ever bomb the continental United States. The president immediately called for a news blackout for the sake of morale. No long-term damage was done, and Fujita eventually went home to train navy pilots for the rest of the war.

Actually, there is one of the Seirans (the specially designed float planes for submarine transport - folding wings) at the U.S. National Air and Space Museum

NASM Seiran

Here's an interesting link to it's restoration

Seiran Restoration

the bottom link, 'Interesting Finds', has some real interesting artifacts found in the airplanes gas tanks!

I believe the plan was to bomb the locks and close the Panama Canal.


-whatever

-Lou