I just saw this article on Yahoo and thought you guys might be interested in reading it. Here's the link:

Japanese sub found

Chris "toadman" Hughes

Hey Chris


Thanks for the article, very interesting indeed.
A 3 or 4 stories high hull, that's got to be a huge sub!!!

I wouldn't mind seeing some underwater pics of her...
Or even some "before" pics

thanks for sharing

interesting story! bombing US cities with infected rats...what a mission!



















A very interesting desing that is! Would be a great build for the DDD campaign (anyone?)

Thanks for sharing

Martin

Very interesting, thanks for posting. The I-400 class were really the "Yamato" of the undersea fleet. (not my line but one from The Fleets of World War II) I understand that when they were being built the Japanese put fake funnels and superstructure on them to hide what they really were. They had the displacement of light cruisers.

The Hawaii Underwater Research Laboratory has got to have one of the most unfortunate acronyms ever. H.U.R.L. They do great work though.

Those are some great photos of the models.

If we had custody of them after WW2 and we scuttled them shortly after the war, why did it take so long to find them again? Hopefully they can retreive it and put it off of Ford island along with the Arizona, Missouri and the Utah

Were they looking for them? From the article it doesn't make it clear and it seemed to me that the found it by accident.

I doubt they would raise it. It's over six thousand tons. Sure they can raise that weight, but I doubt the funds would be there.

The underwater pics are located here

If you explore the "HURL" site further, you can find pics and info on the midget sub that was sunk by the USS Ward just before the first wave of aircraft hit Pearl Harbor.

Soulds like Discovery Channel or History Channel will need to sponsor another expedition

Hey cool, I just read the article from HURL and they also found a S class boat, one of the type that helped hold the line in early WWII. I'd like to see more about that one as well as the I boat.

now that's pretty #$%@#%! cool - I didn't know those subs were that big - I thought it just held one plane inside not 3!!! I have to give the Japanese props on their Naval arsenal from ww2.

how'd you like to build that puppy in 72nd scale? I don't think I could find room for anything that big

Very interesting article. Thanks for sharing it with us. Cheers Kevin

Hi all!!

This is a great "finding" of a great Submarine!
Japanese submarines where, by other navy's standart, HUGE boats and this was the biggest of all!

One of these boats is desperatly needed in a bigger scale than 1/700, and accurate - not a toy like sub

Thanks for sharing and sorry for the late comment

Skipper

I wonder how well they would have done? I remember reading about the length of time it took those submarines to submerge. That would have made the submarine vulnerable to Allied coastal air patrols. I'm assuming the PBYs would have a greater range than the single engine planes would, even with drop tanks.

Also the Panama Canal was heavily defended against air attack. Three planes per sub would not be a very large task force to try to take out any locks. Without floats, those planes look like they were intended to travel only one way.

Howdy fellas,

Yeah, very interesting find indeed.

".... A very interesting desing that is! Would be a great build for the DDD campaign (anyone?) ....."

Coincidentally (if anyone remembers), I just recently asked about the I-400 Class Submarine on the threads (forget which one) because I had my eye on a 1/300th scale kit of that very boat on Evilbay.....funny.

Tread.

And Rob brings up one of the very thoughts I had when I was investigating it, and that was the lack of retrevial accomodations for the AC.......apparently the 'kamikaze' one-way trip mentality had spread to the Navy as well.

Rob,

I found a different article. The sub carried three Seiran or "Mountain Haze" bombers with floats. I initially thought the same thing. And I agree 100% about the whole air attack on the canal. I think they would have had better luck ramming a lock with the sub than trying to damage them with three single engine bombers.

Couple of links:

http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/20/news/story1.html

http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijna/m6a.htm

Shaun

Yes mates - the Seiran was supposed to be back aboard - ence the floats, as Shaun mentioned...

Back to the I-400 subs, appart from 1/700 (Hasegawa or Fujimi, I am not sure) there's a 1/300 Doyusha model (which I happen to have) but it is so toylike....

I must say that I was fooled by the Nichimo I-19 quality and wrongly guessed that the I-400 would have the same quality - how stupid can you get????

It would be nice if Tamyia or Trumpeter made one of this beasts in a nice scale: 1/144 (hint hint)

Skipper