Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
I-400 class submarine
I-400, with plane hangar and forward catapult. | ||
| Career | 
| |
|---|---|---|
| Ships: | I-400, I-401, I-402 | |
| Completed: | 1944-45 | |
| Decommissioned: | 1945 | |
| Fate: | Scuttled in the Pacific (1946) | |
| General Characteristics | ||
| Displacement: | 5,223 tons / 6,560 tons | |
| Dimensions: | 400.3 ft x 39.3 ft x 23 ft | |
| Surface propulsion: | 4 diesels: 7,700 hp | |
| Submerged propulsion: | Electric motors: 2,400 hp | |
| Surface speed: | 18.75 knots | |
| Submerged speed: | 6.5 knots | |
| Maximum depth: | 100 m (330 feet) | |
| Range: | 37,500 nm at 14 knots | |
| Complement: | 144 | |
| Armament: | 3 Aichi M6A1 Seiran sea-planes 8x533mm Fwd torpedo tubes | |
The I-400 class (イ-400) submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy were the largest submarines of WW2, and the largest in the world until the development of nuclear ballistic submarines in the 1960s. It was a submersible aircraft carrier and it was able to carry 3 Aichi M6A Seiran aircraft underwater to their destinations. It also carried torpedoes for close range combat and was designed to surface, launch the planes then dive again quickly before they were discovered.
The I-400 was originally designed so that it could travel round-trip to anywhere in the world, and it was specifically intended to destroy the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal.
A fleet of 18 boats was planned in 1942, and work on the first one was started in January 1943 at the Kure, Hiroshima arsenal. Within a year the plan was scaled back to five, and only three (the I-400 at Kure, and the I-401 and I-402 at Sasebo) were completed.
After the end of the war, the US Navy seized and inspected three of the remaining submarines. The I-401 was scuttled in the waters off Kalaeloa in Hawai, where the wreckage was re-discovered by the Pisces submarines deep-sea submarines of the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory in March 2005 at a depth of 820 meters. Four submarines (I-400, I-401, and the I-201 and I-203 which achieved speeds double those of American submarines) were torpedoed by the American submarine USS Cabezon on May 31, 1946. The reason for the scuttling is apparently that Russian scientist were demanding access to the submarines.
One of the scuttled submarines has recently been rediscovered near Oahu.
External Link
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details