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.