Midget submarine
 

Hi everyone.

On one of my career mission i came in conflict with something i think could be a japanese midget sub, I am not 100% sure. But i think so....

In case there was a MS, what where the tactics they used?

And #2: how do i fight them off?
I am not shure I wanna try torps, they probably not mutch bigger than a torpedo.
Do i try to find them and run them down?
Force them to the surface an shoot them to pieces with the deckgun??

I don't know how you would force them to the surface unless you have DC racks onboard. ;) Midget subs never attacked US subs that I know of. Given their limited range (they had electric motors only) they were usually used in harbour raids and not on the open sea. Rather an ineffective weapon given their dismal war record. Kaitens did a little better.

Didnt they attack any US ports in the war? Or more accurate, the ships in the port...

They participated in the Pearl Harbor raid that started the war. It was a midget submarine creeping in that resulted in the first US shots of the Pacific war when the USS Ward spotted her and attacked. None of the midget subs hit anything although at least one did get in and try. USS Monaghan rammed it in the East Loch. The US also got it's first prisoner of war when one of them washed up on a Oahu beach. They also were also used to raid Sydney, Australia and Diego Suarez, Madagascar in 1942. Not to much efffect again. I think they sank a old barracks ships in the Sydney raid.

If you use a torp they just fly all the way to Japan. :lol:

Midget Subs
 

Five Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarines were used in the 1941attack on Pearl Harbor, in which the type 97 torpedo was used operationally. One of these five midget submarines was shot and sunk by the USS Ward as it was spotted trying to enter Pearl Harbor. The wreckage of the submarine was located by NOAA's Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) in August 2002.
Photographic analysis conducted by the United States Naval Institute in 1999 indicates one of the five Ko-hyoteki-class submarines managed to enter Pearl Harbor, and successfully fired a torpedo into theUSS West Virginia. The submarine's final resting place is unknown. Good fishing......:arrgh!:

Actually they found and raised it not long after the attack. You can see the effect of the destroyer Monaghen's ramming in this photograph. The dimples on the hull were caused by depth charges.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/i...000/h54302.jpg

In the SH4 aspect, I don't think they'd be very much fun.:cry: (Don't get me wrong, I love Japanese midget subs) But, as Torplexed said, they are very limited. They used them around Guadalcanal also. On a historical side note, the torpedoes for the midgets were horrible!

more midget subs:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iW9zLRqBNm4

The one the USS Ward sunk:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/HURL/midget.html

enjoy:up:

The funniest thing is they weren't designed as a suicide weapon like the human torpedo 'kaiten'. But the effect was the same. Hardily anyone survived who got the honor of manning these things in an attack.

I think of all the midget subs used by the various nations in WW2 the British X-craft used against the Tirpitz in Norway and against Japanese heavy cruisers in Singapore harbor probably had the best record.

Here's some of my photos inside a kaiten. (A real kaiten)
http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/3374/imag0113sp9.jpg

http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/3664/imag0111ml5.jpg

don't ask how I got this shot:cool:
http://img487.imageshack.us/img487/2008/imag0112lw8.jpg

enjoy:D

You've been to the naval museum in Keyport, Washington I see. Apparently, you went under the ropes around the exhibit as well. :rotfl:

You couldn't get me to man one of those deathtraps at the point of a gun. :p

loose lips, sink ships:cool:

who me?
http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/4813/dscf0207mi2.jpg

note: nice sunny weather:sunny:
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/9923/dscf0206xl9.jpg

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/543/imag0067zh0.jpg

look at me, my ass is stuck in the gunner's seat. Somebody get the butter and stop laughing:oops:
http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/2953/dscf0173sx1.jpg

Ahhh yes...the USS Turner Joy at the Puget Sound Naval Yard. Nice...but I'd rather have the Missouri back.;)

I saw that @ Astoria! I need to scan those pictures. You should have seen the traffic jam that ship caused getting into Astoria:damn: It totally clogged up hwy 101 for miles and miles 10+? I went to see it 2 hours before it closed, I only waited 20 minutes in line:up:

Thanks submariners, nice pics.

I guess theres no "step in to my office" onboard these subs...

I'm reading 'Thunder Below' by Eugene Fluckey (Commander of USS Barb in 1944-1945). In that he refers to a number of occasions of when he and other wolfpack subs were attacked by Japanese midget submarines.

To quote one instance relating to the USS Queenfish during a patrol in the Luzon Strait / South China Sea in 1944:

"With his alert peripheral vision he spotted the impulse bubble from a firing submarine and took split-second action to avoid the oncoming torpedo, Speeding up to 19 knots and deftly paralleling the churning torpedo, he watched it scrape past at about 50 yards, with all hands on the bridge holdeing their breath - or something.

Simultaneously radar picked up a new contact 1000 yards ahead. Elliott (skipper of the Queenfish) instinctively reacted in the third dimension and dived, passing under the midget submarine at 200 feet.

Ed (the wolfpack Commodore) decided that there were too many midget submarines in this area and plucked us out of the fire. We moved west, away from the proximity of close-to-shore bases"


Re: operational use of midget subs, Japanese midget subs penetrated Sydney Harbour during WWII. This summary is taken from the Australian War Memorial website www.awm.gov.au

On the night of 31 May – 1 June 1942, three Japanese midget submarines, launched from larger "mother" submarines lying off the coast, entered Sydney Harbour to attack Allied shipping. Two of the midgets were destroyed, but not before one of them sank the depot ship HMAS Kuttabul (a converted ferry), killing 21 naval ratings. [The intended target was the cruiser USS Chicago]

There is a full midget submarine on display at the War Memorial. It is assembled from sections of two of the three submarines that raided Sydney. The centre and aft sections are from the submarine that set off its demolition charge after it became entangled in the harbour defence boom net. The bow section is from the submarine that was depth-charged in Taylors Bay - its crew shot themselves to avoid capture.

The third midget submarine vanished, its fate a complete mystery until it was discovered by a group of amateur divers off Sydney's northern beaches in November 2006. It was this submarine that had sunk the Kuttabul during the raid.

A more detailed account is found here:

http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/midgetsub/doc.htm


Cheers



Mark

That particular mini has a 'new' home.

I remember seeing it in person when it was in Key West and believe me it was 'mini'.

http://starbulletin.com/97/05/07/news/whatever.html

more stuff:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/s...ss/mdg-a-2.htm

Midget submarines breached Sydney Harbor in Australia during WW2