[danoh]

There were actually some very interesting missions by Japanaese submarines during the war. A few to note:

1) the Pearl Harbor midget sub effort mentioned above.

2) Subs were supposed to screen the U.S. fleet before Midway, but I believe they arrived late. In any case this would make a good hypothetical scenario.

3) The shelling of the Ellwood oil field north of Santa Barbara by the I-17.

4) Several major ships were sunk by Japanese submarines, like the Wasp, the Yorktown (partially) and the final ship sunk in the war, Spruance's former flagship the cruiser Indianapolis (a tragic tale worth reading up on.)

5) The hypothetical mission to launch planes that would bomb the panama canal locks.

The main problem with making a career out of driving a Japanese submarine is they were soon taken off their combat roles and relegated to delivering supplies to isolated garrisons. I've seen lists of the most successful U-Boats and U.S. subs, but never one that showed the top-scoring Japanese submarines/captains.

Still as a hypothetical it could be a lot of fun, especially if you got to drive the one that launched planes. There was another interesting variant that carried two amphibious tractors on it's hull. The idea was to get close to some attoll, launch the tractors, which would then crawl over reefs and into the lagoon where they could launch torpedoes at anchored ships. It never was used in combat, but would be a cool mission to complete.

Any ideas about how capable the Japanese subs were? Did they dive quickly or have a decent crush depth. Certainly, you would enjoy the best torpedoes in the world playing as Japan.