I think that one 688 could have made a big difference, not because of fire power, but because of detection range, speed, and endurance. Positioned properly, she could block a critical access point to the home islands, detect transiting targets at much greater range, sprint to intercept at higher speeds, engage successfully from farther ranges, rince, repeat, and when out of ordnance, sprint home at 35-32 knots without concern for fuel, reload, take on a fresh crew, re-provision, and sprint back into another critical position.
Would it have crushed Japan in a month? No, not likely, but I think when you factor all the strengths in combination, she would be sinking targets at 20-30 times the rate of a WWII sub (probably more if you count MK-48s vs, bad torpedoes in use in the first half of WWII).
Combine her with a few other WWII boats spaced out to act as radar/sonar pickets callign in distant targets to expand her zone of control, and a 688 could be devastating.
In other words, what would have happened in the U.S. could have put the equivalent of 30-40 Balaos around the Japanese home islands by December 15th, 1941, and maintained that number for 2 out of every 3 months for the rest of the war?.
Or, to put it from the Japanese perspective, what do you do if any convoy or battle fleet you sortie has a 1 in 3 chance of being detected by a radar/sonar picket, and being wiped out to the last ship within 72 hours of that detection? Do you run the gauntlet? Do you keep your ships in port? If you run the gauntlet, how long can you sustain that before you run out of ships?
Reminds me of the plight of the U-boats in 1944-1945.
Just a thought...
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