Japanese Subs

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

To have an entertaining game with Japanese subs it would have to be somewhat ahistorical in nature. Overall, the large Japanese submarine fleet is credited with sinking 184 merchant ships of 907,000 GRT. That's pretty sad stacked up to the Germans (2,840 ships of 14.3 million GRT), the Americans (1,079 ships of 4.65 million tons), and the British (493 ships of 1.52 million tons) Japanese doctrine emphasized saving torpedoes for attacking warships, even if that meant letting a merchant pass and warships are a much rarer target. Then there was the whole dismal concept that evolved by early 1943 of using submarines as cargo ships to resupply by-passed Japanese garrisons...submarines without torpedoes to make room for supplies. That was the primary job of half the Japanese sub fleet by war's end.

Another problem is research. There are no surviving I-Boats and decent plans, photos and blueprints for the interiors are hard to find.

I think a limited 1942~43 campaign would be cool; IE Guadalcanal, Indian Ocean, US West coast. Another down side of playing Japanese subs is that they weren't that good to begin with. They were fast and had awesome endurance, but that's pretty much all of it. You would definatly be the underdog.