WesWorld

Folks:

Historically, what's the smallest submarine to carry an airplane? Did all submarines with aircraft also ship a catapult, or did some of the aircraft take off directly from the sea?

I think the S-1 was the smallest submarine with an aircraft.

Only the Japanese subs carried catapults, all other where floated off.

I think the USN S-1 probably has it for size.



Ettore Fieramosca is another fairly small one.

The problem is that the aircraft are really small, fragile and generally not very good.

I get the impression that the S-1 was an experimental program that was dropped. What about the Italian one?

Anybody know if the Japanese actually used their sub-based aircraft for anything?

Well the I-400s were completed too late to perform their original mission, Destroy the Panama Canal, from the Caribbean side.

Others were used for recon missions.

The Italian one was experimental as well. Evetually the hangar was removed and replaced with a 120mm gun because the aircraft never materialised. The aircraft on Surcouf was for limited scouting and gunnery control. Not so sure about the IJN unless you want to go for attacking the Panama Canal.

one plane from an I-400 dropped fire bombs in California, but with no success

I400 wasn't the one to drop bombs on the US (IIRC I-21)

If you lack code breaking then a long range sub with aircraft is viable. If you don't have a long range plane to recce an enemy harbor then you don't know where their fleet is (or isn't) unless you read the mail. Once radar comes along your recce plane is toast. The Japanese used their planes to check as far afield as Diego Saurez (Madagascar), bomb Oregon, recce Pearl Harbour (as late as 1943), Sydney (several times) Auckland, Hobart, Melbourne (before Battle of the Coral Sea).

The planes are small and fragile and a float plane has no business at sea. The op relies on stealth so the big sub with lots of torps can't do anything else that would blow the recon mission (like sink merchant ships).

If a large submarine is a waste of resources then this is a waste of a large submarine - but don't let me stop you.

Cheers,

PS. I think one of the early Norwegian subs (B class IIRC) (300-400tons) carried a sub by floating up under the plane and then carrying it on the casing.

Close, alt naval. I-25 was the mothership for the "Glen" that bombed Oregon. I-21 was part of the Pearl Harbor operation, took a shot at USS Washington , and also had the amusing situation of having landing lights turned on for the plane while it was flying a recon mission over Auckland...

Rocky,

The "Glen", the Yokosaka E14Y was the standard Japanese submarine based seaplane of the war. It was a twin-float design.

See:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijna/e14y.htm

And if you want to hit a translator, take a look at:

http://www.samoloty.ow.pl/str302.htm

I think that's in Polish.

The E14Y did some good work but it was a fragile aircraft, only able to land on very smooth seas.

Kind of surprising Japan had a role for them, given the excellent flying boats they produced. But they did have a role, and were pretty good at distant recon.

Hope this helps.

Big Rich

Thanks, guys. Recon is my interest - well, that and perhaps scouting for targets.

Quoted

and perhaps scouting for targets.

...that this kinda throws away the sub's main advantage - stealth.

Also bad for the plane's crew if the sub gets pinned down afterwards...