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Japan began the Pacific war with a large, highly diverse submarine fleet. Their fleet included midget submarines, manned torpedoes (essentialy underwater Kamakazes), medium-range submarines, purpose-built supply submarines (which surprisinhly were used more by the Army than Navy), long-range fleet submarines, submarines with high submerged speed, and submarines that carried strike aircrft. Japan had the most diverse and highly capable submarine fleet of any World War II beligerant. Incredibly with all these special capabilities, the specialty boats used the most were the midget subs--the least capable. The Japanese began building an advanced submarine, the I-class submarines. They were the largest submarines of the War, in fact the lare submarines since the advnt of nuclear power. These submarine reflected the needs of the Empire that Japan began to conceive in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The I-boats were very large submarines, reflecting the vast distances involved in Pacific operations. The I-class were 350 ft long and had ranges of 20,000 miles, more than twice that of 7,000-8,000 mile range of the German U-boats. These boats were capable of cruises lasting 100 days. The largest of the Japanese subs, the I-400 class was 390 ft long overall, they displaced 5,900 tons--better than twice the size of the standard Americn boat. The I-400 class could each carry three floatplane bombers, the only such submarines in history . Japan built 41 submarines that could carry one or more aircraft, while the vast submarine fleets of the United States, Britain, and Germany did mot have a sinle boat that could launch a plain. The Japanese had smaller subs for coastal patrol, but the backbone of the fleet was the I-class boats. Japan deployed a substantial submarine force during the Pacific War. The Imperial Navy began the War with 63 ocean-going submarines. They added an additional 111 subs during the war. Out of that total of 174 boats, there were 128 boats lost -- an incredible loss rate.
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