WWII Submarines Side by Side January 28 2016

There are 3 interesting type of submarines to compare side by side:

1. The Sen Toku Class I-401 Japanese sub
2. The Balao Class American USS Archer sub
3. Type VII German sub


The I-401 was the biggest sub of WWII, and for a while it was the biggest sub in the world. The idea behind this was that it would carry up to 3 planes and launch them for bombing missions. Fortunately, it was launch very late during the war and really did not do anything relevant to the war effort. A sad note is that it was sunk in 1946 when it was used for target practice. (This would have been more appropritate as a museum piece. But the again, if even the carrier USS Enterprise was converted into scrap, there was really nothing sacred after the war.). The length was 122 m (400 ft)

The Balao Class sub as the USS Archerfish was the biggest type of subs for America. The Archerfish has the honor of sinking the largest war ship sunk by a submarine, that being the Japanese carrier Shinano, which was also the largest Japanese carrier. The length was 95 m (311 ft)

The Type VII German sub is the type of sub that is featured in the movie/TV series Das Boot. U-214 was sunk by a British ship in 1944 but the interesting thing is the wreck was found in 2006. The length was 76.90 m (252 ft 4 in)

The difference in size is quite impressive, but at the end there is never a big enough sub. One can not but admire the dedication and courage that young men (barely in their 20s, the average age for U-boat commanders was 28. The age for Japanese and Americans could have not been too far away) had to serve their respective countries when the world went to hell.