# Submarine Aircraft Carriers **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 31, 2001, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065 "2001-05-31T11:09:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PerfectDark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@PerfectDark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PerfectDark)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/1 "2001-05-31T11:09:15Z")
Was there, is there, will there ever be submarine aircraft carriers. I mean it’s a good idea right? You have a few Joint Strike Fighters (or Harrier Jets if you want to use planes that actually exist) stored inside the hull. The submarine surfaces when a plane needs to take off or land and then the hatches are closed and pressurised and then the submarine dives again. If they really wanted to be advanced they could work out away for the planes to be able to move underwater, thus enabling the aircraft to skip underneath radar and apparently ditch into the sea, then they move to the submarine a bay opens up and the plane moves in. The Bay doors are closed and the water is pumped out. If you think about it this could be a very cost effective vessel. For every aircraft carrier has to have an escort of 2 destroyers, 2 wolf class submarines, and a cruiser or something hugely wasteful due to the aircraft carriers vunerability. If you could have a stealthy submarine that could do the job of an aircraft carrier than wouldn’t this be the better solution. Now having said the last three paragraphs your probably going to say that they already exist or are in design. And I’ll go ‘Oh well I wish I had of thought of it sooner.’ PerfectDark ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/2 "2001-05-31T11:14:06Z")
We have those. They’re called SLCM (Submarine Launched Cruise Missiles, pronounced Slick Em). ISTR seeing something on the History Channel about a German plan to use seaplanes carried outside the hull of submarines, in a pressurized container. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/3 "2001-05-31T11:14:24Z")
There’s one in the alternate history PC game ‘Crimson Skies’, but I’ve never heard of one IRL, though I seem to recall something about a sub that could launch a small helicopter… ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/4 "2001-05-31T11:20:12Z")
During WWII, the Japanese developed a submarine that could carry a specially designed plane. The idea was that these planes could be use to attack the dam and locks that keep the water in the Panama Canal. If the Canal was destroyed, American ships headed for the Pacific from the east coast would have had to go back to taking the long way around the tip of South America, greatly increasing travel time. Needless to say the attack never took place. The Smithsonian apparently has the only known plane of this type still in existence; the subs are all believed to have been sunk in US Navy exercises, when they were used for target practice. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/5 "2001-05-31T11:45:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flodnak \* > \*\*Needless to say the attack never took place. The Smithsonian apparently has the only known plane of this type still in existence; the subs are all believed to have been sunk in US Navy exercises, when they were used for target practice. \*\* The attack on the Panama Canal never took place, but a similar bombing of the strategically important forests of the Pacific Northwest did take place in 1942. Small reconnaissance planes nicknamed _geta_ were carried partially disassembled in a submarine. When the sub came close to the coast, it surfaced, the plane was reassembled, and launched by catapult. After reconnoitering, the plane would land on its floats near the sub, and be disassembled and stowed. Eventually somebody got the bright idea of sending the planes out with bombs. The forests of Oregon were bombed at least twice, but no widespread damage was done. [http://www.submarinestore.com/facts-japbombs.htm](http://www.submarinestore.com/facts-japbombs.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/6 "2001-05-31T12:02:29Z")
Woah. Can you imagine the cost involved in designing and building one of these? I mean, a **Nimitz** -class carrier’s not exactly cheap, but it’s basically a large boat with a flat top. A sub carrier would have to be absolutely immense, and would still never replicate the full range of operations a conventional carrier can manage. For one thing, limitations in size would reduce the number of aircraft to a pointlessly small amount, and without an angled flight deck air operations would be painstakingly slow (no taking off and landing simultaneously). Plus, a carrier has a massive defensive function for a naval force as well as an offensive function, which would be lost given the inevitable time it would take for a sub carrier to go from underwater to ready-to-launch status. As for the reduced cost/defences issue, I think that the massive costs involved in development and construction would easily negate that. And if you’ve built a sub that big and that advanced, you’d want to protect it with plenty of other subs or surface vessels (after all, how’s this carrier sub going to protect itself from ASW aircraft?). I doubt something that big and technologically complicated (opening bow doors or whatever) could be that stealthy underwater. ---
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/7 "2001-05-31T12:40:49Z")
You are missing a major point about submarines. They are easy to sink IF you know where they are. Finding them is hard. If they launch anything, it’s move or be sunk. Just diving will not protect the sub. Also, pilots like to have a place to land. If the sub surfaces to let them land, it will be sunk. After all, it will not have all the surface vessels to protect it like an aircraft carrier has. Its own aircraft are not enough to protect it, same as with a carrier. ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/8 "2001-05-31T13:05:45Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by bibliophage \* \*\* > [@](#): > > Eventually somebody got the bright idea of sending the planes out with bombs. The forests of Oregon were bombed at least twice, but no widespread damage was done. > \*\* I’ve never read such a pile of preposterous crap in my life. Oregon was attacked with baloon bombs, not sub launched aircraft. This guy is obviously making up stories that halfway match known facts and adding a whole lot of fantasy. The website just says “I came across this story” and doesn’t even attribute it. It’s unauthenticated, unattributed rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/9 "2001-05-31T13:14:11Z")
In addition, I believe most of the balloon bombs that actually made it to land (the majority never made it accross the pacific) landed in Canada. The idea was to set the forests on fire, but most of the balloons were stupidly launched during the rainy season. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/10 "2001-05-31T13:37:02Z")
Did a quick search, but nothing in depth (sorry didn’t see that pun coming). In the early '50s, there seems to have been some serious thought about submarine aircraft carriers by certain minds at the Pentagon. Some drawings even appeared in Popular Science magazine. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/11 "2001-05-31T15:10:48Z")
**Chas.E** you may not want to jump to conclusions so quickly as **bibliophage** is correct. The following is from the New York Times, Oct. 2, 1997,By Nicholas D. Kristof. > [@](#): > > Nobuo Fujita, a Japanese pilot who flew bombing runs over Oregon in 1942, apparently the only time that an enemy aircraft has ever bombed the American mainland, died on Tuesday at a hospital near Tokyo. He was 85. > [@](#): > > A submarine carrying a crew of about 100 and a small plane with folded wings slipped across the Pacific to the unprotected waters off the Oregon coast. In the predawn darkness of Sept. 9, 1942, the crew assembled the plane and shot it into the air with a catapult. Mr. Fujita, who was a warrant officer, oriented himself with the Cape Bianco light-house and flew over the coastal range, dropping two 168-pound fire bombs over the forests in the hope of setting terrible forest fires. This is from Silent Siege, by Bert Webber > [@](#): > > A Japanese submarine, I-25, stopped on the ocean floor near Port Orford in late August, 1942. Fujita wrote that he and a few others played bridge while they waited for the weather to clear to launch the plane. > Before dawn on Sept. 9, the submarine surfaced and the pilot and his navigator assembled the tiny gray pontoon airplane. A catapult flung the plane into the foggy coastal air and Fujita flew toward the rising sun, carrying two 170-pound bombs. > About eight miles east of Brookings, Fujita dropped the first bomb. He flew a few more miles and dropped a second bomb. The men saw the bombs explode and thought their mission complete, according to Webber. > Twenty days later, they dropped two more bombs in the mountains near Port Orford, but the sites were never found. The submarine was I-25 a type B1 the most common plane carrying sub in the Japanese Navy. The complete list of Japanese “carrier” subs is as follows. Type # of Boats # of planes A1 3 1 A2 1 1 A modified 2 2 B1 20 1 B2 6 1 B3 3 1 Sen Toku 3 3 (and part of a 4th) Before his death Fujita traveled to Brookings, OR and personally apologized for the bombing. He also donated a family sword and $1000 to the local library and planted what is known as the heritage tree. In addition to these bombing attacks the Japanese also used the infamous ballon bombs and several submarines shelled locations on the California and Oregon coasts. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/12 "2001-05-31T15:18:56Z")
I am very sorry for the multiple posts. When I posted I got a response that the form had timed out, so I resubmitted. Moderator- could you please delete the repeat posts or at least edit them to blank. Thanks, [Done. In general, if you hit the button, it goes through, regardless of what it says. --Chronos] [Edited by Chronos on 06-02-2001 at 07:18 PM] ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/13 "2001-05-31T19:55:48Z")
Here ya go: [http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/odd/index2.htm](http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/odd/index2.htm) ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2001, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/14 "2001-06-01T21:31:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by PerfectDark \* > \*\*Was there, is there, will there ever be submarine aircraft carriers. I mean it’s a good idea right? … > > The submarine surfaces when a plane needs to take off or land and then the hatches are closed and pressurised and then the submarine dives again. > \*\* It’s an interesting idea, but what promise it had mostly disappeared when it became possible to fly fighters and bombers over huge distances. The problem is that the two vehicle are have radically different design requirements. Planes need a wide area to land (and crash-land), large areas for maintenance and stores, etc. Submarines are extremely weight-sensitive, and must be heavily armored mostly against the pressure of the sea. That means all the facilities for the planes need to follow the sub’s weight and pressure constraints. I believe a pound of submarine costs something like 10 times what a pound of surface ship costs. The submarines that carried aircraft (or even the deck launched missiles) were unpopular with the crews, for the simple reason that if one of the hangers accidentally flooded, it would take the submarine on a one-way trip to the bottom. I believe this happened on at least one sub. Finally, an aircraft carrier is the center of a large group of supporting ships and planes that stop anything else from coming near it. If a submarine travelled with a surface fleet it wouldn’t have many advantages over a conventional aircraft carrier, and if it did not, it would be a sitting duck any time it had to hang around surfaced launching and recovering planes. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/15 "2001-06-03T00:17:28Z")
There were also zeppelin carriers too…the planes had a big hook on top and would match speeds with the zep and snag a line underneath. Needless to say, the idea never really caught on, naval carriers did a better job. By the time WWII came along, nobody was using lighter than air craft much any more. ---
**Author:** ![flyboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@flyboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flyboy)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/16 "2001-06-03T00:25:35Z")
All this is true. The idea is way too impractical to ever catch on. Also, keep in mind that one of the largest powers of the carrier battle group is deterrence. We project power by sending them abroad, rarely using them in an offensive strike capacity. If you park a carrier off someone’s coast, they’ll know it’s there. This is exactly what you want. ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/17 "2001-06-03T00:35:50Z")
Didn’t Hitler plan on constructing submergible floats to aim some nasty V2s at New York? ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/18 "2001-06-03T00:45:09Z")
The U. S. Navy made extensive use of dirigibles (blimps) for anti-submarine patrol throughout WW II and on through the fifties. I was a kid in Berkeley in the '50s and remember seeing them often. ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/19 "2001-06-03T05:07:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by beatle \* > **…I was a kid in Berkeley in the '50s…** Alta Bates or Herrick? ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065/20 "2001-06-03T05:17:52Z")
I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, if that was the question. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-aircraft-carriers/67065.md?page=2)