![]() ![]() The kaitens would close to tactical range, come to periscope depth for a brief re-targeting at around 1000 meters, make course corrections, and then dive and run at the calculated position of the target until a hit was obtained. The 'normal' attack method (if one can call it that) was for a mother sub carrying from 4-6 kaitens to approach the target area, locate the target vessels, and then release her kaitens to attack at a range of between 6-7000 meters. ![]() (Kaiten images courtesy of Burl Burlingame) Note the extreme crudity of construction. Other details of kaiten, including tail form, control surfaces, and propellers. The kaiten I saw at Etajima absolutely gave me the creeps. All in all, it was a crude, nasty way for a man to kill himself. The nose assembly was packed with 3000+ pounds of high explosive the tail section contained the propulsion unit. Access to the kaiten was through hatches leading up from the sub and into the belly of the weapon. ![]() He sat in a canvas chair practically on the deck of the kaiten, a crude periscope directly in front of him, and the necessary controls close to hand in the cockpit. The kaiten was aptly described by Theodore Cook as "not so much a ship as an insertion of a human being into a very large torpedo." The guts of the beast was a standard Type-93 24" torpedo, with the mid-section elongated to create the pilot's space. Notable among these was the kaiten ("Turning of the Heavens") suicide submarine. ![]() In short order, Japan began applying the same doctrine in the creation of new weapons systems. Thus, with the invasion of the Phillipines, the Japanese first formulated and implemented 'Special Attack' tactics in the form of suicide aircraft attacks: the kamikazes. By late 1944, the war situation had deteriorated for Japan to the point where extraordinary measures were seen as offering the only way out of an increasingly grim military predicament. ![]()
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