Talk:Kaiten/Archive 1

Classification

Is this classified as a submarine? Oberiko 14:43, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

God bless those brave Soldiers--The world salutes the Rising Star...Try to be one 15:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Fictional Kaiten account

David Mitchell writes a fictional account of a kaiten pilot in his excellent book number9dream.

Did not manage to save the life of 100k+ people

The US cruiser which carried the fissile material core of Nagasaki A-bomb was sunk by a kaiten, but only on its way back to USA...

The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was sunk by torpedoes not Kaiten, according to the Wikipedia article on her.204.80.61.10 17:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)Bennett Turk

Those were kaiten, which are still torpedoes. The Japanese submarine I-58 that sunk it was specifically equipped with kaiten torpedoes.71.223.88.88 (talk) 19:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

If the I-58 were carrying Kaitens or even tried to deploy them that day, the Indianapolis would have escaped. Kaitens had to be carried on the sub deck and slowed down the mother-ship submarine significantly. The I-58 sank the Indianapolis the old fashioned way - stalked it, got into firing position and used regular torpedoes. Eqdoktor (talk) 07:24, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Range of torpedo

In the article about Type 93 torpedo it is written that its range is about 40 (!) kilometers. How it then could be that the Kaiten which was derived from this torpedo (even the same picture is reused for both) "have to be launched within a close distance to the target"? Audriusa 07:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's a bit confusing, but even at 40km, the submarines would be well within the range of American scout planes... and if they have to stay close to the surface to avoid destroying the Kaitens, they'd pretty much be sitting ducks for attacking planes or destroyers. At least when using normal torpedoes they could approach the targets at much greater depth, where they'd be harder to spot. Mark Grant 13:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Type 93 (long lance) torpedoes are the big torpedoes used on destroyers and cruisers. They were launched from the decks of the ships against other ships on fleet actions and used volatile liquid oxygen as fuel (hence the long range and speed). Submarines typically do not use the Long Lance.

Why did the Kaitens launch at close range? Bacause of the simple matter at 40km (25 miles) you can't even see the target let alone aim at it thru a small periscope of the Kaiten. Sure you could launch the Kaiten blindly at 25 miles at a moving target, its a 100% certainty he would miss it by miles and blow himself up in the open ocean. Eqdoktor (talk) 07:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Kaiten movie

In 2006 a Japanese movie was made about kaitens and their crews. The movie has the English title "Sea Without Exit" and the Japanese title "Deguchi no nai umi". The movie shows a lot of the submarines both from the inside and outside and how they operated etc. We should perhaps mention the movie in the article in some way and perhaps link to the IMDB article about the movie or similar? Here is the IMDB article link. --David Göthberg 03:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 19:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Kaiten "Change the World"?

I changed the translation of Kaiten that was listed as "Change the World". When I just saw it, I couldn't make a connection as to how 回天 (Kaiten) can be translated into as such. 回 means "to turn", "to circle", or "to return", and 天 means "sky" and/or "heavens". I can understand that many Japanese kanji words can actually mean many things, especially if and when other than original meanings are implied, but I think implying 回 for change, 天 for world is poor translation at best (although adding another word 下 to 天、 making it 天下 means world or "world under the sky". Without that addition, it's just sky or heavens).