Quick Question on Transport

Has there or is there, anyway to make a submarine that is a transport? Imagine that for beach landings, no need for a ship or anything of the sort but a submarine that was hundreds of feet long, unarmed and used to transport people - for beach landings.

Is there such a machine?

Because to me, if made and it worked would be an amazing piece of kit.

Well... that depends on if it has underwater deployment capabilities. That would be amazing. Launch 3 AAAVs from 200ft below. Wow, and maybe put some artillery on the deck for underwater fire support... ok ill stop dreaming

Check out this link. It's an article about divers who recently found the wreckage of a Japanese I-400 class submarine from WWII. The I-400 was an underwater aircraft carrier. It held three bombers in a watertight hanger and carried the parts to build and fly a fourth.

Here's another:

The 2 seater Yokosuka E14Y reconnaissance floatplane was known as a "Glen". It was used for many reconnaisssance flights over Australia during World War 2. It was stowed in a cylindrical water tight hangar at the front of Japanese "I" type submarines. The "Glen" was able to be broken down into 12 components for storage in the hangar.

The "Glen", once assembled on the deck of the submarine, was launched from a 20 metre inclined steel tracked catapult on the forward deck. Being very slow it was an easy target for Allied aircraft if spotted. Their recce flights (normally around 5 hours duration) were usually carried out under the cover of darkness to avoid such an occurrence.

The fuselage and upper wings surfaces of the "Glen" were painted dark camouflage green while the underneath surfaces were painted dark grey. The sides of the fuselage featured a large red Rising Sun Japanese symbol.

The "Glen" was armed with a 7.7 mm machine gun mounted in the rear cockpit.

Source

[edit on 15-4-2005 by PeanutButterJellyTime]

The Aircraft Carrier was what made me wonder...why not troops as well?

Anyone have any info on this?

Special Forces are deployed from submarines.

i don't know of a spacific transport submarine but that dosn't preclude one being around. any "boomer" wth the missles and launch systems removed would be fairly easily converted to troop use though. in ww2 they used ww1 destrroyers with a boiler system removed as "high speed transports" (only high speed compared to a transport ship :lol):.

also subs used to have guns both anti-aircraft as well as for anti ship use. as such it would not be unimaginable to have artillery set up on deck. in all honesty thinking about it i would be surprised if there wasn't a trasport sub in service.

Well, what I'm thinking is a lot of soldiers. In the higher hundreds, if not thousand + mark.

I myself think it would be possible and would be damn useful for an invasion. Imagine not being able to track the landing craft till they were on the beaches and once they held them, then the rest (tanks, artillary, etc) could easily moved into place. An' after all a submarine is a lot harder to track then your average ship.

odium says:

"I myself think it would be possible and would be damn useful for an invasion. Imagine not being able to track the landing craft till they were on the beaches and once they held them, then the rest (tanks, artillary, etc) could easily moved into place. An' after all a submarine is a lot harder to track then your average ship."

Very few ground assaults use landing craft compared to World War II or Inchon. typically, smaller teams of people would come in via helicopter or V-22, secure strategicve locations (perhaps an airpord) and move out from there.

Besides, US military doctrine involves complete airspace control within a short time. If an enemy knows there're American landing craft, they're not going to try to stop them at the beaches; they'd be sitting ducks for our own aircraft, with bunker busters, PGMs, etc.

off the s treet and others are correct. Submarines today often transport special teams ..usually small numbers. Depending on the job requirement of course. Submarines are constantly under conversion and modification in order to do this job.
To transport large numbers of troops by submarine is not practical today when so other many ways are available to do it quicker and more effeciently.
Remember..today a invasion or assault is often a combined effort of many often with a feint to make it look real in another arena. Todays aircraft transports often have radar that can guide them under most other radar systems. Also remember that radar and other electronic frequency jammers often fly ahead of these waves of transports to block the skys electronically to mask this movement.
If you noticed in the two gulf wars...and also in Afganistan..it became very quick death to turn on a radar set except perhapsed for only the most narrow and brief sweeps. It also became death to use a walkie talkie outside certain pre arrangements...cell phones too. All of these electronic gadgets can be monitored jammed or destroyed....quickly once the assets are in place to do so. The Taliban and Iraqis learned this quickly and stopped using these devices or risk death. This is how we protect invasion troops...in large numbers...or even small numbers if necessary.
Large numbers of troops are moved quickly today by air transport...and ships are used to transport heavy equipment once seaports or other arrangements are secured. These ships are often called roll on roll offs.
Thanks Orangetom

The marines also have lots of equipment working off US Navy ships for assaults on beachs ..nations etc.
Once again ..air cover combined with monitoring the whole electronic spectrum is in play .. Marines are devoutly religious about air cover and ground people working together very closely ...and rightly so. History dictates and teaches this is a hard won lesson by the Marines. US Marines pioneered this techineque out of necessity. Orangetom

I think perhaps in WWII such a submarine would have been useful, but I don't think it would have much use in today's modern military‘s.