Mechanisms of Imperial Japanese Navy Warships in 3-D

Numbers

The purpose of the above web pages is designed to help you identify IJN submarines if you have an ID number (i.e. from her conning tower) to start.

Many IJN submarines start life with one numeric identifier (i.e. I am going to the above Kaidai Type 3A submarine here as an example. She was originally ordered as No.64), change to another identifier when she was launched (No.64 becomes I.53), and sometimes makes yet another change (I.53 renumbered as I.153). This makes it very difficult sometimes to determine which boat you are looking at.

To use this table, click the web page which has the number of interest (i.e. if you have 53, click 51-100). When you find the number, take a look at what is possible (in this case, there are 5 possibilities - I.53 a C(3) Type, I.53 a Kaidai Type 3A, No.53 a Kaidai Type 2, RO.53 a Kaichu(6) Type, and RO.53 a Vickers L(2) type.

The Kaidai Type 2 and Kaichu(6) can be ignored since they were canceled. The Vickers L(2) type can be ignored because it is too old a type to match the features in your photo. So this leaves only the C(3) and Kaidai Type 3A as possibilities A quick comparison of the features of the boat in your picture will allow you to determine that it is a Kaidai Type 3A sub.

The information and ship class nomenclature in these pages have all been collected from the standard reference work "Warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945" by Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, and Peter Mickel.