In WW2 Japan had some of the largest submarines with well tested technologies and a doctrine that was completely impractical. Even when the German and american navies showed how submarines should be used, the Japanese lagged far behind, resulting on one of the least effective submarine forces in the war.

In a few pages Stille explained the development and doctrine of the Imperial navy's submarine force and why these were fatally flawed. He then proceesed to document the different fleet submarines, their design and fate.

There is no grand sweeping vision of the war but considering how japan misused their submarines, that makes sense. you probably can find larger, more detailed books but for a quick refference and overview, this does the job.

You can get the information (and in greater detail) in this book on-line for free...note "www.combinedfleet.com" in the bibliography. Very few "new" pictures. Very few interior pics except the 2-3 "standard" ones you can get anywhere. Only 1 exploded view of an IJN sub, with minimal detail. Nice artwork though.

Somewhere in the USN archives is a treasure trove of information and pictures taken from IJN subs postwar...this book did nothing to tap into it. Just the same old tired information from the standard IJN sub texts rearranged and regurgitated yet again for a royalty check.

You can get the information (and in greater detail) in this book on-line for free...note "www.combinedfleet.com" in the bibliography. Very few "new" pictures. Very few interior pics except the 2-3 "standard" ones you can get anywhere. Only 1 exploded view of an IJN sub, with minimal detail. Nice artwork though.

Somewhere in the USN archives is a treasure trove of information and pictures taken from IJN subs postwar...this book did nothing to tap into it. Just the same old tired information from the standard IJN sub texts rearranged and regurgitated yet again for a royalty check.

This book presents a little know facet of world war two naval operations with the thoroughness that readers of New Vanguard books have come to expect.

To be fair it is mostly a technical account of the development and design of Japanese submarines so the tactical use of this force is not as prevalent in the accounts aside from the losses and successes. Imperial Japanese submarines had little to show in terms of success so this may account for the lack of operational details in the book.

The combination of the narrative, pictures and artwork make this book a great value for the cost and will enable the purchaser to fill in a little known aspect of the Pacific Naval War quite effectively.

Mark Stille's IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY SUBMARINES 1941-45 analyzes the Japanese submarine fleet from 1941-45 for specialty military collections strong in military equipment surveys. The Japanese force should have been effective, but failed in many ways: color plates and analysis describes the technical advances fostered by the Imperial Japanese Navy - and why they failed against all odds.

Mark Stille's Imperial Japanese Navy Submarines 1941-45, No. 135 in Osprey's New Vanguard series, nicely summarizes the role of those oft-neglected submarines in the Second World War. Up front, the author defines his focus, concentrating on the I-boats and RO-boats that carried the main effort in the war. While this volume might have had just a tad bit more analysis, it is quite a bit better than the earlier Osprey volume on U.S. submarines and is well worth the cost. Furthermore, the excellent artwork provides a nice value-added dimension to this volume.

Imperial Japanese Navy Submarines 1941-45 starts with a brief 2-page introduction on the origins of the Japanese submarine force, then discusses how they were designed to support Japan's `decisive battle' strategy against the United States. Unlike other navies, the Japanese submarine doctrine oriented their submarines toward long-range anti-surface warfare missions, rather than anti-commerce. Even before the war, as the author notes, Japanese exercises indicated that this doctrine just didn't work, but the Japanese Navy stuck with it and essentially wasted much of their submarine effort in the war. The heart of this volume is about 30 pages that provide capsule details on each class of Japanese submarine, including technical characteristics, numbers built and wartime career. These are short, but very good and enhance the reference value of this volume. The author also provides a short 2-page post-mortem on why Japan's submarine force was a failure.

The color plates in this volume include Japanese fleet submarines (I-53, I-68 and I-176); cruiser submarines (I-1, I-8, I-9); "monster" submarines I-14 and I-401; a cutaway of the B-1 type submarine I-35; RO-type submarines RO-61, RO-46 and RO-106; I-25 launching its floatplane to attack the Oregon coast and Kaiten carriers. This volume could have used a summary table listing the top-scoring Japanese submarines in the war, detailing the sub's captain and number of ships/tonnage sunk (which is generally provided for the U.S. and German submarine top-scorers in World War 2), as well as more information on submarine commanders. A summary of total boats built during war and losses per year would also have been nice. Obviously space constraints were tight, but the author succeeded in packing a good amount of information into this short volume.