>Sure, on paper. I would submit, however, that there were ways of
>doing that which didn't involve actually destroying them in
>such a flagrantly pointless way. It isn't as though the War
>Department had never bullshitted the Russians before. Hell, in 1946
>the Army was still semi-seriously kicking around the idea of
>bombing them. I doubt the Navy brass really cared that
>much about plausible deniability.

There is that. Thinking more about 'The Hunt for Red October' scenario, there probably was no way that the Russians could have verified that the USN used them as target practice at the time. Then roughly 7 years later the USS Tunny showed up with an attachment in 1953 - While maybe not directly related, having an example of a "cargo pod" on a submarine with a larger hatch might have at least spawned ideas.

(I also find it crazy to think that the I-401 was about half the length of the Iowa class battleships...)

>Also, a note: the I in Japanese submarine designations like
>I-401, I-19 et al. was just a size classification.

>As an aside to the aside, I, Ro, and Ha are just
>the first three syllables in the Japanese syllabary, as it is
>traditionally ordered for memorization—functionally the same as
>if the US Navy had grouped its subs by size categories A, B, and C.

History and language bonus facts, for the win.