but were the Americans subjected to the same kind of enemies the Germans faced? The Japanese, with all due respect, were not as competant as compared with the Allies at hunting submarines. The fact that the Pacific is larger than the Alanatic, and that the U-boats were forced to leave port at such dangerous distances from the UK, they had to risk air detection.

Could the Gato avoid that? The Japanese didn't have a naval base right outside of Haweii, and American submarines could sail openly out to port, and stay on the surface until they actually saw some smoke on the horizen. The Japanese didn't have great radar sets to put on their long range sea planes, besides, the Pacific is too wide to be searched.