Yari Mini-Sub

The **Yari** is a mini submarine used by the Imperial Navy.

## History

The Empire of the Rising Sun struck at the Soviets without warning, and with a seemingly uncanny knowledge of the Union's few coastal vulnerabilities. This foresight must have been partly due to the Empire's shinobi network, for its hooded assassins have gained a fearsome reputation for procuring sensitive information brutally and reliably. Another theory growing in popularity is that the Empire managed to thoroughly scout northern Europe and Asia from undersea, avoiding detection while relaying essential tactical data back to Imperial military command. These underwater scouting missions were conducted by young sailors operating the Empire of the Rising Sun's *Yari* mini-subs, the smallest submersible combat vessels ever invented. Although these mini-subs initially appear rather non threatening due to their size and relatively benign shape, the consequences of their successful scouting reveal them to be a huge threat. It also turns out that Yari mini-subs have fairly significant attack power, and moreover, that the sailors piloting these vessels are prepared to lay down their lives for the Empire of the Rising Sun's ambitions.

Although it is rather late for this information to be surfacing from the Soviet Union's perspective, much has been gleaned from the collected remains of multiple Yari mini-subs found destroyed off the coast of northern Russia. Having carefully studied the Soviets' submarine program and the capabilities of their enemies' navies, the Emperor's chief naval technicians must have developed the Yari as an inexpensive miniature submarine suitable for reconnaissance and light skirmishing. Each of these vessels is fitted with a pair of light torpedo tubes, which, while far less powerful than the torpedoes of a Soviet Akula-class, nevertheless can eventually puncture and sink even the largest vessel (as the Soviet Union unwittingly discovered). Mini-subs are also virtually undetectable when submerged, which is part of what makes them so dangerous. And because they are cheap to manufacture, they can quickly be deployed to support Imperial blockades.

While ill-equipped to fend off a complete naval strike group, the Yari mini-sub does have a secret weapon that can make is deadly even to vessels many times its size: Its pilot, loyally bound to his Emperor, is prepared to use his craft in a battering maneuver known as the "Last Voyage", which can severely damage even the sturdiest hull. This destroys the Yari mini-sub in the process. Soviet forces were completely caught off guard in their first encounters against this maneuver, which led to the shocking defeat of one of the Union's most notorious Akula wolf packs. The sociology that leads Imperial sailors to be willing to use such a strategy is still being studied carefully, and diametrically-opposing theories abound, with some pundits insisting that mini-sub sailors must be extremely brave while others claim they are driven by fear.

However, their enemies are quite obviously dolphins, who can quite easily reduce the Yari's to scrap and can evade their suicide attacks with ease, as their agility was granted by millions of years of evolution, honed to a second nature, thus rendering Yari subs quite ineffective against them.