On the plus side they had enough fuel to circle the globe 1.5 times and three torpedo aircraft.
On the minus side they had a huge radar signature, took almost a full minute to dive and then only had a test depth of 300’. They fact that they could travel 30,000 miles was offset by the fact that there was no cold refrigeration stores or AC. The crew would have died of disease and malnutrition long before needing a fill up. They were slow and slow to turn and the offset hanger deck hull caused a serious pull to port.
Still they were pretty amazing craft. I am not sure why we thought needed keep them from the Russians, it is not like the Russians couldn't figure out how to do it on their own.
Don't know. Those were crazy times near, and at the end of the war. We were both in Germany snatching German scientists and technology. We were blocking them in Korea at the 38th parallel to keep them from invading Japan. The Russians were dismantling Japanese factories in China and shipping the stuff back to Russia, keeping it out of U.S. hands. We were grabbing Japanese technology elsewhere and keeping it from the Russians. The Russians didn't figure out a lot on their own, a lot was copied from us (the bomb) and others. Copying served them well for a while.