U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. The term is an anglicized version of the German word U-Boot [ˈuːboːt] , a shortening of Unterseeboot (under-sea boat), … See more

Operations
During 1914, the U-boats operated against the British fleet: on 5 September 1914, the light cruiser HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo. On See more

Operations
During World War II, U-boat warfare was the major component of the Battle of the Atlantic, which began … See more

From 1955, the West German Bundesmarine was allowed to have a small navy. Initially, two sunken Type XXIIIs and a Type XXI were raised and repaired. In the … See more

The first submarine built in Germany, the three-man Brandtaucher, sank to the bottom of Kiel Harbor on 1 February 1851 during a test dive. Inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer had … See more

Construction
The Treaty of Versailles ending World War I signed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 limited the surface navy of Germany's new Weimar Republic to only six battleships, six cruisers, twelve destroyers See more

Further U-boat information
• List of U-boats never deployed
• List of successful U-boats
• List of U-boats of Germany
• I-boat, Japanese equivalent See more