what are u boats in world war 1

What are U-boats used for in ww1?

Germany retaliated by using its submarines to destroy neutral ships that were supplying the Allies. The formidable U-boats (unterseeboots) prowled the Atlantic armed with torpedoes. They were Germany's only weapon of advantage as Britain effectively blocked German ports to supplies.

What were U-boats and what did they do?

German submarines – or unterwasser boats (U-boats) – were on a mission to destroy merchant vessels carrying supplies to allied forces in order to hinder their war efforts. Aided by intelligence reports on the location, destination, and speed of merchant vessels, the U-boats would search the seas for victims.

Did they use U-boats in ww1?

Submarines played a significant military role for the first time during the First World War. Both the British and German navies made use of their submarines against enemy warships from the outset. Franz Becker commanded German submarines – known as U-boats – from 1915.

Was the ww1 U-boat a death trap?

The Death-Trap Working on a German U-boat was one of the most dangerous roles in the war. While German U-boats certainly posed an enormous threat to Allied ships – both naval and commercial – they could also be extremely dangerous for the crews that manned them.

Why do they call them U-boats?

These U-boats (an abbreviation of Unterseeboot, the German word for “undersea boat”) prowled the oceans in search of prey and could attack ships 20 times their size from both above and below the surface with their deck guns and torpedoes.

What's the definition of U-boat?

Definition of U-boat : a German submarine.

How did U-boats affect the fighting on land?

What was the most significant effect of U-boat attacks on the fighting on land? They destroyed vital supplies. What is one way the Eastern Front was different from the Western Front? The Eastern Front had front lines that moved widely, while the Western Front did not.

How long would U-boats stay underwater?

The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time.

How many U-boats are left?

The German Unterseeboot, or U-boat, was a submarine that appeared seemingly out of nowhere to destroy both military and commercial ships. Despite their prevalence during WWI and WWII, only four U-boats exist today.

What weapons did U-boats have?

The U-boats' main weapon was the torpedo, though mines and deck guns (while surfaced) were also used. By the end of the war, almost 3,000 Allied ships (175 warships; 2,825 merchant ships) had been sunk by U-boat torpedoes.

Did U-boats have to surface to fire?

And it must have done so on the surface of the water, where it was able to travel at a faster speed than the ships it pursued. By approaching from astern, where the lookouts rarely checked, the U-boat would be able to slip inside the convoy undetected, fire at close range, then submerge in order to get away.

How did Allies defend against U-boats?

The Allies' defence against, and eventual victory over, the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic was based on three main factors: the convoy system, in which merchant ships were herded across the North Atlantic and elsewhere in formations of up to 60 ships, protected, as far as possible, by naval escorts and ...

How deep was the Brandtaucher in 1855?

In 1855, during one of those tests, the boat malfunctioned. The Brandtaucher plunged fifty-four vertical feet and refused to ascend from the seafloor.

What class of submarines did Germany have?

The U-19 class of 1912–13 saw the first diesel engine installed in a German navy boat. At the start of World War I in 1914, Germany had 48 submarines of 13 classes in service or under construction. During that war the Imperial German Navy used SM U-1 for training.

What was the U-995 used for?

U-995, a typical VIIC/41 U-boat on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial. U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ( commerce raiding) ...

What is a U boat?

The term is an anglicised version of the German word U-Boot [ˈuːboːt] ( listen), a shortening of Unterseeboot ('under -sea-bo at'), though the German term refers to any submarine. Austro-Hungarian Navy submarines were also known as U-boats.

What was the first ship to be sunk by a submarine?

On 5 September 1914, HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo. On 22 September, U-9 under the command of Otto Weddigen sank the obsolete British warships HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy and HMS Hogue (the " Live Bait Squadron ") in a single hour.

What were the main targets of the U-boat campaign?

The primary targets of the U-boat campaigns in both wars were the merchant convoys bringing supplies from Canada and other parts of the British Empire, and from the United States, to the United Kingdom and (during the Second World War) to the Soviet Union and the Allied territories in the Mediterranean.

Why was the 201 U-boat a failure?

The initial Type 201 was a failure because of hull cracking; the subsequent Type 205, first commissioned in 1967, was a success, and 12 were built for the German navy. To continue the U-boat tradition, the new boats received the classic "U" designation starting with the U-1 .

3. Escalation

The harshness of the U-boat campaign increases when 1915 unrestricted warfare against merchant vessels is declared as a German reaction to the British blockade

4. Deadly Mediterranean

From 1915-1917, U-boats have some stunning successes in the Mediterranean.

5. Crisis

Unrestricted U-boat warfare nearly defeats Britain but brings America in the war in 1917

6. Finale

At the defeat of Germany in 1918 by the British blockade, the U-boat war is called off - time for a resumé.

How many GRT were sinking in 1917?

In February 1917 U-boats sank over 414,000 GRT in the war zone around Britain, 80% of the total for the month; in March they sank over 500,000 (90%), in April over 600,000 of 860,000 GRT, the highest total sinkings of the war. This, however was the high point.

How many torpedoes did the U-9 put into Hogue?

Weddigen sent one torpedo into Aboukir. The captains of Hogue and Cressy assumed Aboukir had struck a mine and came up to assist. U-9 put two torpedoes into Hogue, and then hit Cressy with two more torpedoes as the cruiser tried to flee. The three cruisers sank in less than an hour, killing 1,460 British sailors.

What ship did Weddigen sink?

Three weeks later, on 15 October, Weddigen also sank the old cruiser HMS Hawke, and the crew of U-9 became national heroes. Each was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, except for Weddigen, who received the Iron Cross First Class.

What happened to the U-18?

U-18 then suffered a failure of her diving plane motor and the boat became unable to maintain her depth, at one point even impacting the seabed. Eventually, her captain was forced to surface and scuttle his command, and all but one crew-member were picked up by British boats.

What was the German plan for the war in 1917?

In 1917 Germany decided to resume full unrestricted submarine warfare. It was expected to bring America into the war, but the Germans gambled that they could defeat Britain by this means before the US could mobilize. German planners estimated that if the sunk tonnage were to exceed 600,000 tons per month, Britain would be forced to sue for peace after five to six months.

How many tons of U-boats were sunk in the Atlantic?

After the Armistice, the remaining U-boats joined the High Seas Fleet in surrender, and were interned at Harwich . Of the 12.5 million tons of Allied shipping destroyed in World War I, over 8 million tons, two-thirds of the total, had been sunk in the waters of the Atlantic war zone.

What was the German Navy's strategy in 1916?

In 1916 the German Navy returned to a strategy of using the U-boats to erode the Grand Fleet 's numerical superiority by staging a series of operations designed to lure the Grand Fleet into a U-boat trap.

Overview

World War I (1914–1918)

Early U-boats (1850–1914)

Interwar years (1919–1939)

World War II (1939–1945)

Post–World War II and Cold War (after 1945)

See also

Further reading