U-5 class submarine (Austria-Hungary)

The U-5 class was a class

Ship class

A ship class is a group of ships of a similar design. This is distinct from a ship-type, which might reflect a similarity of tonnage or intended use. For example, the is a nuclear aircraft carrier of the Nimitz class....

of three submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s or U-boats that were operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy

Austro-Hungarian Navy

The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....

before and during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The class was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Navy's efforts to competitively evaluate three foreign submarine designs.

The design of the boats was based upon John Philip Holland

John Philip Holland

John Philip Holland was an Irish engineer who developed the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the U.S...

's submarine design and featured a single, teardrop hull

Teardrop hull

A teardrop hull is a submarine hull design which emphasizes hydrodynamic flow above all other factors. Benefits over previous types include increased underwater speed and a smaller acoustic signature, making detection by sonar more difficult...

, which resembled the design of modern nuclear submarines. The class members were just over 105 feet (32 m) long and displaced

Displacement (ship)

A ship's displacement is its weight at any given time, generally expressed in metric tons or long tons. The term is often used to mean the ship's weight when it is loaded to its maximum capacity. A number of synonymous terms exist for this maximum weight, such as loaded displacement, full load...

240 metric tons (264.6 ST) surfaced and 273 metric tons (300.9 ST) submerged. All were originally equipped with two bow torpedo tubes and could carry four torpedoes. The first two boats, U-5 and U-6, built specifically for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, to the same design as the United States C class submarine

United States C class submarine

The C class submarines were five boats built for the United States Navy by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company in Quincy, Massachusetts, under a subcontract from the Electric Boat Company. Built between 1906–1909, and in commission from 1908–1919, all five were subsequently sold for...

were partially constructed in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and completed at Whitehead & Co. at Fiume

Rijeka

Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...

. The third was completely constructed by Whitehead's at Fiume and purchased by Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

to bolster their U-boat fleet after the outbreak of World War I.

All three boats had successes during World War I; between them they sank five ships with a combined tonnage of 22,391. In addition they captured seven ships as prize

Prize (law)

Prize is a term used in admiralty law to refer to equipment, vehicles, vessels, and cargo captured during armed conflict. The most common use of prize in this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and its cargo as a prize of war. In the past, it was common that the capturing force would be allotted...

s and damaged , a French dreadnought

Dreadnought

The dreadnought was the predominant type of 20th-century battleship. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts...

of 22,189 tons displacement. All three boats were sunk during the war, though U-5, the lead boat of the class, was raised and recommissioned after her sinking. After the war's end, U-5, the only survivor of the class, was ceded to Italy as a war reparation and was broken up in 1920.

Design and construction

In 1904, after allowing the navies of other countries to pioneer submarine developments, the Austro-Hungarian Navy

Austro-Hungarian Navy

The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....

ordered the Austrian Naval Technical Committee (MTK) to produce a submarine design. The January 1905 design developed by the MTK and other designs submitted by the public as part of a design competition were all rejected by the Navy as impracticable. They instead opted to order two submarines each of designs by Simon Lake

Simon Lake

Simon Lake was a Quaker American mechanical engineer and naval architect who obtained over two hundred patents for advances in naval design and competed with John Philip Holland to build the first submarines for the United States Navy.Born in Pleasantville, New Jersey, Lake joined his father's...

, Germaniawerft

Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft

Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft was a German shipbuilding company, located in the harbour at Kiel, and one of the largest and most important builders of U-boats for the Kaiserliche Marine in World War I and the Kriegsmarine in World War II.-History:The company was founded in 1867 by Lloyd Foster, as...

, and John Philip Holland

John Philip Holland

John Philip Holland was an Irish engineer who developed the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the U.S...

for a competitive evaluation. The two Holland submarines comprised the U-5 class.The Lake design became the U-1 class

U-1 class submarine (Austria-Hungary)

The U-1 class was a class of two submarines or U-boats built for and operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy . The U-1-class boats were built to an American design at the navy yard in Pola...

while the Germaniawerft design became the U-3 class

U-3 class submarine (Austria-Hungary)

The U-3 class was a class of two submarines or U-boats built for and operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy . The U-3-class boats were designed and built by Germaniawerft of Kiel, Germany...

. The Navy authorized two boats, U-5 and U-6, from Whitehead & Co. of Fiume in 1906.

The U-5 class was built to the same design as the C class for the US Navy

United States C class submarine

and was built by Robert Whitehead

Robert Whitehead

Robert Whitehead was an English engineer. He developed the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo. His company, located in the Austrian naval centre in Fiume, was the world leader in torpedo development and production up to the First World War.- Early life:He was born the son of a...

's firm of Whitehead & Co. under license from Holland and his company, Electric Boat

Electric boat

While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power and gasoline engines also remaining popular, boats powered by electricity have been used for over 120 years. Electric boats were very popular from the 1880s until the 1920s, when the internal combustion...

. Components for the first two Austrian boats were manufactured by the Electric Boat Company and assembled at Fiume, while the third boat was a speculative private venture by Whitehead that failed to find a buyer and was purchased by Austria-Hungary upon the outbreak of World War I.

The U-5 class boats had a single-hull

Hull (watercraft)

A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...

ed design with a teardrop-shape

Teardrop hull

that bore a strong resemblance to modern nuclear submarines. The boats were just over 105 feet (32 m) long and displaced

Displacement (ship)

240 tonnes (264.6 ST) surfaced, and 273 tonnes (300.9 ST) submerged. The torpedo tubes featured unique, cloverleaf-shaped design hatches that rotated on a central axis. The ships were powered by twin 6-cylinder gasoline engines while surfaced, but suffered from inadequate ventilation which resulted in frequent intoxication of the crew. While submerged, they were propelled by twin electric motor

Electric motor

An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...

s.

The first two boats, U-5 and U-6, were ordered by the Austro-Hungarian Navy for evaluation and were partially assembled in the United States, shipped to Fiume, and riveted together by Whitehead & Co., which, author Edwin Sieche reports, "caused a lot of trouble". U-5 was launched in February 1909 and was followed in June by the launch of U-6. Both boats were commissioned

Ship commissioning

Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...

by April 1910.

The third boat, originally named SS-3, was built on speculation entirely at Whitehead's in Fiume. The boat's design featured improvements in the electrical and mechanical systems. Gibson and Prendergast report that, when built, SS-3 was powered by electric motors for both surface and submerged running. When the surface performance of the electric motors proved disappointing in trials, SS-3s power-plant was rebuilt to match the gasoline/electric combination used in U-5 and U-6. SS-3 was launched in March 1911 and was offered to the Austro-Hungarian Navy, but because the evaluation of the first two U-5-class boats was still underway, they declined to purchase.

As built, the U-5-class boats were armed with two 45 centimetres (17.7 in) bow torpedo tube

Torpedo tube

A torpedo tube is a device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units installed aboard surface vessels...

s and could carry a supply of four torpedoes. By 1915, all had received a 3.7 cm/23 (1.5 in) deck gun

Deck gun

A deck gun is a type of artillery cannon mounted on the deck of a ship or submarine.The deck gun was used as a defensive weapon against smaller boats or ships and in certain cases where torpedo use was limited. Typically a crew of three; gunner, loader, and layer, operated the gun, while others...

Service career

U-5 and U-6 were both commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy

Austro-Hungarian Navy

The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....

by April 1910, and served as training boats through 1914, making as many as ten training cruises per month. During their early years, each boat was demonstrated to a foreign naval delegation; U-5 to a Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

vian detachment in 1911, U-6 to a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

group in 1910. At the beginning of World War I

World War I

in August 1914, U-5 and U-6 comprised half of the operational U-boat fleet of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

In the three years after SS-3s March 1911 launch, Whitehead's attempted to sell the boat to the navies of Peru

Peru

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, and Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, before the Austro-Hungarian Navy rejected an offer for the second time. With the outbreak of war, however, the Austro-Hungarian Navy purchased the unsold submarine to quickly bolster its fleet. Although provisionally commissioned as U-7, she was commissioned as U-12 in August 1914.

By late December 1914, all three of the U-5-class boats were based at the naval base at Cattaro and all took part in combat patrols. Between the three boats, they sank five ships with a combined tonnage of 22,391,Merchant ship tonnage is in gross register tons. Warship tonnage is in tons of displacement. captured seven ships, and damaged one dreadnought. U-6 was the least successful, sinking a single ship of ; U-5 was the most successful, sinking four ships with of a combined , including the French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta

French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta

The Léon Gambetta was a French Navy armoured cruiser of 12,400 tons, the lead ship of the her class. The Gambettas were larger than previous armoured cruisers of the class, but they lacked the heavier firepower. They also were vulnerable to underwater attacks.-Early history:She was launched on 26...

. U-12 damaged, but did not sink, the largest ship torpedoed by any of the U-5 class when she hit the French battleship on 21 December 1914.

Of the three boats of the class, only U-5 survived the war intact. U-12 was sunk with the loss of all hands when she hit a mine

Naval mine

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

near Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

in August 1915,Grant (p. 162), Gibson and Prendergast (p. 73), and Halpern (p. 150) report U-12s loss in August 1915, while Sieche (p. 23) and Gardiner (p. 343) report the loss in August 1916. while U-6 was scuttled by her crew in May 1916 after becoming trapped in an anti-submarine net

Anti-submarine net

An anti-submarine net is a device placed across the mouth of a harbour or a strait for protection against submarines.-Examples of anti-submarine nets:*Lake Macquarie anti-submarine boom*Indicator net*Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign...

that was a part of the Otranto Barrage

Otranto Barrage

The Otranto Barrage was an Allied naval blockade of the Otranto Straits between Brindisi in Italy and Corfu on the Albanian side of the Adriatic Sea in World War I. The blockade was intended to prevent the Austro-Hungarian Navy from escaping into the Mediterranean and threatening Allied operations...

. U-5 herself sank after hitting an Austro-Hungarian mine during a training exercise, but was raised, repaired and recommissioned before the war's end. U-5 was ceded to Italy as a war reparation and scrapped in 1920.

Class members

SM U-5

SM U-5 was laid down in April 1907 and launched in February 1909. She was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy in April 1910, and served as a training boat—sometimes making as many as ten cruises a month—through the beginning of the First World War in 1914. The submarine scored most of her wartime successes during the first year of the war while under the command of Georg Ritter von Trapp

Georg Ritter von Trapp

Korvettenkapitän Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp , known as Baron von Trapp, was an Austro-Hungarian Navy officer. His exploits at sea during World War I earned him numerous decorations, including the prestigious Military Order of Maria Theresa...

. The French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta

French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta

, sunk in April 1915, was the largest ship sunk by U-5. In May 1917, U-5 hit a mine and sank with the loss of six men. She was raised, rebuilt, and recommissioned, but sank no more ships. At the end of the war, U-5 was ceded to Italy as a war reparation, and scrapped in 1920. In all, U-5 sank four ships totaling 21,604 tons.

SM U-6

SM U-6 was laid down in February 1908 and launched the following June. She served as a training boat after her July 1910 commissioning into the Austro-Hungarian Navy. She served in that capacity through the beginning of World War I in 1914, making as many as ten training cruises a month. U-6 scored only one wartime success, sinking a French destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

in March 1916. In May that same year, she became entangled in anti-submarine net

Anti-submarine net

ting deployed as part of the Otranto Barrage

Otranto Barrage

. Coming under fire from drifters

Naval drifter

A naval drifter is a boat built along the lines of a commercial fishing drifter but fitted out for naval purposes. The use of naval drifters is paralleled by the use of naval trawlers....

running the nets, U-6 was abandoned and sunk. All of her crewmen were rescued and were held in captivity through the end of the war.

SM U-12

SM U-12 was built on speculation by Whitehead & Co. of Fiume under the name SS-3. She was laid down in 1909 and launched in March 1911 and featured improvements in the electrical and mechanical systems from the Holland design of her older sister boats, U-5 and U-6. Whitehead's tried selling SS-3 to several different navies, but she was finally bought by the Austro-Hungarian Navy after the outbreak of World War I, despite having been rejected twice before. She was commissioned as U-12 in August 1914. She sank only one ship during the war, a Greek cargo ship

Cargo ship

A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...

in May 1915, but had earlier captured six Montenegrin

Montenegro

Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

sailing vessels as prize

Prize (law)

s in March. U-12 also damaged, but did not sink, the French battleship in December 1914. While searching for targets in the vicinity of Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

in August 1915, U-12 struck a mine that blew her stern off, and sank with all hands, becoming the first Austro-Hungarian submarine sunk in the war. Her wreck was salvaged the next year by the Italians, who interred the bodies of U-12s crewmen in a Venetian cemetery.

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