Editing U-boat (section)

==Early U-boats (1850–1914)==
[[File:SM U 1 800px.jpg|left|thumb|The first German submarine, the SM ''U-1''.]]
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.{{Sfn|Showell||p=23}}{{Sfn|Chaffin||p=53}}
[[Inventor]] and [[engineer]] [[Wilhelm Bauer]] had designed this vessel in 1850, and [[August Howaldt|Schweffel and Howaldt]] constructed it in Kiel. [[Dredging]] operations in 1887 rediscovered ''Brandtaucher''; she was later raised and put on historical display in Germany. The boats ''Nordenfelt I'' and ''Nordenfelt II'', built to a [[Nordenfelt submarine|Nordenfelt]] design, followed in 1890. In 1903, the [[Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft]] dockyard in Kiel completed the first fully functional German-built submarine, ''[[Russian submarine Forel|Forelle]]'',{{Sfn|Showell||p=201}} which [[Krupp]] sold to Russia during the [[Russo-Japanese War]] in April 1903.{{Sfn|Showell||p=|pp=22-29}}

At the beginning of the century, the German commander of the Navy [[Alfred von Tirpitz]] was building the [[High Seas Fleet]] with which he intended to challenge the supremacy of the [[Royal Navy]]. He focused on expensive [[battleship]]s and there was no role for submarines in his fleet. Only when Krupp exported its submarines to Russia, Italy, Norway and Austria-Hungary did Tirpitz order one submarine.{{Sfn|Blair||p=6}} The {{SMU|U-1|Germany|6}} was a completely redesigned {{sclass|Karp|submarine|1}} and when the [[Imperial German Navy]] commissioned it on 14 December 1906,{{Sfn|Showell||p=30}} it was the last major navy to adopt submarines.{{Sfn|Blair||p=6}} The ''U-1'' had a double hull and a single torpedo tube. It used an [[electric motor]] powered by batteries for submerged propulsion and a [[Körting Hannover|Körting]] [[kerosene]] engine for charging the batteries and propulsion on the surface. The 50%-larger {{SMU|U-2|Germany|6}} (commissioned in 1908) had two torpedo tubes.{{Sfn|Rössler|2001|p=22}}

[[File:SM U 11 800px.jpg|thumb|The German submarine ''U-14'', showing the kerosene vapour trail.]]Between 1908 and 1910, fourteen big boats with four torpedo tubes and two reload torpedoes were ordered. These boats used a kerosene engine which was safer than [[gasoline]] and more powerful than [[steam]], but the white exhaust of the kerosene betrayed the presence of the U-boats, robbing them of their primary asset, their stealth. Diesel engines did not have that disadvantage, but a powerful and reliable diesel engine was still under development. Finally, the {{SMU|U-19|Germany|2}} class of 1912–13 had the first diesel engine installed in a German navy boat. Between 1910 and 1912, twenty-three diesel U-boats were ordered.{{Sfn|Blair||p=7}} 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. Retired in 1919, she remains on display at the [[Deutsches Museum]] in Munich.{{Sfn|Showell||p=|pp=36-37}}