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Scale: 1/125
Length: 24.13"
Code: MBSGUT

Although in theory, U-boats could have been useful fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, in practice they were most effectively used in an economic-warfare role, enforcing a naval blockade against enemy shipping. The primary targets of the U-boat campaigns in both wars were the merchant convoys bringing supplies from the British Empire and the United States to the island of Great Britain. Austrian submarines of World War I were also known as U-boats.

The distinction between U-boat and submarine is common in English-language usage (where U-boat refers exclusively to the German vessels of the World Wars) but is unknown in German, in which the term U-Boot refers to any submarine.

The first submarine built in Germany was the Brandtaucher, designed in 1850 by the inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer and built by Schweffel & Howaldt in Kiel for the German Navy.

This was followed in 1890 by W1 and W2, built to a Nordenfelt design. In 1904, Krupp's dockyard in Kiel completed a submarine which was sold to Russia. The first works were carried out by the Spanish engineer Raymondo Lorenzo d'Equevilley Montjustin (submarine 'Narval') The first for the German Navy was built in 1905. This was the "Karp" class which had a double hull with a Körting kerosene engine and a single torpedo tube. This was designated U-1, with the 50% larger U-2 design having two tubes. A diesel engine was not installed in a German Navy boat until the U-19 class of 1912–13. At the start of World War I Germany had 48 submarines in service or under construction of 13 different classes.