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SM U-5 (Austria-Hungary)

SMU-5 Erprobung.jpg
U-5, at the trials
History
Austria-Hungary
Name: SM U-5
Ordered: 1906
Builder: Whitehead & Co., Fiume
Laid down: 9 April 1907
Launched: 10 February 1909
Sponsored by: Agathe Whitehead
Commissioned: 1 April 1910
Fate: Ceded to Italy as war reparation and scrapped, 1920
Service record
Commanders:
  • Urban Passerar (April 1910 – September 1912)
  • Lüdwig Eberhardt (September 1912 – June 1914)
  • Friedrich Schlosser (June 1914 – April 1915)
  • Georg Ritter von Trapp (April – October 1915)
  • Lüdwig Eberhardt (October – November 1915)
  • Friedrich Schlosser (November 1915 – July 1917)
  • Alfons Graf Montecuccoli (August – October 1918)
Victories:
  • 1 ship (7,929 GRT) sunk
  • 1 ship (1,034 GRT) taken as prize
  • 2 warships (12,641 GRT) sunk
General characteristics
Class and type: U-5-class submarine
Displacement:
  • 240 t surfaced
  • 273 t submerged
Length: 105 ft 4 in (32.11 m)
Beam: 13 ft 9 in (4.19 m)
Draft: 12 ft 10 in (3.91 m)
Propulsion:
Speed:
  • 10.75 knots (19.91 km/h) surfaced
  • 8.5 knots (15.7 km/h) submerged
Range:
  • 800 nmi (1,500 km) at 8.5 knots (15.7 km/h) surfaced
  • 48 nmi (89 km) at 6 knots (11.1 km/h) submerged
Complement: 19
Armament:

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2 × 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes (both in front)


list error: mixed text and list (help)
2 × 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes (both in front)

SM U-5 or U-V was the lead boat of the U-5 class of submarines or U-boats built for and operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy (German: Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine or K.u.K. Kriegsmarine) before and during the First World War. The submarine was built as part of a plan to evaluate foreign submarine designs, and was the first of three boats of the class built by Whitehead & Co. of Fiume after a design by American John Philip Holland.

U-5 was laid down in April 1907 and launched in February 1909. The double-hulled submarine was just over 105 feet (32 m) long and displaced between 240 and 273 metric tons (265 and 301 short tons), depending on whether surfaced or submerged. U-5's design had inadequate ventilation and exhaust from her twin gasoline engines often intoxicated the crew. The boat 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. The French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta, sunk in April 1915, was the largest ship sunk by U-5. The sinking of Italian Troop Transport ship SS Principe Umberto in June 1916 with the loss of 1,926 men, was the worst naval disaster of World War I in terms of human lives lost. 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 gross register tons (GRT).


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