Well, this is another one of those English words taken from the original German phrase. The German word is Unterseeboot, Under Sea Boat, or a submarine.

The history of German submarines goes all the way back to 1850. The Brandtaucher, designed in 1850 by the inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer and built by Schweffel & Howaldt in Kiel for the German Navy. The sub sank in 1851, but it began the German Navies desire to build more.

The next subs built for the German Navy were the W1 and W2 in 1880. The Krupp yard started building submarines in the early 1900’s. The first submarine they finished actually went to Russia in 1905. The first delivery to the German Navy was in 1906.

Germany used the U-boat extensively in World War I. The use of this weapon was one of the causes for US entry into the war. One stipulation of the Treaty of Versailles was that Germany was not to have submarines again. This underscored how much the rest of Europe feared the German use of such a weapon.

The U-boat is possible one of the best known weapon platforms from World War II. Germany started the war with a rather simple design for a submarine and by the end of the war had taken it to the next level.