WORLD OF WARSHIPS U BOOT SERIES
Basically the same design and performance as Gür, these two boats in turn were to become the prototype, with the UB48 Class of 1917, of a new series of ocean-going submarines, the Type VII U Boat. Meanwhile, the Type I, of which only two boats were built, gave the German navy a capability of operations in the Atlantic. Type II U-boats from a training flotillia. Although used for operations early in the war these boats were soon relegated to training duties, an essential part of the enormous expansion program that the U-Boat arm was to undertake. II D boats were introduced in 1940 they were still larger and were fitted with saddle tanks to increase their range further. The class II B and II C were similar, but were larger and carried additional fuel to increase their range. The first such boat for the German navy, called U-1, was launched in Kiel in June 1935, the remainder following shortly afterwards. In order to get the building program under way as rapidly as possible to fulfil the need to have submarines at sea and to train future crews, it was the coastal submarines of Type II, as they were to be known, that were the first to be laid down.
Thus, Gür provided a prototype for an ocean-going submarine, while Vesikko was the forerunner of the coastal submarines.
Vesikko was a smaller boat of only 250 tons (surfaced) and 300 tons (submerged) it was 40.8 m (134 ft) long, and armed with three bow 53-cm (21-in) torpedo tubes and a small gun. Gür was 72.4 m (237 ft 6 in) long and displaced 750 tons (surfaced) and 960 tons (submerged), and was armed with six torpedo tubes (four bow and two stern) and one 4-in (102-mm) gun.
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