SM U-17 (Austria-Hungary)
SM U-17 or U-XVII was a or U-boat of the Austro-Hungarian Navy ( or ) during World War I. U-17 was laid down in Germany in April 1915 and shipped in sections by rail to Pola in August, where she was assembled. She was delivered to the Austro-Hungarian Navy at the end of September and commissioned in October 1915. U-17 primarily operated from Cattaro, patrolling off the Italian and Albanian coasts. The submarine had several opportunities to sink merchant ships and warships throughout the war, but could only sink one unidentified sailing vessel in January 1916 and one Italian destroyer in July 1916 as part of an effort to disrupt the Otranto Barrage. At the end of the war, U-17 was undergoing repairs at Pola. She was handed over to Italy as a war reparation and scrapped in 1920. Design and construction U-17 was a small, coastal submarine that displaced surfaced and submerged. She featured a single shaft, a single Daimler diesel engine for surface running, and a single electric motor for submerged travel. U-17 was capable of up to while surfaced and while submerged at a diving depth of up to . She was designed for a crew of 17 officers and men. U-17 was equipped with two torpedo tubes located in the front and carried a complement of two torpedoes. In October 1916, U-17s armament was supplemented with a 37 mm/23 (1.5 in) quick-firing (QF) gun. This gun was replaced by a /33 QF gun in November 1917. U-17 was ordered by the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 1 April 1915 and laid down at AG Weser in Bremen later that month. When completed, the submarine was broken down into sections, loaded onto railcars, and shipped to the Austro-Hungarian Navy's main base at Pola on 30 August. After completing the four-day journey, the sections were riveted together. Though there is no specific mention of how long it took for U-17s sections to be assembled, a sister boat, the German Type UB I submarine UB-3, shipped to Pola from Germany in mid-April 1915, was assembled in about two weeks. U-17 was delivered to the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 30 September. Operational history SM U-17 was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 6 October under the command of Linienschiffsleutnant Franz Skopinic. The boat patrolled the Italian coast out of Pola for most of the next two months, interrupted by engine repairs in mid November. On 9 December, Skopinic was succeeded as U-17s commanding officer by Linienschiffsleutnant Zdenko Hudecek. By the end of December, U-17 was operating from Cattaro and patrolling off the Albanian and Montenegrin coasts. Hudecek and U-17 made two unsuccessful attacks on enemy destroyers in January. On 23 February, Hudecek attempted an attack on a cargo ship off Durazzo, but was discovered and depth charged. Two days later the submarine put into Cattaro to replace a broken gyrocompass with a new magnetic compass. In mid-March, U-17 shifted to patrol off the Italian coast once again and was attacked by air on