When it became apparent to the Austro-Hungarian Navy that the First World War would not be a short one, they moved to bolster their U-boat fleet by seizing the plans for the Danish Havmanden class submarines, which had been designed by Whitehead & Co. in Fiume, who had built three units. Although the Austro-Hungarian Navy was not happy with the design, which was largely obsolete, it was the only design for which plans were available and which could be begun immediately in domestic shipyards. The Austro-Hungarian Navy unenthusiastically placed orders for U-23 and her three sister boats on 27 March 1915. U-23 was one of two boats of the class to be built at the Hungarian UBAG yard in Fiume. Due to demands by the Hungarian government, subcontracts for the class were divided between Hungarian and Austrian firms, and this politically expedient solution worsened technical problems with the design, resulting in numerous modifications and delays for the class in general. U-23 was an ocean-going submarine that displaced surfaced and submerged and was designed for a complement of 18. She was long with a beam of and a draft of. For propulsion, she featured a single shaft, a single diesel engine for surface running, and a single electric motor for submerged travel. She was capable of while surfaced and while submerged. Although there is no specific notation of a range for U-23, the Havmanden class, upon which the U-20 class was based, had a range of at, surfaced, and at submerged. U-23 was armed with two torpedo tubes located in the front and carried a complement of two torpedoes. She was also equipped with a Škoda 7 cm guns|/26 deck gun and an machine gun.
Service career
U-23 was launched on 5 January 1917, but It is not known with certainty when U-23 was commissioned. Author Paul Halpern reports that U-23 and her three sisters all entered service between August and November 1917. Although there are no specific reports of problems with U-23, the U-20 class as a whole suffered from unreliable engines which compounded the poor handling characteristics of the boats. On 21 February 1918, Linienschiffsleutnant Klemens Ritter von Bézard, U-23s only commanding officer, was guiding the boat in an attack on the Italian transport in the Straits of Otranto. U-23 came under attack by the Italian torpedo boat Airone which first tried to ram the U-boat, and then deployed an explosive paravane. When the paravane contacted the submerged U-23, it exploded, blowing debris into the air and sinking the submarine with all hands. Like all of her sister boats, U-23 had no wartime successes.
