Type VII U-boats were the most common type of German World War II U-boat.

The Type VIIC was the workhorse of the German U-boat force, with 568 commissioned from 1940 to 1945.

VIIC was an effective fighting machine and was seen almost everywhere U-boats operated, although its range of only 6,500 nautical miles was not as great as that of the larger Type IX (11,000 nautical miles),

severely limiting the time it could spend in the far reaches of the western and southern Atlantic without refueling from a tender or U-boat tanker