This is a documentation subpage for Template:SMU. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This is a typing short cut for linking to Imperial German Navy or Austro-Hungarian Navy submarine articles named in the format "SM U-28 (Germany)". Since Ship names are italicized in article text, linking to them in the usual manner means typing everything twice, such as [[SM U-28 (Germany)|SM ''U-28'' (Germany)]]. This template shortens that to {{SMU|U-28|Germany}}.

This template uses Template:SMS, which in turn uses Template:Ship, so changes to either of those templates may affect the output of this template

• {{SMU|Ship Name}}
• {{SMU|Ship Name|disambig}}, where disambig is usually either Germany, or Austria-Hungary

The last example could be used to link to a ship index (disambiguation) page

There is an optional third parameter that controls which pieces of text are displayed in the article. Its value is treated as a binary number and will display the corresponding "bits". So setting the 4's bit will display SMS, setting the 2's bit will display the ship name, and setting the 1's bit will display the ID. If binary math isn't your thing, refer to these examples:

These are the same optional parameters in use in the other ship shortcut templates. Some of the options above are silly in the case of World War I era U-boats, but are included for compatibility with other shortcut templates.

N.B.: Be careful with the third parameter if not using the second parameter. In the U-103 example above, the "|3=2" means set the third parameter to a value of two, while the alternate syntax shows using a pair of pipes, "||2", to position the value two in the third parameter position.

Using an optional display control parameter value of 6 yields the same results as using {{ship}} to create the same link and text, but usually saving some characters while editing.

 {{SMU|U-28|Germany|6}} yields the same results as {{ship|SM|U-28|Germany}}