Template:GS/doc

Usage
This is a typing short cut for linking to World War II and later German U-boat articles named in the format "German submarine U-9999 (1939)". (World War I U-boats articles are named in a different manner. See Template:SMU for the shortcut template to assist with those.) Since U-boat names are italicized in article text, linking to them in the usual manner means typing everything twice, such as. This template more than halves that to.

Formal Usage

 *  GS Ship Name 
 *  GS Ship Name (ID) , where ID can be the hull number, launch year, or pennant number, as specified in the article title.

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

Optional display control parameter
There is an optional third parameter that controls which pieces of text are displayed in the article. It's value is treated as a binary number and will display the corresponding "bits". So setting the 4's bit will display German submarine, 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: N.B.: Be careful with the third parameter if not using the second parameter. In the U-110 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.