History Main / SubmarinePirates

Submarine Pirates are pirates who have moved with the times and use a submarine as their vessel for attacking shipping (or in "underwater" works, other submarines, which makes them a bit more like {{Space Pirate}}s). They may be RuthlessModernPirates or APirate400YearsTooLate, depending on their personal style.

* In ''Film/TheFabulousWorldOfJulesVerne'' (''Invention for Destruction'') the BigBad uses a submarine to sink ships and recover cargo.

* In the 1910 short ''The Aerial Submarine'', a man's son and daughter are kidnapped by pirates in a mysterious submarine. The father finds his children's camera, with a picture of the sub, and he takes it to the police. Meanwhile, the pirates sink a treasure ship and manage to get the loot on board before they're chased by a British navy ship, which is astonished to discover that not only can the sub go under water but it can also fly.

* ''A Submarine Pirate'' is a 1915 silent film where an inventor and his accomplice plan to rob a ship carrying gold bullion by using a submarine.
* In ''The Fabulous World of Jules Verne'' (''Invention for Destruction'') the BigBad uses a submarine to sink ships and recover cargo.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Di deals with a group of salvagers working out of a submarine who are trying to secretly take everything of value from wreaked ships in the Caribbean and will murder to keep their activities and the sites of the wreaks they're taking from secret.

* Military submarines, starting with those in the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy]] in World War 1, started flying the Jolly Roger after a British Admiral complained that they were "underhanded, unfair, and damned un-English" and that personnel should be hanged as [[AppropriatedAppellation pirates]]. It became a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_the_Jolly_Roger_by_submarines tradition]] among the Americans and Commonwealth navies to fly the pirate flag after a successful mission and [[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a28209/navy-spy-sub-jolly-roger-uss-jimmy-carter/ continues to this day]].

!!Examples

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* ''Anime/PokemonRangerAndTheTempleOfTheSea''. The BigBad is a pirate named Phantom who travels around in a giant submarine. He even has a PirateParrot - a Chatot that rides on his shoulder.

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%% * The cat pirates in ''Animation/CatCity''.

* Commander Kraken, originally a ComicBook/{{Submariner}} in the MarvelUniverse.

* Played with in the Creator/FrankHerbert story ''The Dragon In The Sea (AKA ''Under Pressure'') has a future in which oil is so scarce that submarines are sent into foreign territory to secretly mine undersea sources of oil. These are government submarines however, rather than pirates. This trope only applies because it's a ColdWar and none of this is happening officially.

[[quoteright:314:[[ComicBook/SubMariner https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/namor_submarine_pirates.png]]]]

* ''VideoGame/SubCulture'' had everyone in submarines, so naturally pirates used them too.
* The world of ''VideoGame/{{Aquanox}}'' has them. In fact, the main plot of ''Aquanox: Revelation'' is kicked off when your character's [[TheMothership home sub]] is hijacked by pirates while he is away, and he is forced to deal with them from then on ([[spoiler:one of them later turns out to be his uncle]]).
* In ''VideoGame/AceVenturaTheCDRomGame'', one of the villains involved in animal poaching is a submarine named ''Nautilus''.

* A VillainOfTheWeek of ''YogisGang'' tried to steal the ark so he could discard his damaged submarine.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman}}'' episode "Serpents of the Deep". Dr. Shark operates from a submarine that has a weapon that can cut through objects. He uses it to steal a bathyscape so he can mine gold from the ocean floor.
* Captain Hammerhead and the crew of the Dark Orca in ''WesternAnimation/TheDeep'', who act as a dark version of the heroic Nekton family.

* [[TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether Father and son]] Jesse and David Kane's crew in ''Film/{{Aquaman|2018}}'' were hired and equipped by [[BigBad Orm]] to hijack military submarines using a stealthy submersible prototype, [[spoiler:Orm's aim being [[PretextForWar to provoke retaliation from the surface world and thus justify a unified Atlantean invasion]]]]. Jesse's father, a particularly skilled frogman[[note]]not [[FrogMen that kind]]; a trained combat diver[[/note]] who served for the U.S. Navy in the Second World War, had turned to scavenging and piracy after the war when his home country's government mistreated him in spite of his service. [[FamilyBusiness He passed his stealthy diving skills to Jesse, and Jesse in turn to David.]]

* Creator/JulesVerne:
** Captain Nemo from ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'' is probably the TropeMaker, although he was more of a sea-going anarchist, complete with political philosophy, than a true pirate.
** Another submarine pirate, Ker Karraje, appears in the Verne novel ''Literature/FacingTheFlag''.

* The Literature/TimeWars novel ''The Nautilus Sanction'' incorporates events from ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'' so it naturally includes submarine pirates.
* The Yabba-Dabba-Doo from ''Literature/SewerGasAndElectric'' is an environmentally friendly, green, pink polka-dotted pirate submarine.

* Played with in the Creator/FrankHerbert story ''The Dragon In The Sea (AKA ''Under Pressure'') has a future in which oil is so scarce that submarines are sent into foreign territory to secretly mine undersea sources of oil. These are government submarines however, rather than pirates. This trope only applies because it's a ColdWar and none of this is happening officially.

* Divatox from ''Series/PowerRangersTurbo'' is an intergalactic space pirate whose HQ is a fish-shaped submarine known as the Subcraft.
* In the pilot movie for ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'' a heavily modified Delta IV submarine was being operated by pirates, led by former seaQuest captain Marilyn Stark.

* A two-part episode of ''Series/TVColosso'' featured a crew of submarine pirates led by Captain [[SdrawkcabName F.J.]], whose name has been commented as being opposed to the Boss of TV Colosso, J.F.
* The Octopus from the ''Series/MIHigh'' episode "The Octopus". He uses his submarine ''Naughty Lass'' to hijack ships to steal the components he needs to make a nuclear warhead to melt the polar icecaps.

* In ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater'', Captain Nemo and his crew live aboard the Nautilus. So it serves as their home as well as their base of operations.

* ''Anime/PokemonRangerAndTheTempleOfTheSea''. The BigBad is a pirate named Phantom who travels around in a giant submarine. He even has a PirateParrot - a Chatot that rides on his shoulder.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'' has the Heart Pirates, led by [[EnsembleDarkhorse "Surgeon of Death" Trafalgar Law]]. [[Music/TheBeatles They all live in a yellow submarine]].

* ''Anime/LupinIIIPinkJacket'': In [[Recap/LupinIIIS3E4 "Telepathy is Love's Signal"]], Lupin and Jigen battle a sub full of female pirates for possession of a sunken pirate ship full of Spanish gold beneath the Bermuda Triangle.
* In ''Manga/GhostInTheShell 2'' Motoko caught a bunch of pirates in a stolen Imperial American submarine sneaking under her clients' [[CityOnTheWater floating city]]. Fortunately she had a better sub.

* Commander Kraken in the MarvelUniverse.

* The Shark, one of the Terrible Trio from ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'', often used submarines to commit acts of piracy.
* The Sea Scourge was a submarine pirate who fought Comicbook/GreenArrow in ''Adventure Comics'' #134.
* "The Crew of the Alexandria" in ''Victorian Secret: Girls of {{Steampunk}}'' features an [[PirateGirl all-female]] [[AmazonBrigade crew]] of Submarine {{Privateer}}s.
* Franchise/{{Batman}} took on submarine pirates in "The Flying Dutchman II!" in ''Decective Comics'' #170.
* ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'': In #15-16, Indy clashes with a crew of RuthlessModernPirates led by PirateGirl Esmeralda Vasquez who operate from an American S-class submarine they stole from the US Navy.

* ''Film/AssaultOnAQueen'', a lesser-known Music/FrankSinatra movie from 1966. Pirates were using a salvaged German submarine to steal gold from the ''Queen Mary'', hitting it with a dummy warhead and threatening to use live ones.
* In the 1910 short ''The Aerial Submarine'', a man's son and daughter are kidnapped by pirates in a mysterious submarine. The father finds his children's camera, with a picture of the sub, and he takes it to the police. Meanwhile, the pirates sink a treasure ship and manage to get the loot on board before they're chased by a British navy ship, which is astonished to discover that not only can the sub go under water but it can also fly.
%% * The cat pirates in ''Animation/CatCity''.

** It's worth mentioning that the cruiser submarine that caused the ban was the French Surcouf. Her internal storage and passenger bays were described for "prize collecting" personal and cargo and she even had a small boat explicitly intended for boarding. And she was named for a privateer. Subtle.

* During the interwar period, there were some experiments with large submarines that could theoretically surface and force a ship to surrender and fork over extremely valuable cargo before sinking or possibly even capturing them. This would also avoid the whole "leaving people to drown" bit of submarine warfare that people find so objectionable. However, the various naval treaties eventually limited sub displacement putting an end to this line of thinking (along with concerns that an armed merchant ship could potentially sink a such a sub with a lucky hit).

* On ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'', the Mythbusters attempted to build a pirate submarine out of a rowboat. It failed because the rowboat was too buoyant. They estimated it would have required approximately 2000 lb (900 kg) of ballast to submerge it.
** The Mythbusters were actually testing the feasibility of trying to walk along the ocean floor using an upside down rowboat as an air pocket as seen in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl'' and ''Film/TheCrimsonPirate'', not trying to make a true submarine.

* [[TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether Father and son]] Jesse and David Kane's crew in ''Film/Aquaman2018'' were hired and equipped by [[BigBad Orm]] to hijack military submarines using an Atlantean submersible [[spoiler:Orm's aim being [[PretextForWar to provoke retaliation from the surface world and thus justify a unified Atlantean invasion]]]]. Jesse's father, a particularly skilled frogman[[note]]not [[FrogMen that kind]]; a trained combat diver[[/note]] who served for the U.S. Navy in the Second World War, had turned to scavenging and piracy after the war when his home country's government mistreated him in spite of his service. [[FamilyBusiness He passed his stealthy diving skills to Jesse, and Jesse in turn to David.]]

* During the interwar period, there were some experiments with large submarines that could theoretically surface and force a ship to surrender and fork over extremely valuable cargo. However, the various naval treaties eventually limited sub displacement putting an end to this line of thinking (along with concerns that an armed merchant ship could potentially sink a such a sub with a lucky hit).

* ''Assault on a Queen'', a lesser-known Music/FrankSinatra movie from 1966. Pirates were using a salvaged German submarine to steal gold from the ''Queen Mary'', hitting it with a dummy warhead and threatening to use live ones.

* During the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar, Italian submarines operating without identification -- in the words of one historian, as pirates -- sank several Soviet and other merchant ships attempting to bring weapons to the Loyalist side.
** This lead to an interesting case of InsistentTerminology: The European powers met to discuss how to address the acts of piracy, because said attacks were legally considered an [[ThisMeansWar act of war]], and [[ElephantInTheLivingRoom none of the European powers were ready to fight]] [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the war which would likely result]] if the issue was addressed directly.
* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, submarine crews on BOTH sides were often viewed this way by their respective adversaries since the whole point of submarines at the time was to disrupt shipping, and sink high value assets. Some navies went so far as to offer rewards both for information of sub activity [[note]] Especially before the Enigma machines were captured [[/note]], and for actively sinking particularly troublesome submarines.
** Oddly enough, the US Navy offered rewards to its own submarines during the Pacific Campaigns. Not for sinking enemy ships, but for retrieving downed pilots. Usually these rewards were snacks and goodies not normally stored on a Sub (due to the limited space), but in effect, the US Navy Submarines were ransoming off US Navy Pilots back to their home carriers. The only reason this worked out the way it did however is because part of the job of American Subs was to tail and report on Japanese fleet activity, and continue to do so even after a major strike for battle damage assessment; picking up downed pilots was not only practical for a sub, but extreme mercy for the pilot who could expect to be [[AFateWorseThanDeath tortured and mutilated if the Japanese plucked him out of the water]].
** Contrary to popular belief however, German U-Boats did not [[SinkTheLifeboats shoot the survivors of sunken ships]]--this belief was spread by Allied propaganda. Despite being ordered to do so by Hitler himself, many of the U-Boat Captains chose to ignore the order, and offer some aid to survivors, or just leave the area as fast as possible. The latter was more likely towards the end of war as tools for locating and sinking the U-Boats had gotten to be very effective, and the few times a U-Boat did manage to get a shot off, it didn't want to hang around very long afterwards before half a fleet zeroed in on its position.
*** One attempt at help went especially bad for German u-boats and was in part responsible for the cessation of most help: The Laconia Incident; A German u-boat had sunk RMS Laconia carrying 2732 passengers, women, children and [=POWs=]. The u-boat then tried to organize a rescue attempt and even managed to call in three other submarines (two German, one Italian) as well as neutral French vessels. The whole affair ended with the u-boat in question being bombed by American aircraft. The journal "International Law Studies" called the incident an allied war crime.
** The Japanese Sixth fleet actually issued explicit orders to LeaveNoSurvivors from torpedoed merchant ships in the Indian Ocean, ironically at the behest of the Germans. Approximately half of their submarine captains simply refused to obey these orders, most of the captains who did obey only did so once, and the orders were rescinded after those captains complained that the massacres were ruining morale. Surfacing to attack survivors in the Pacific would have been suicidal.
** There were some cases of early submariners being viewed this way by their ''own'' navies, due to the particularly underhanded tactics employed by submarines given their very nature. British sub crews embraced this, adopting the Jolly Roger flag as an unofficial insignia. It's a tradition for British subs to fly the flag when returning to port after a successful mission, and there's at least one instance of an American submarine doing the same during the WarOnTerror after a successful cruise missile attack on land-based targets.