American Holland - class submarine The American Holland Class Submarines , also AG Class or A Class , were Holland 602 type submarine s used by the Imperial Russian and Soviet Navies in the early 20th Century . The small submarines participated in the World War I Baltic Sea and Black Sea theatres and a handful of them also saw action during World War II . Development . The AG type was designed by John Philip Holland at Electric Boat Company . The design was known as Holland 602GF / 602L , which was very similar to the American H class . The Russian abbreviation " AG " comes from " " Amerikansky Golland " " ( " American Holland " ) . In 1916 , the Russian Naval Ministry ordered 11 units . The boats were built at Barnet Yard in Vancouver , Canada as knockdown kit s . The kits were transported by ship to Vladivostok and over the Trans - Siberian Railroad to European Russia . The boats were assembled at the Baltic Shipyard in Saint Petersburg and its subsidiary in Nikolayev by the Black Sea ( now Mykolaiv , Ukraine ) . Like some of the British H - class boats ( of the same design ) , they were equipped with Fessenden transducer s , an early form of sonar . The Russian Revolution of 1917 slowed assembly in Nikolayev , but they were completed after much travail . In 1918 , submarines " AG 21 " – " AG 26 " were included the Ukrainian State Navy . In 1920 , one ( " AG 22 " ) was taken over by the Russian White movement , eventually evacuating to Bizerta with Wrangel ' s fleet and five were taken over by the Red Army after the Civil war . The submarines were all completed after the war . All surviving Soviet AG submarines were modernized before World War II . The Russians had also ordered an additional six submarines , but these could not be delivered due to the Revolution . These were instead taken over by the U . S . Navy as the H class in 1918 . Operational service . Five of the submarines were allocated to the Baltic Fleet , while the remaining six were allocated to the Black Sea Fleet . During World War I , the Russian subs operated together with the British submarine flotilla in the Baltic against the German Navy . This all changed with the October Revolution and the Finnish Civil War . In 1918 , the German occupation of Tallinn and the Brest - Litovsk peace treaty forced the British flotilla to move to Helsinki , then under the protection of the Finnish Socialist Workers ' Republic . The German intervention in the Finnish Civil War and the landing of the 10 , 000 - strong German Baltic Sea Division in Hanko forced the crew to scuttle the eight remaining submarines and the three support ships , " Cicero " , " Emilie " and " Obsidian " , outside Helsinki harbour . The crews of the Russian ships were in a state of panic . Through negotiations with the Germans the many vessels of the Russian Navy moored in Helsinki were allowed to depart to Kronstadt . However , the difficult ice situation made it impossible for smaller vessels to follow , and they had to be abandoned . Among these were the four Russian AGs in Hanko . The arrival of German troops under Rüdiger von der Goltz on 3 April forced the Russians to hastily scuttle the submarines , including " AG 12 " and " AG 16 " , in Hanko harbour . The Finns located and raised the two boats . Extensive plans were made to refurbish them , but the strained economical situation of the 1920s and the new shipbuilding program of the 1930s finally led to their scrapping . The Soviet Navy renamed their remaining five AGs A class , and all saw major modernization in the late 1930s . Two of the class were sunk during World War II .