Initially the design was to be built in the United Kingdom, but the price proposed was too high and the British Admiralty announced that building a fast submarine with over 20 knots (37 km/h) of surface speed was technically impossible.

Design was made in cooperation with a team from Polish Navy, and incorporated some features of the earlier Dutch submarine HNLMS O 16 including the external trainable mount.

[2] Two further submarines based upon the plans of the Orzeł class were ordered from France in 1938 and their construction began in 1939, but because of the outbreak of war, they were never completed.

After the outbreak of World War II, on 14 September 1939 Orzeł and Wilk (Wolf) were ordered to make for British ports.

On 8 April 1940 Orzeł sank the troopship Rio de Janeiro at the start of the German invasion of Norway.