The ships were ordered in 1926, but their interwar equipment sat over First World War design habits. German wartime minelayers had developed an instinctive fit between their mission and that conflict's conditions. A sound answer for 1914-18 did not necessarily answer the demands of a later war. The class carried inherited doctrine into a different strategic setting.
Notable Point · 4:22-4:56
A First World War minelayer instinct carried into a new era
The class inherited German minelayer ideas that had made sense in the First World War but did not automatically answer later requirements.