The Type 205 was a class of diesel-electric German hunter-killer submarines. They were single-hull vessels optimized for the use in the shallow baltic sea. The Type 205 is a direct evolution of the Type 201 class with lengthend hull, new machinery and sensors. The biggest difference though is that ST-52 steel is used for the pressure hull since the Type 201's non-magnetic steel proved to be problematic. Type 206, the follow-on class, finally succeeded with non-magnetic steel hulls.

In service with the Danish Navy, the Type 205 is known as Narhvalen class. The Danish boats differ slightly from the German ones to meet special Danish demands.

List of boats

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Submarines built for the Bundesmarine:
Pennant number	Name	Call sign	Launched	Com- missioned	Decom- missioned	Fate
S180	U1			June 6 1967	November 29 1991	scrapped
S181	U2			October 11 1966	March 19 1993	scrapped
S183	U4			November 19 1962	August 1 1974	scrapped
S184	U5			July 4 1963	May 17 1974	scrapped
S185	U6			July 4 1963	August 22 1974	scrapped
S186	U7			March 16 1964	September 30 1965	scrapped
S187	U8			July 22 1964	October 9 1974	scrapped
S188	U9			April 11 1967	June 3 1993	Museum ship, Speyer
S189	U10			November 28 1967	February 16 1993	Museum ship, Wilhelmshaven
S190	U11	DRDF		June 21 1968	October 30 2003	Museum ship, Burgstaaken, Fehmarn
S191	U12	DRDE		January 14 1969	June 21 2005
Submarines built for the Kongelige Dansk Marine:
S320	Narhvalen		September 10 1968	February 27 1970	October 16 2003	mothballed
S321	Nordkaperen		December 18 1969	December 22 1970	February 2 2004	mothballed

The German boats have been built by Howaldtswerke, the Danish by The Naval Dockyard, Copenhagen.

Notes:

• U1 and U2 have originally built as Type 201 submarines with pressure hulls made of non-magnetic steel, but were rebuilt as Type 205 with new pressure hulls out of normal steels after corrosion problems and small cracks have been detected.
• U1 was given back to Nordseewerke and had been used to test an experimantal closed-cycle diesel air-independent propulsion system before being scrapped
• U11 was transformed to a Type 205A double-hulled boat (the outer hull filled with polystyrene foam to make it unsinkable) and used as torpedo target
• U12 was used for sonar trials as Type 205B

See also

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External links

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• Submarines of the NARHVALEN Class - Danish Naval History

Submarine classes | Submarines of Germany

U-Boot-Klasse 205