The Type 205 was a class of diesel-electric

Diesel-electric

Diesel-electric transmission or diesel-electric powertrain is used by a number of vehicle and ship types for providing locomotion.A diesel-electric transmission system includes a diesel engine connected to an electrical generator, creating electricity that powers electric traction motors...

 German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 hunter-killer U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

 submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s. They were single-hull vessels optimized for the use in the shallow Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

. The Type 205 is a direct evolution of the Type 201

Type 201 submarine

The Type 201 was Germany's first class of military submarines built after World War II. They were built out of amagnetic steel to counter the threat of magnetic naval mines...

 class with lengthened 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

Type 206 submarine

The Type 206 is a class of diesel-electric submarines developed by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft . Its design is based on the preceding Type 205 submarine class. These small and agile submarines were built during the Cold War to operate in the shallow Baltic Sea and attack Warsaw Pact shipping if...

, the follow-on class, finally succeeded with non-magnetic steel hulls.

The Type 205 was in service with the Royal Danish Navy

Royal Danish Navy

The Royal Danish Navy is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese territorial waters...

 until 2004, in which it was known as Narhvalen class. The Danish boats differed slightly from the German ones to meet special Danish demands.

List of boats

Submarines built for the Bundesmarine:
Pennant number Pennant number In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...	Name	Call sign Call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...	Launched	Com- missioned	Decom- missioned	Fate
S180				June 6, 1967	November 29, 1991	scrapped
S181				October 11, 1966	March 19, 1993	scrapped
S183				November 19, 1962	August 1, 1974	scrapped
S184				July 4, 1963	May 17, 1974	scrapped
S185				July 4, 1963	August 22, 1974	scrapped
S186				March 16, 1964	September 30, 1965	scrapped
S187				July 22, 1964	October 9, 1974	scrapped
S188				April 11, 1967	June 3, 1993	Museum ship, Technikmuseum Speyer
S189				November 28, 1967	February 16, 1993	Museum ship, Wilhelmshaven Wilhelmshaven Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
S190		DRDF		June 21, 1968	October 30, 2003	Museum ship, Burgstaaken, Fehmarn Fehmarn Fehmarn is an island and - since 2003 - a town on this island in the Baltic Sea, off the eastern coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and ca. 18 kilometers south of the Danish island of Lolland...
S191		DRDE		January 14, 1969	June 21, 2005
Submarines built for the Kongelige Dansk Marine Royal Danish Navy The Royal Danish Navy is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese territorial waters... :
S320			September 10, 1968	February 27, 1970	October 16, 2003	scrapped
S321			December 18, 1969	December 22, 1970	February 2, 2004	scrapped

These last two boats were built by the Howaldtswerke

Howaldtswerke

Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft is a German shipbuilding company, headquartered in Kiel. In 2009 it was the largest shipyard in Germany and has more than 2,400 employees. It has been part of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems owned by ThyssenKrupp, since 2005...

, in Denmark at The Naval Dockyard, Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

.

Notes:

• U-1 and U-2 were 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 steel after corrosion problems and small cracks were detected.
• U-1 was given back to Nordseewerke
  Nordseewerke
  Nordseewerke is a shipbuilding company located in Emden, Germany. The name Nordseewerke means "North Sea shipyard" in German. The shipyard employs some 1,400 people and is the second-largest plant in Emden, following Volkswagen...
  
   and was used to test an experimental closed-cycle diesel air-independent propulsion
  Air-independent propulsion
  Air-independent propulsion is a term that encompasses technologies which allow a submarine to operate without the need to surface or use a snorkel to access atmospheric oxygen. The term usually excludes the use of nuclear power, and describes augmenting or replacing the diesel-electric propulsion...
  
   system before being scrapped
• U-11 was transformed to a Type 205A double-hulled boat (the outer hull filled with polystyrene
  Polystyrene
  Polystyrene ) also known as Thermocole, abbreviated following ISO Standard PS, is an aromatic polymer made from the monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon that is manufactured from petroleum by the chemical industry...
  
  foam to make it unsinkable) and used as torpedo target
• U-12 was used for sonar trials as Type 205B

External links

• Submarines of the Narhvalen class - Danish Naval History