The Type 205 was a class of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
diesel-electric submarines. They were single-
hull
Hull may refer to:
Structures
* Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle
* Fuselage, of an aircraft
* Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds
* Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship
* Submarine hull
Mathematics
* Affine hull, in affi ...
vessels optimized for the use in the shallow
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and fr ...
. The Type 205 is a direct evolution of the
Type 201 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, the follow-on class, finally succeeded with non-magnetic steel hulls.

The Type 205 was in service with the
Royal Danish Navy
The Royal Danish Navy ( da, Søværnet) is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish territorial waters (incl. Faroe Islands and Greenland). ...
until 2004, in which it was known as ''Narhvalen'' class. The Danish boats differed slightly from the German ones to meet special Danish demands. Responsible for the design and construction was the Ingenieurkontor Lübeck (IKL) headed by
Ulrich Gabler.
List of boats
These last two boats were built by the
Howaldtswerke, in Denmark at
The Naval Dockyard,
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
.
Notes:
* ''U-1'' was given back to
Nordseewerke and was used to test an experimental closed-cycle diesel
air-independent propulsion
Air-independent propulsion (AIP), or air-independent power, is any marine propulsion technology that allows a non-nuclear submarine to operate without access to atmospheric oxygen (by surfacing or using a snorkel). AIP can augment or replace the ...
system before being scrapped
* ''U-11'' was transformed to a Type 205A double-hulled boat (the outer hull filled with
polystyrene
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is ...
foam to make it unsinkable) and used as torpedo target
* ''U-12'' was used for sonar trials as Type 205B
References
*
*
See also
*
Kobben class submarine
External links
Submarines of the Narhvalen class- Danish Naval History
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