Type 1936A-class destroyer

The Zerstörer 1936A-class destroyers, or Narvik-class destroyers as they were known to the Allies, were a class of German destroyers of the Second World War. In common with other German destroyers launched after the start of World War II, the Narviks were unnamed, known only by their hull numbers - Z23 to Z39.

Design
In terms of armament, they were closer to light cruisers than the typical destroyer. The use of 15 cm (5.9 inch) guns was atypical of destroyers which tended to have guns around 120 - 127 mm (4.7 to 5 inch) in calibre. They were intended to carry two forward guns in a twin turret, but as the twin turrets were not ready in time, early class 1936As carried a single mounted gun forward.

Despite being powerful the ships were not without their flaws. There were problems with the reliability of the high pressure steam engines and seakeeping in rough seas due to the newly designed bow and heavy forward artillery.

The eight ships of the Zerstörer 1936A class (Z23 to Z30) were all laid down between 1938 and 1940. The seven destroyers numbered from Z31 to Z39 were classed as Zerstörer 1936A (Mob); they were laid down in 1940 and 1941 and were slightly larger and had some internal modifications (including engines that caused less trouble than with their predecessors) from the original design to shorten construction times.

Ships
The class, including the 36A (Mob), consisted of 15 ships. All were built by Deschimag (Bremen) apart from Z37, Z38 and Z39 which were built by Germania (Kiel).