Besides the normal minesweepers, the German Navy requested some smaller vessels that were able to operate in the shallow waters near the coastline. The result were the so called "Flachegehende Minensuchboote" (FM), only 40% in size of the other mine sweepers.

The 66 ordered boats were started to build very late in the war, so they did not see many action at all. A total of 21 different shipyards were involved in building those ship, none of them was lost during wartime.

The boats were not very successful. Because of their small size, their seagoing capabilities were not very good and they had a very small operational radius. Therefore, the construction of 19 incomplete boats were stopped in 1918.

Most of the boats were either converted for civil use, as tugboats, ferries or river ships. A few of them were used in military services of other nations and some very few were still operational during WW2.