With 59 boats build, the torpedo boats of the Großes Torpedoboot 1906 design were the second largest torpedo boat class ordered by the Hochseeflotte.

Build on three different shipyards (Schichau, Vulcan and Germaniawerft), the boats differed in size and armament, the largest boats were almost a third larger in size than the smallest ones. In difference to their predecessors, the Großes Torpedoboot Design 1898, most of the boats had a turbine engine, only the first 21 had an old fashioned expansion engine. These were the boats with a top speed about 3 knots slower than the turbine powered ones.

Many of these boats survived World War I and were used in the Reichsmarine or Kriegsmarine. Therefore, several ones were completely rebuild with new, larger superstructures and a new main armament (10,5 cm guns instead of 8,8 cm ones). Operating as training ships, fast tugboats, remote control boats or experimental ships, some even survived World War II and were used in the Soviet navy until the 1960s.