While the bigger Marinefährprahm was originally designed to transport heavy equipment like tanks over the British Channel, the smaller Naval Supply Lighter (Marine Nachschub Leichter - MNL) were constructed to the use in rivers, limiting their size.

Designed in 1943/44, their dimensions were to fit the rivers and channels in the southern part of France, since it was also planned to transfer them to the Mediterranean via those waterways and use those crafts there. But when they got operational, the Allied landings in Normandy and Italy prevented to do so and they operated at the German coastline and rivers