As a successor of the Minensuchboot 1935 the MBoot 40 showed some design similarities, but was of a different origin. Since the Minensuchboot 1935 was quite complicated and expensive to build a, the new class of ships was based on the last mine hunter design of World War I, the "MBoot 16". The result was a ship that was about 10% less capable than the Minensuchboot 1935, but only took half effort to build.

Like its predecessors, those boats were not used for mine hunting alone, but were also used for escort duties and other types of operations. With its coal fired boiler this ships could even be operated then the fuel supplies of the Kriegsmarine had reached a critical level.

Of the 131 boats build - most of them in Dutch shipyards - 63 were lost during the war. 30 were taken over by the Soviets, 25 by the USA and 13 by the British. The ships used by the Soviet navy were used until the 1960, most of them in the Baltic Sea, five of the ships formerly took over by the USA were given to the new formed Bundesmarine in 1957.

The last active ships in this class are four vessels of the Romanian navy that were still in service as corvettes  in 1994 (Demokratia , Descatusaria , Desrobrea and Dreptatea ).