The torpedoboats of the Raubvogel class were the first six torpedo boats build in Germany after World War I. Although still based on World War I designs, those torpedo boats were much bigger than their wartime predecessors and proved to be very unproblematic ships. For the first time, electrical welding was used for the hull to decrease weight. Since the World War I designs did not use geared turbines of a very high efficiency, the use of them in the Raubvogel boats was still experimental and turbines of different manufacturers were chosen.

Although those ships were almost ten years old at the beginning of World War II,  they were successfully used at the Channel. During the war it got obvious that the ships were not very good protected against air attacks, but only a few 2 cm guns were added in the later years of the war. The surviving ships were equipped with Funkmeßbeobachtungsgeräten (FuMB = passive radar) in 1943 and Funkmeßortungsgeräten (FuMO = active radar) in 1944.