The Germans had always had an eye for offensive and defensive minelaying and had built ships purposefully for that task. The previous offensive minelayers Bremse and Brummer had been seized by the Allies and sold off (to Argentina) the monies going to the reparations payments. The next pair of minelayers to be built were to be able to create the large defensive minefields around the coasts of the Germanic States, and later Holland and Belgium. The GS was still paying lip service to the Soviet Treaty, under which they had received their enhanced Navy, and maintained minefields to control Soviet shipping in and out of the Gulf of Finland.
These were not fast ships making 28 knots with a full load of mines and nearly 30 on the way home. The AA armament had the four twin 88mm/L56 mountings as the barrage element. The close in weaponry was two pairs of twin 37mm manual guns and two 20mm cannons. With the start of the war the light AA mushroomed with the old 37mm being replaced with four pairs of the new 37mm Bofors cannons and a quad 20mm and a further four 20mm also being added.
