A staukeil, a short keel that had a shallow wedge-shaped cross-section, was added under their transoms, in order to improve their turning circles[1] and raise their sterns at high speed.

This had the effect, however, of forcing the bow deeper into the water which aggravated the lack of sheer forward, throwing spray over the bridge, making No.

The turbines, designed to produce 70,000 metric horsepower (51,000 kW; 69,000 shp), were intended to give the ships a speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph).

[4] The Type 1934A carried a maximum of 752 metric tons (740 long tons) of fuel oil which was intended to give a range of 4,400 nmi (8,100 km; 5,100 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph), but the ships proved top-heavy in service and 30% of the fuel had to be retained as ballast low in the ship.

They carried 600 rounds of ammunition for these guns, which had a maximum range of 17.4 kilometres (19,000 yd), and could be elevated to 30° and depressed to −10°.

[9] The staukeils were removed in 1940–1942 and the stabilizers proved to be ineffective and were replaced by bilge keels as the ships were refitted.

[10] Beginning in late 1941, the survivors had their light anti-aircraft armament augmented by a single 2 cm quadruple Flakvierling mount that replaced the two guns on the aft superstructure.

Z5 Paul Jacobi and Z8 Bruno Heinemann exercised off the coast of Norway where the latter evaluated 15 cm (5.9 in) guns planned for installation on the Type 1936 destroyers in April 1938.

Three ships accompanied the heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee on her voyage to the Mediterranean in October.

Three others were among the escorts for the heavy cruiser Deutschland with Hitler aboard as the Germans occupied Memel, Lithuania, in March 1939.