The Type 37 torpedo boat was a slightly improved version of the preceding Type 35 with better range.[1] The boats had an overall length of 85.2m (279.5feet) and were 82m (269feet) long at the waterline.[2] The ships had a beam of 8.87m (29.1feet), and a mean draft of 2.8m (09.2feet) at deep load. They displaced 888MT at standard load and 1139MT at deep load. Their crew numbered 119 officers and sailors.[3] Their pair of geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller shaft, were designed to produce 31000shp using steam from four high-pressure water-tube boilers[2] which was intended to give the boats a maximum speed of 35kn. They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of 1600nmi at .[4]
As built, the Type 37s mounted a single SK C/32 gun on the stern. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a single SK C/30 anti-aircraft gun superfiring over the 10.5 cm gun and a pair of C/30 guns on the bridge wings. They carried six above-water torpedo tubes in two triple mounts amidships and could also carry 30 mines (or 60 if the weather was good).[5]
Early-war modifications were limited to the conversion of the foremast into a tripod mast, installation of a FuMO 28 radar with fixed antennas angled 45° to each side. Quadruple 2 cm gun mounts began slowly replacing the 3.7 cm gun beginning in May 1942 as the ships were refitted. In September, installation of a single 3.7 cm gun was ordered, either the Flak M42 or the Flak M43, in lieu of the aft torpedo tubes, in all surviving boats, but it is also uncertain if this was done. By war's end, T20 was armed with the 10.5 cm gun, two 3.7 cm guns, one quadruple 2 cm mount and two pairs of 2 cm twin-gun mounts, one pair in the bridge wings and the other on platforms abaft the funnel. She still retained all of her torpedo tubes and had received twenty-one 8.6cm (03.4inches) RAG anti-aircraft rocket launchers.[6]
T20 was ordered on 5 October 1938 from Schichau, laid down at their Elbing, East Prussia, shipyard on 28 November 1939[7] as yard number 1447,[2] launched on 12 September 1940 and commissioned on 5 June 1942; construction was delayed by shortages of skilled labor and of raw materials. On 1–3 October, the ship conducted exercises in the Baltic with the battleship, the light cruisers and, the destroyers, and, her sisters,, and the torpedo boats, and . On 7 March 1943, T20, T16, T21 and the torpedo boats and, joined the escorts for Scharnhorst on her voyage to the Arctic in the Skagerrak, although bad weather forced them to put into Bergen, Norway. T20 and T21 were part of the escort force for the battleships and Scharnhorst and the heavy cruiser Lützow as they sailed from Narvik, Norway, to the Altafjord on 22–24 March.[8]
The ship returned to Germany in October and was assigned to the Torpedo School until March 1944 when she began a refit that lasted until August. Reassigned to the 3rd Torpedo Boat Flotilla, T20 and her sisters T13 and T18 sortied into the Archipelago Sea as a show of force on 12–13 September after the Prime Minister of Finland, Antti Hackzell, broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and ordered German forces to leave Finland on 2 September. On the return voyage, T18 was sunk by Soviet aircraft. On 23 September, T20, T13, T17 and T19 escorted the last evacuation convoy from Tallinn, Estonia, to Germany. During 10–12 and 13–15 October, the 3rd Torpedo Boat Flotilla, with T20, T13, T16 and T21, screened Lützow and the heavy cruiser as they bombarded advancing Soviet troops near Memel. Afterwards, the 3rd Flotilla was transferred to the Skagerrak for convoy escort duties. The ship helped to escort a minelaying mission in the North Sea on 13–14 January 1945. Together with T17 and T19, T20 escorted another minelaying mission there on 17–18 March. The torpedo boat was allocated to the British when the Allies divided the surviving ships of the Kriegsmarine amongst themselves in late 1945. The Royal Navy had no interest in her and she was transferred to France in February 1946 and was renamed Baccarat on 4 February. The ship was immediately placed in reserve until she was stricken on 8 October 1951 and subsequently scrapped.[9]