Most of the boats were initially assigned to the 3rd Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla. By the end of 1936, the
Kriegsmarine had reorganized its torpedo boats into
flotillas with
Leopard and
Luchs in the 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla and
Wolf,
Iltis,
Jaguar and
Tiger were assigned to the 3rd Torpedo Boat Flotilla. Both flotillas made several deployments to Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Around June 1938, the flotillas were again reorganized with
Leopard and
Luchs transferred to the 4th Torpedo Boat Flotilla. The other boats were either refitting or in reserve. On 1 July the 3rd Flotilla was renumbered as the 6th. Shortly before the German
declaration of war on Poland on 1 September 1939,
Tiger was sunk by a German destroyer which accidentally rammed her during night training.
World War II At the beginning the 4th Flotilla was disbanded and boats were transferred to the 5th and 6th Torpedo Boat Flotillas.
Iltis was refitting, but all the other Type 24s played a minor role in the
invasion of Norway in April 1940.
Leopard and
Wolf were assigned to support the attack on
Bergen while
Luchs, was tasked to help
capture Kristiansand.
Jaguar ferried reinforcements to Kristiansand. As the heavy cruiser was proceeding to Germany without an escort two days later, she too was crippled by a British submarine off the Danish coast and all five boats responded to render assistance. While escorting a group of minelayers returning from laying a
minefield in the Skaggerak on 30 April with
Wolf,
Leopard was sunk when she was accidentally rammed by one of the minelayers.
Iltis and
Jaguar were now the only surviving boats of the class and they continued lay minefields and escorted two
battleships through the Bay of Biscay on 22 March after their
North Atlantic raid. The sisters began refits the next month and were then transferred to the Skagerrak where they were on convoy escort duties until October. They were transferred to France in January 1942, rejoining the 5th Flotilla and were some of the escorts through the Channel for two battleships and a heavy cruiser during the Channel Dash in February. Both boats helped to screen a commerce raider through the Channel in March, but
Iltis was
sunk on 13 May when trying to escort another one. This left
Jaguar as the sole surviving boat and she remained in France for the rest of the year, helping to escort German blockade runners sailing from ports in the
Bay of Biscay en route to Japan. She was transferred to Norwegian waters for escort work in early 1943, but returned to France midway through the year to help escort
U-boats through the Bay of Biscay and continued to do so into early August. The boat helped to lay a minefield in the Channel in March 1944. As the Allies began landing in Normandy on 6 June, the 5th Flotilla sortied several times from
Le Havre over the next week in attempts to sink Allied shipping. They were generally unsuccessful, only sinking a single destroyer on 6 June.
Jaguar was sunk during an air raid by the
Royal Air Force on the night of 14/15 June. ==Notes==