A comparison of the welding performance of ship hull structural steels has been made. The weldability of steels especially designed for laser processing was compared to that of conventional hull and structural steels with plate thicknesses up to 12 mm. Autogenous laser beam welding was used to weld butt joints as well as skid and stake welded T-joints. The welds were assessed in accordance with the document "The Classification Societies" Requirements for Approval of $CO_2$ Laser Welding Procedures" Small imperfections in the weld only grew slightly in root bend tests and they only had a minor influence on the fatigue properties of laser fillet welded joints. In Charpy impact tests, the 27 J transition temperature of the weld metal and HAZ ranged from below -60 to $-50^{circ}C$. The amount of martensite in the weld metal depended on the carbon equivalent of the steel with the highest amounts and highest hardness levels in conventional EH 36 (389 HV 5). Thermomechanically rolled steels contained less martensite and showed a correspondingly lower maximum hardness.ximum hardness.