Soviet submarine L-21

Career (USSR)
Name:	L-21
Laid down:	15 June 1938
Launched:	14 July 1940
Commissioned:	31 August 1943
Decommissioned:	29 December 1955
Fate:	Scrapped.
General characteristics
Class and type:	Leninets-class
Displacement:	1,108 tons surfaced 1,400 tons submerged
Length:	85.3 m (279 ft 10 in)
Beam:	7 m (23 ft 0 in)
Draft:	4.05 m (13 ft 3 in)
Propulsion:	Diesel-electric 2 × diesels 2 × electric motors 2 shafts
Speed:	18 knots (33 km/h) surfaced 9 knots (17 km/h) submerged
Range:	10,000 nmi (19,000 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h) surfaced 150 nmi (280 km) at 2.5 kn (4.6 km/h) submerged
Test depth:	80
Complement:	56
Armament:	1 × 100 mm (3.9 in) L/68 gun 1 × 45 mm (1.8 in) gun 8 × 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes (6 bow, 2 ext aft) 18 × torpedoes 20 × mines

The World War II Soviet submarine L-21 belonged to the L-class or Leninets class of minelayer submarines. She was part of the last series (Group 4) of her class, having some improvements including more torpedo tubes.^[1][2] The commander during the war was Sergey S. Mogilevskiy ^[3]

Service history

Before completion, L-21 was sunk by German aircraft in Leningrad on 24 May 1942. L-21 was later raised, completed and commissioned, making both torpedo attacks and mine-laying. Among her victims was the Hansa, a neutral passenger ship. L-21 also managed to sink a number of German warships.

Ships sunk by L-21^[4]

Date	Ship	Flag	Tonnage	Notes
23 November 1944	Eichberg		1,923 GRT	freighter (mine)
24 November 1944	Elie		1,837 GRT	freighter (mine)
24 November 1944	Hansa		563 GRT	passenger ship (torpedo)
22 December 1944	Eberhard		749 GRT	freighter (mine) (possibly)
14 March 1945	T-3		839 GRT	torpedo boat (mine)
14 March 1945	T-5		839 GRT	torpedo boat (mine)
16 March 1945	U-367		769 GRT	submarine (mine)
23 March 1945	V 2022/E Colzmann		581 GRT	patrol boat (torpedo)
24 March 1945	Erni		105 GRT	tug (torpedo)
Total:			8,205 GRT

One of her mines heavily damaged the German destroyer Z-43.^[4]

References