German submarine U-2321
German World War II submarine / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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German submarine U-2321 was the first of the highly advanced Type XXIII U-boats built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in 1944 and 1945. As the first of this class, U-2321 was one of a handful of such boats to undertake an operational patrol, in March 1945. She was successful in this operation, and sank a British freighter, one of just five ships sunk by the new fully submarine (as opposed to just submersible) boats.
Rendering of a Type XXIII submarine | |
History | |
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Nazi Germany | |
Name | U-2321 |
Ordered | 20 September 1943 |
Builder | Deutsche Werft, Hamburg |
Yard number | 475 |
Laid down | 10 March 1944 |
Launched | 17 April 1944 |
Commissioned | 12 June 1944 |
Fate |
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General characteristics | |
Class and type | Type XXIII submarine |
Displacement | |
Length | 34.68 m (113 ft 9 in) |
Beam | 3.02 m (9 ft 11 in) |
Draft | 3.66 m (12 ft) |
Propulsion |
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Speed |
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Range |
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Test depth | 180 m (590 ft) |
Complement | 14–18 |
Armament |
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Service record | |
Part of: |
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Identification codes: | M 41 224 |
Commanders: |
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Operations: |
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Victories: |
1 merchant ship sunk (1,406 GRT) |
She was constructed as an experiment in Hamburg and her small size meant that she was completed in just four months, following which she conducted extensive trials in the Baltic Sea and off the Norwegian coast in an effort to gain an idea of the capabilities of the boat. In this duty, and through her entire life, U-2321 was commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Heinrich Barschkis. By the first few months of 1945, with the war drawing to a close, it was hoped new lessons could be learnt, and defeat potentially delayed by the insertion of some of these boats into the coastal waters of the United Kingdom. To this end, U-2321 and a few of her sisters were dispatched to the Eastern coast of Scotland.