The L-class boats designed by Lake Torpedo Boat (L-5 through L-8) were built to slightly different specifications from the other L boats, which were designed by Electric Boat, and are sometimes considered a separate L-5 class. The Lake boats had a length of 165feet overall, a beam of 14feet and a mean draft of 13feet. They displaced 451LT on the surface and 527LT submerged. The L-class submarines had a crew of 28 officers and enlisted men. They had a diving depth of 200feet.[1]
For surface running, the boats were powered by two 6000NaN0 diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a 400hp electric motor. They could reach 14kn on the surface and underwater. On the surface, the Lake boats had a range of 5150nmi at [1] and 150nmi at submerged.[2]
The boats were armed with four 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes in the bow. They carried four reloads, for a total of eight torpedoes. The L-class submarines were also armed with a single 3"/50 caliber deck gun.[2]
L-5s keel was laid down on 14 May 1914 by Lake Torpedo Boat Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, launched on 1 May 1916, sponsored by Mrs. Rosalind Robinson, and commissioned on 17 February 1918. After exercises along the Atlantic coast, L-5 departed Charleston, South Carolina, on 15 October 1918 with Submarine Division 6 and reached the Azores on 7 November. Following the Armistice with Germany on 11 November, L-5 headed west, arriving Bermuda on 1 December. She participated in exercises in the Caribbean Sea before steaming on to San Pedro, California, where she arrived 13 February 1919.
From 1919 to 1922, she remained on the West Coast experimenting with new torpedoes and underseas detection equipment. L-5 departed San Pedro on 25 July 1922, and, after visits in Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Panama Canal Zone, she arrived Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 28 September. The submarine remained there until she decommissioned on 5 December 1922. She was sold on 21 December 1925 to Passaic Salvage and Reclamation Company in Newark, New Jersey, and scrapped.