Chapter 799 The quality of Swedish submarines is too poor
Collins-class submarines were built by Sweden. Although Sweden is a small country, it is unique in military research and development. They have JAS39 Gripen fighter jets, they have stealth missile boats, and they also have good submarine research and development capabilities.
In the 1970s, they developed the A17 Gotland-class submarine. This submarine mainly performs the task of closing the Baltic Sea, so it is a one-thousand-ton offshore submarine, and the Collins-class submarine is this kind of submarine. A simple enlarged version of the ship has been enlarged from a displacement of 1,000 tons to 3,000 tons, so that the endurance requirement of 10,000 nautical miles can be achieved, and the crew's living space and material reserves can also be met.
However, the hull of the boat can be enlarged, but other parts cannot be enlarged directly, such as the engine.
Looking around the world, advanced submarine engines come from Germany. However, Sweden did not directly purchase MTU diesel engines. They used their own V-18B14 Hetmot 17-cylinder 4-stroke diesel engine on this submarine. This diesel engine is not available in the world at all. The experience of using it on submarines was previously used in offshore oil fields and other fields.
Therefore, its noise was a bit loud, so when the first boat Collins was put into service, they worked for a long time to reduce the noise and adopted various measures. By the time the second boat was built, they also laid silencer tiles.
Even so, its noise is still quite high.
The Farncomb sailed quietly underwater, unaware that its sound had spread along with the water and reached the sonobuoy that was dropped before dawn.
Shuangsha Island.
“Monitoring underwater sounds, a submarine is coming!”
“Can you tell the model?” At this time, even Qin Tao became excited.
Although the idea was his and his superiors agreed and decided to teach certain people a lesson, the actual implementation was not that easy.
What if a nuclear submarine comes and something happens and a nuclear leak occurs?
"Yes, this submarine is very noisy. We are comparing it in the database and will have the results soon..." The sonar officer said this, and the information was already displayed on the screen.
“Collins class!”
“Okay, it’s a conventional submarine, it’s just the right time!” Qin Tao finally felt relieved, and it’s still a bastard! Beating his dog makes the dog owner lose face!
“Act according to the original plan!”
The arrow is on the string and must be fired!
Due to funding issues, the Navy does not have a large number of submarines. The one sailing on the sea at this time is No. 273's sister boat No. 272. Currently, there are only these two submarines in the entire southern sea area.
It was in a floating state and sailing grandly, allowing everyone to see it clearly. After receiving the telegram, the captain showed a smile on his face: "Everyone, please pay attention and act according to the original plan!"
In the distant sky, a helicopter appeared. It stirred the airflow and made a whirring sound. On the shell of the control tower, the sailor who was watching there shouted loudly: "Attention, there is a plane!"
“Quick, dive, emergency dive!”
A vortex appeared on the bow of the boat. The submarine was diving rapidly underground. The bow of the boat sank into the water, and the hull of the boat sank into the water. The special-shaped enclosure finally disappeared, rolling up waves on the sea surface, and then disappeared.
“Damn, why did they dive?” After receiving the news, Swift was extremely angry.
“While it was diving, a helicopter happened to fly over, which may have frightened it.”
Although they can't observe closely, they can still keep an eye on it with early warning aircraft. They know the situation of the submarine clearly before it dives.
“Aren’t there fighter planes escorting us?”
"Yes, but there was a loophole in their organization. The escorting fighter planes were not handed over in batches. The previous batch flew away, and the next batch was still on the way. In the process, helicopters appeared."
“Damn it, who is this guy who has no eyesight?” Swift was very dissatisfied.
This estimate will always be a mystery. They can't investigate it. They can only guess that it is someone from a nearby country who ruined their big event.
"Now, we can only hope that the Farncomb will find its traces underwater." Swift said: "I hope the Farncomb will not disappoint us. Things underwater are still very fun."
The Farncombe tried its best underwater and used its advanced sonar system to find traces of the target. On the display screen, the trajectory of the target appeared.
“At present, it is sailing eastward.”
"The captain of this submarine is so awesome. After he dived after realizing that something was wrong, he actually sailed eastward. This would have chased everyone in the wrong direction. Fortunately, we have advanced sonar equipment that can capture Its traces,” Peter said with emotion.
“Captain, do we want to catch up?”
"Of course not. If we keep following him, we will never catch up," Peter said.
Underwater is all about tactics. Although both are diesel-electric submarines, they dare not move at full speed. Not only will precious power be consumed, but more importantly, the noise will reveal their positions.
Moreover, this is not necessary.
“Then what should we do?”
"We continue to sail in a straight line. If I guessed correctly, it will turn eastward for dozens of nautical miles, then turn north, drive another few dozen nautical miles, and then sail westward after crossing the islands and reefs. Peter said: "So, as long as we continue sailing north, we can wait for each other on the route ahead. At that time, we can conduct a simulated attack and scare those guys to death."
Hearing Peter's words, his men were a little excited. Yes, since the other party is going back to its home port, it will definitely not sail all the way east. It will eventually turn back, in order to make the **** thing above its head come from nowhere. The helicopter flew into the air, so they could only make a big circle to catch them by surprise. When others thought it would sail directly to the west, it instead sailed east.
The underwater world is always in slow motion. In order to pursue extremely high silence, submarines sailing underwater will only use a speed of three to five knots.
A few hours passed, and the sonar operator suddenly shouted: "It's turning, the other side has turned, and it's heading north!"
"We continue to catch up. In a few hours, they will sail west." Peter's face was filled with excitement. As a submarine captain, he must be like a hunter and be able to endure. Now, the other party It's equivalent to making a big circle, but they are walking in a straight line so that they can catch up with each other.
The Farncombe continued to move forward, and everyone's hearts were full of expectations. They didn't know that there was a huge danger waiting for them just in front of their route.
“The target has turned westward!” the sonar operator shouted loudly: “According to the current route, we will meet them in three hours!”
“Great, everything is going according to our ideas!”
“That’s right, I’m just leading them by the nose!”
In their excitement, they felt the hull of the boat shaking. It was also for this reason that they realized that something was wrong. Someone glanced at the depth gauge, and then shouted loudly: "We are losing depth!"
For any submariner, the last thing he wants to see is to lose depth for no reason! Peter's expression suddenly changed: "What's going on?"
“I don’t know, it has fallen to a hundred meters now!”
Collins-class submarines are made of tensile high-strength steel developed by Sweden. This alloy steel is easier to weld and process than HY80 and HY100 nickel-chromium steel. And the yield strength is also good. It can give the submarine a maximum diving depth of 300 meters, which is good among conventional submarines. You know, many nuclear submarines only have a diving depth of 300 meters.
However, generally speaking, a submarine is safe as long as it dives into the water and is difficult to be discovered. Therefore, under normal circumstances, a submarine will not dive too deep. It is usually tens of meters deep, even a hundred meters. It's a very deep place, with a maximum diving depth of 300 meters. Except for diving to this depth during testing, it will never be driven to this depth at all.
“Quick, speed up, raise the helm!” Peter shouted.
The normal operation of falling underwater is to use the rudder surface to pry the submarine up, and then the submarine floats upward under its own power. This is the first step. You cannot empty the ballast water tank immediately after coming up, otherwise the submarine will go up. .
Speed up!
The engineers were busy, and as soon as they increased the power, they heard a unique sound, sizzling, sizzling! The sound of water under high pressure was so irritating to people's eardrums. They looked at the tail of the submarine, where the drive shaft was already spraying water!
“Report, the rear drive shaft bearing is leaking again!”
The Collins-class submarine is an enlarged version of the Gotland-class submarine. For them, this is no problem. They believe in Swedish shipbuilding technology. Several other bidding plans are also simple enlarged versions of ordinary submarines. However, they later discovered I am too naive.
Not everything can be amplified simultaneously. After amplification, it will cause many problems. For example, is the submarine noise also amplified? The appearance of their submarine was larger, and the noise further increased when sailing underwater. Later, a fairing was added between the conning tower and the hull, which finally solved the problem.
As for the problem of propeller bearing leakage, it was discovered when the first submarine was launched. It took the Swedes two years to solve it. Those people patted their chests and promised that the problem of bearing leakage would not happen again. Who would have thought , the chain actually dropped at such a critical moment!
“Quick, empty all the ballast tanks!” Peter shouted loudly.
If other pipes are damaged, there may be remedial measures, but this submarine propeller bearing is leaking and there is no way to repair it! The only thing that can be done is to drain the water urgently and make it float.
“Captain, but the sea area here...” someone next to him raised a question.
“I don’t care what kind of sea area this is, I have to ensure the safety of the children first.” Peter said.
Peter is a very kind guy, and he always calls his crew members children. Now, his children are facing the most dangerous situation, and he absolutely cannot sit idly by.
"yes."
High-pressure air enters the water tank and begins to drain the seawater, but at this time, the problem arises again.
“Bow report, ballast tank failure!”
The design of the Collins-class submarine is quite special. It only has main ballast water tanks at the bow and stern. Now, the ballast water tank at the bow has encountered a problem and cannot drain seawater, leaving only the ballast water tank at the tail. When When the tail began to empty out the seawater, the tail became lighter and began to rise, while the bow went downward. The entire submarine did not appear to be floating, but rather diving.
“We continue to fall deeper, one hundred and fifty!”
Even though they took these measures, they still couldn't prevent the submarine from sinking!
“Drain the fuel and increase buoyancy!” Peter shouted loudly. Now they have no other choice! Although they are still 150 meters away from the maximum diving depth, if they do not stop their fall, they will encounter a terrible crisis.
Drain fuel?
Although this solution is very alternative, it is indeed a solution to the problem!
When a submarine sails underwater, it must ensure that the buoyancy is equal to gravity, but what if the diesel engine is operated at the depth of the snorkel? As the diesel engine continues to consume diesel, the submarine will become lighter and lighter. The solution used by the Collins class is a double-layer fuel tank, which is placed inside and air outside. When the diesel is consumed, the outside air will be replaced by seawater. In this way, seawater is used to replace the consumed diesel and maintain the normal weight of the submarine. .
This method seems simple, but the problem of seawater mixing into diesel has also troubled them for a long time, causing early damage to the diesel engine. It was later solved by adding a special filtering device.
Now, they need to drain the diesel out, empty it all, and replace it with air, so that the buoyancy of the submarine can be further increased!
This is a crooked idea, but it does work!
At the critical moment, Peter also had a lot of imagination.
The sound of high-pressure air continued to sound, and the submarine continued to sink.
“Falled to a depth of two hundred meters!”
“Two hundred and fifty meters!”
“Stop losing depth!”
Finally, at a depth of 250 meters, the submarine seemed to be tamed like a wild horse that had run wild and stopped falling. Compared with its Eastern companions, their biggest advantage was that when encountering seawater cliffs, the depth was relatively shallow. There is a lot of room for maneuver.
“Thank God,” Peter said. “Now, children, let me take you home.”
“Report, too much water has entered the engine room, and the main motor cannot be started!”
“Report, the bow ballast tank cannot be rectified!”
The bad news continues to come one after another.
"Send a distress signal immediately!" Peter said: "Report to our superiors that we encountered a sea cliff and the submarine has serious quality problems. We are currently stopped at a depth of 250 meters and are expected to sink slowly. Please ask them Rescue, immediately, immediately!"
Now, they have emptied the ballast water tank in the tail and the fuel tank. Normally, they should be able to float. However, due to the water in the tail tank, their gravity is still slowly increasing. Now they are just maintaining balance, and they will follow later. As more and more water comes in, they will continue to sink.
If they sink again, they will go into hell!
A distress buoy was released from the control tower, floated to the surface of the water, and then emitted electromagnetic waves in all directions.
When he got the news, it was already night, and Swift was about to go to bed. After receiving the news, Swift suddenly fell asleep.
“The seawater cliff and the submarine malfunction, it is a miracle that they are not dead yet.” Swift said: “Thanks to our nuclear submarine not passing over, otherwise it is very likely that we will not be able to get up.”
Conventional submarines will not dive too deep, but nuclear submarines are different. After all, once they go to sea, they will almost never surface, and the water depth will allow them to hide better, so they are likely to dive to one or two hundred meters, then encountered a seawater cliff, fell directly below the extreme depth, and finally over.
Thanks to being a conventional submarine, we were able to hold on at a distance of 250 meters.
But what next?
“The propeller bearing at the tail of their submarine is leaking. It can keep from sinking now because their submarine has emptied all the fuel. But if we wait and the sea water continues to pour in, it will still sink. We must rescue it immediately.”
"Rescue? How do we rescue? We simply can't launch a rescue in that sea area with great fanfare!" Swift said.
Thanks to not sending a nuclear submarine over, even if it is lost now, it has nothing to do with them.
“Are we going to die without saving anything?”
“What else can we do? Ask the Orientals for help, ask the Orientals for help?”
“Report, our early warning aircraft found that two ships were heading towards the accident area.”
“What ship?”
"have no idea."
ˆ What is displayed on the early warning aircraft is just a bright spot, and it is impossible to show the specific model, so they don't know.
Swift frowned, and then said: "They made a lot of noise underwater, and the Orientals must have noticed it. Maybe the Orientals thought something happened to their 039C submarine. Next, we need Just wait and see what happens. It is very likely that the Easterners will take action and rescue the unlucky guy on the submarine. The cliff in the sea is really scary."
Swift was not worried at all when he said this, but half an hour later, someone came to see him.
"Mr. Swift, our Farncombe is in danger during the voyage and is in urgent need of your rescue!" The visitor said nervously: "They are struggling with death underwater now, and they need rescue!"
"We are working hard." Swift said: "Our submarine rescue equipment has been packed locally and is ready to be loaded onto a transport aircraft, which will then be transported over by the transport aircraft..."
"We can't wait that long." The visitor was very anxious: "Currently, the submarine is still taking in water. It won't be long before they can maintain their current balance and will continue to lose depth. Once they start falling, there will be no more depth." It’s possible to save! We must rescue immediately!”
"Rescue immediately? How is that possible? Our rescue device is not here at all, and we are helpless. Now, the closest ones are only the Orientals. Do you want to ask the Orientals for help?"
Orientals?
The visitor gritted his teeth: "Okay, let's go to the Easterners for help. Mr. Swift, we also ask you to help us as soon as possible. If the Easterners don't agree to us, we still need our allies."
Watching the visitor leave, the assistant was a little worried: "Isn't it a bit..."
"There is a sea cliff there, so what if we go over to rescue them? Maybe they will hitch a ride on our rescue submarine! There is no need for us to take this risk for them. Just let the Easterners take the risk."
Shuangsha Island.
This has become a city that never sleeps. Even at eleven o'clock, there are still many people playing. The lights illuminate the entire island as if it were daytime, and tourists continue to have fun.
Cowell stepped onto Shuangsha Island with a heavy heart. Thanks to the good intelligence work, he was able to know that Mr. Qin was on the island for the first time, and also knew that the deep-submersible lifeboat of the Mingzhou Group was currently operating nearby. , all this seems to be too coincidental.
However, seawater cliffs are not something that can be discovered casually. They are erratic and unlucky for whoever encounters them. Therefore, they cannot blame the Easterners for the incident. Now they are not in the mood to consider the aftermath. , there is only one thing they have to do: let the Orientals take action to help them rescue the crew members in the submarine.
The submarine can sink, but people must be rescued.
“Is Mr. Qin here?” Arriving in front of Qin Tao’s villa, Kewell asked the person at the door.
"Mr. Qin has gone to bed. If you have anything to do, we will discuss it tomorrow."
“I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry about this matter.”
"It's your business to be anxious and it has nothing to do with Mr. Qin. Mr. Qin and his wife are here for vacation, not for work."
Kewell took out a bank card in his hand: "There are 10 million US dollars in it, which is for Mr. Qin..."
"Is it a meeting gift? If it is a meeting gift, then I can convey it to you."
This is a reward, a reward for asking the other party to rescue you, but now, it has turned into a meeting gift?
Kewell was a little reluctant, but he also knew that there was no other way. He wanted to see Qin Tao as soon as possible and settle the matter as soon as possible. The longer it was delayed, the more dangerous the people inside would be.
After a few minutes.
"Mr. Qin has invited me, but I'm offended and needs to be checked first."
The other party touched Kewell's whole body before sending him in.
Qin Tao was wearing pajamas, sitting on the sofa, holding a cup of freshly brewed coffee in his hand.
"Ten million dollars as a meeting gift just to meet me once. There must be something important and urgent, right?" Qin Tao said: "There is no need to make small talk, let's talk quickly."
“Yes, Mr. Qin, we have a submarine that had an accident in the ** waters. We hope that your deep-diving lifeboat can rush to the incident waters as soon as possible for rescue.”
“Oh, how did your submarine crash and what is its current condition?”
(End of this chapter)