Binjiang Police Affairs

Chapter 1443 - 233: Safety First! (2)

The ocean-going captain carrying out the garrison liaison task together comes from Guangzhou Navigation College. He is currently on the Shenzhen Ship organizing non-duty officers to learn about international conventions. The schedule is very tight, and at night he will also spend his spare time teaching the officers English.Since Han Yu has to simultaneously perform observation tasks, he doesn’t have to give lectures to the officers like others do.

The reason he chose to board the supply ship instead of the Shenzhen Ship is, firstly, because he is more interested in the supply ship; secondly, the command post is set on the Shenzhen Ship, where both commanders are also located. There’s more freedom on the supply ship than on the Shenzhen Ship.

With no one around, Adviser Wu asked with a smile, "Brother, how do you feel about our new ship?"

Han Yu was silent for a moment and then asked back: "Do you want to hear the truth or a lie?"

"Of course, the truth!"

"The level of equipment needs improvement."

"Be specific."

"First, from the perspective of weaponry: as a warship of nearly seven thousand tons and serving as the flagship, it surprisingly lacks area air defense capability, being only equipped with one set of eight-barrel short-range air defense missiles, with a maximum range of only 12 kilometers and lacking multi-target engagement capability. Previously, I saw some military enthusiasts online saying this, and I couldn’t believe it. But after boarding the ship, I found it surprisingly true."

Adviser Wu was stunned for a moment and asked in shock, "Anything else?"

"The close-in gun system is also outdated; those four 37-mm machine guns have a low firing rate and poor reliability. The fire control radar doesn’t seem up to par either, rendering the anti-missile capability extremely limited and barely better than nothing."

Han Yu raised his binoculars, observed the stern, and continued: "The design layout of the 37 guns also has issues. The four guns are installed at the four rounded corners of the hangar, which, although effectively enhancing the rear defense of the ship, will lead to significant close-range defense gaps at the front, easily exploited by enemy forces during wartime to cause large losses."

He once "owned" a small warship and has a good relationship with the East Sea Fleet, having visited the East Sea Base of the East Sea Fleet and boarded the fleet’s vessels often, so understanding these is quite normal.

Adviser Wu wasn’t surprised that Han Yu could see these shortcomings, and softly said, "Continue."

"Yesterday, I carefully looked at the ship, and found an actual regression in the anti-submarine area, where it lacks the combined active-passive towed sonar like previous ships such as the Helbin Ship and Qingdao Ship, and only has an active hull sonar at the bow."

Han Yu took a deep breath, furrowing his brows as he said: "The use of steam turbines is a hallmark of Dreadnoughts, starting from the Dreadnought era in 1905. Besides being low cost and having cheap fuel, it’s hard to find another advantage to steam turbines, while the disadvantages are numerous.

Long start-up time, slow fire-up and sailing speed, difficult to quickly sail and fight in significant missions or in response to enemy situations. Also, the noise is very loud and the concealment is poor; during navigation, great noise occurs, easily exposing its position, and similarly severely interfering with the bow’s active hull sonar detection capability, making it hard to accurately detect enemy submarines."

This time, Adviser Wu was somewhat surprised, and softly asked: "Brother, you know even this?"

"I started operating a Law Enforcement Rescue Boat when I was sixteen. My small 001 was equipped with radar and underwater detection devices over ten years ago, with military radar, and the underwater detection device works on the sonar principle. Many of your officers saw computers only when receiving the new ship, whereas I have been using computers since more than ten years ago."

"More than ten years ago using computers? Is it true?"

"What’s the point of deceiving you? The equipment on underwater surveying devices; I wasn’t very knowledgeable back then myself, and actually thought the hundreds of thousands worth of underwater surveying equipment was just a water depth detector."

Naval vessels have improved slightly in recent years, but in earlier years, they were truly just a bunch of old boats.

Adviser Wu was silent for a moment and smiled bitterly: "We all know what you’re saying; who doesn’t wish for more advanced vessels? In fact, our requirements during the design weren’t like this, but they blocked us with technological embargoes, and our own technology isn’t up to par. The requirements that we proposed earlier haven’t been realized even once."

"How many ships like this are intended to be built?"

"Since you can see so many shortcomings, the superiors know as well. For now, we’ll make do with it and temporarily don’t plan on building a second one."

"That’s good, if several were built in succession, then this expenditure would be quite unworthy." Han Yu thought for a moment, then looked at the distant new ship and said: "Treat it as a test ship for now and upgrade or modify it when conditions are right."

"We are thinking the same way."

Adviser Wu sighed lightly, then smiled and asked: "As an observer, have you noticed anything unknown to me?"

Han Yu turned back and asked: "Do you really want to know?"

"Isn’t that a rhetorical question? This question is asked by Political Commissioner Shen."

"I toured the engine room yesterday and discovered the electrical department is quite unfamiliar with the condition and maintenance of the main and auxiliary engines. Probably, they have previously operated and maintained small vessels, without much exposure to high-power main engines, thus their professional competence needs improvement."

He is trained in engine technology and is undoubtedly an expert in this field.

Moreover, warships only go out to sea a few times a year, unlike ocean-going cargo ships that almost daily navigate the oceans. The technical competence of electrical department officers can’t really compare to marine mechanic sailors of commercial shipping.

Adviser Wu didn’t know what to say, so Han Yu continued: "When the whistle blows, it’s worth a million gold. It’s not easy to set sail once, yet they don’t take advantage of this opportunity to organize training like naval replenishment. We used to be tight on funds, but as long as my small 001 set sail, I’d find ways to utilize the sailing opportunity to conduct training for extinguishing fires at sea."

"Are you suggesting training while sailing?"

"Yes."

"Oceanic voyage itself is training."

"Just navigating is far from enough, brother, you guys are the Navy, always ready for war!"

This remark pricks the heart quite intensely.

Adviser Wu was rather embarrassed and looked back, covered his mouth and said: "Safe voyages to a few countries, successfully completing visiting missions is the priority. As for those training subjects you mentioned, they can be organized after completing visiting missions, after all, the sea is not like the shore; if incidents don’t happen, nothing’s risked, but once they do, they become major issues."

Han Yu whispered: "Is this your idea?"

"I’m just along for the ride, what ideas could I possibly have, it’s the leadership’s idea."

"Afraid of incidents?"

"Accidents dictate outcomes; if we organize replenishment training while sailing as you suggested, if an incident arises or lives are lost, what then? How will the Chief Commander and Political Commissioner Shen explain to the superiors?"

Worrying that Han Yu might misunderstand, Adviser Wu added rather awkwardly: "Eating is done bite by bite, our first task is to step out, successfully completing the tasks assigned by superior authority of ocean voyage and visits is victory."

As long as the destination is reached and returning safely, it’s considered a victory.

This sounds somewhat reasonable; however, thinking deeper makes it seem odd as well. For this is a warship, not a commercial ship!

Han Yu really didn’t know how to refute, so he decided not to speak further and planned to document this in the observation report later.