Babylonian Empire

Page 422

On the Aibuha that had stopped, Talal looked at the ship passing by, and suddenly his heart rose to his throat.

Why didn't that ship stop?That's very dangerous!

"Bridgeton, stop now!" Talal yelled over the radio.

"I'm stopping!" said the captain of the Bridgeton grimly.

The speed of the 40-ton Bridgeton has gradually slowed down, but Talal has never been relieved. I wonder how dense the mines laid by the Iranians are?

If the density is not high, there is a high possibility that the Bridgeton will be safe and sound, but if you are unlucky, even if a big guy with 40 tons triggers a mine, it is likely to cause the ship to sink.

Bridgeton was out of luck.

While the ship was slowing down, under the water where no one could see, two M08 anchor mines were swaying underwater with the ocean current.

Inside the black sphere tied with an anchor cable, there are explosives made by humans that bring destructive power. The five tentacles of the sphere are floating back and forth with the sphere.

A tentacles suddenly felt a strong impact, and suddenly, the anchor mine became angry.

Each antennae is made of a zinc cup, a carbon rod, and a glass tube filled with an electrolyte.The principle is also very simple, each antenna is equivalent to a dry battery, the zinc cup is equal to the zinc skin on the outer layer of the battery, the carbon rod is similar to the carbon core with a copper head on the top of the battery, and the electrolyte in the glass tube is the viscous liquid in the battery. body.

In the impact just now, the tentacles were bent immediately, the glass tube inside was broken, and the electrolyte flowed between the zinc cup and the carbon rod within a second, and the battery started to work immediately. The electric detonator, the electric detonator detonated instantly, and the explosion of this detonator ignited the TNT explosive.

"Boom!" A violent explosion came from underwater. The captain standing on the bridge felt a violent shaking under his feet. Even he, an old captain who had sailed safely in a typhoon, He couldn't stand still and fell to the ground.

The Albuha, less than a nautical mile from Bridgetown, witnessed this scene.

The Bridgeton hit a mine!

The explosion energy of the M08 anchor mine is very large. It does not destroy the hull directly by explosion, but impacts the hull with a powerful pressure wave. When this pressure wave exceeds the maximum pressure that the hull can withstand, the hull will rupture, and the damage radius can reach 5-6 meters.For destroyers and smaller ships, one or two mine explosions in the right place can sink it, or cause serious damage, and make it out of combat.

The only good thing is that it was a 40-ton oil tanker that was bombed, and it still survived. Unfortunately, it triggered a total of two mines.

Just after the first mine exploded, the Bridgeton had slowed down to five knots, and was still rushing forward. When it rushed another 30 meters, it hit the second mine again and exploded again.

Both explosions occurred on the front right side of the oil tanker, and did not damage the rear power compartment of the oil tanker. Moreover, since the Bridgton used a double-hull structure, it did not damage the cabin containing crude oil inside, and did not cause any damage. Crude oil spill.

The purpose of building double-hull tankers at the beginning was to save energy when transporting liquids that needed to be heated, such as bitumen, molasses or paraffin, because the heat insulation performance of the double hull is better.

Later, the purpose of building a double-hull tanker was to improve its safety and prevent oil leakage, and the space between the two hulls was also used as a ballast tank to balance the hull according to the ship's cargo.The ballast is sea water pumped between the hulls.

In other words, this kind of double-hull tanker has the same effect as the double-hull nuclear submarine built by the Soviet Union. At the same time, the double-hull tanker can also increase the strength of the hull and prevent hull fatigue.

Now, the hull of this double-hulled tanker does a good job of protecting it.

"Drain the water from the three compartments to the left and balance the hull," the captain shouted.Due to two holes being blown on the right side, the hull tilted.

At this time, the Bridgeton finally stopped, and the crew began to urgently rescue their own ship.

Chapter 469 Time-consuming Minesweeper Operation

"Use active sonar," Talal ordered.

In anti-sea mine warfare, how to find sea mines is the first problem, because a sea mine is like a stone in the water, it does not make any sound, it just waits quietly like that, and it is not on the sea surface, so only Being able to use active sonar is entirely based on the intuition of a sonar operator.

The Thomson-Sintra Diodon T**2630 hull sonar on the bow of the Albuha started working, and soon, from the returned echoes, the sonar operator found several possible The flotsam of a mine.

There are indeed large-scale mines here!

Talal knew that with the current ability of the formation, it was impossible to pass here.

Unexpectedly, the Iranians actually came up with this method and completely blocked the Strait of Hormuz!Talal expressed strong contempt for this behavior of the Iranians. It would be immoral enough to attack with missiles and harass with small boats. Now that the Iranians actually block the strait with mines, it is simply Behavior that even God cannot tolerate!

Because the use of missiles and small boats is temporary. When the war is over, these dangers will pass. As for mines, as long as they are put into the water, the mines will no longer recognize people. Even Iran, which launched them People will also face the danger of sea mines. If they are not cleared, then this danger will always exist. Ten years, 20 years, 50 years, this place will completely become unnavigable backwater.

Don't the Iranians plan to use this strait?You must know that although Iran's Khuzestan province has been occupied by Iraq, there are still some oil wells in Iran producing oil on the sea. The Iranians are digging their own graves!

At this time, the injured Bridgeton struggled to retreat and exited the minefield.

Fortunately, this 40-ton giant ship did not leak or sink. It needs to sail to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to unload crude oil and then repair it.

Regarding this new situation, even Talal had no countermeasures. He could only send the news to Riyadh, requesting that minesweepers be sent over for assistance.

At the same time, the news was also reported to the Gulf countries.

The Iranians actually blocked the Strait of Hormuz with mines. He can do this way of cutting off children and grandchildren!

After receiving this news, Qusay was also very surprised. Although Iran had also laid mines in the Iran-Iraq ship attack war in later generations, they had never placed mines in the most critical position in the strait. They still used anti-ship missiles. Block the strait.

In the mine warfare of later generations, the United States, together with other allies, used a large number of mine-sweeping equipment and spared no effort to search underwater. It took a lot of effort to complete the task of mine-sweeping.

And now among the countries in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, which has the most powerful navy, only has a few old-fashioned "Adria"-class coastal minesweepers, which cannot undertake the task of rapid minesweeping at all.

You must know that for ordinary mines placed in the water, mine hunting ships need to use hull sonar to repeatedly search, detect, classify and identify the sea area, and during the whole process, the mines are unresponsive.And when the minehunting personnel think that the target discovered by the sonar may be a mine, they need to release the mine destroyer, approach the mine, and sail around the mine, and then use the sound and light sensor on the mine destroyer to identify and confirm the mine, sometimes The mine extinguishing device is only 2 to 3 meters away from the mine, and the mine at this time will not move, and can only sit and wait for death, and finally be destroyed by the bomb dropped by the mine extinguishing device.

Therefore, it will take 1 to 2 hours at the fastest for this minehunting operation mode to eliminate a mine or a suspicious target. If it is slow, it may be a day. Just longer.It is simply impossible to meet the requirements of quickly eliminating the mine obstacles laid by the Iranians and quickly opening up waterways.

If only the minesweepers of the peninsula defense force were to sweep the mines, it would take less than a month to clear the entire channel, and it would not be cleared. In this month, even if the Strait of Hormuz was blocked, Only ships with courage and good luck can risk sailing through the strait without triggering mines.

We must come up with a quick and feasible method!Otherwise, you will have to ask for help from the United States in the end. No country can withstand the pressure of being unable to pass ships for a month. Needless to say, Kuwait will definitely collapse.

No one thought that the Iranians could lay out the mines that filled the entire Strait of Hormuz overnight. Even if the Americans found out, they would never remind them. Now the Americans wish that the Arabs could not escort them. The ship is passing normally!

Moreover, mine clearance is a worldwide problem, and Qusay felt a lot of pressure to hand over such a big responsibility to Iraq.

After receiving the news, Prince Sultan immediately dispatched Adria-class minesweepers and started a long minesweeping mission.

There are many ways to detonate sea mines. Anchor mines are the most common way to trigger explosions. Other than this, there are also ways to detonate using magnetism, noise and water pressure.

Therefore, minesweepers generally use non-magnetic ships. For example, these minesweepers in Saudi Arabia use wooden hulls.

These classic boats rushed to the Strait of Hormuz area and started intense operations, but before dark, only three mines were swept out.

The waiting ship following behind began to feel uneasy.

Because, they already have a hunch that if this continues, when will they be able to cross this strait?

Knowing that the Strait of Hormuz was laid by the Iranians, immediately, the world crude oil futures started a new round of price increases.

Petroleum is the catalyst for the entire industry. The continuous price increase of crude oil is the last thing that countries that need to import oil from the Middle East want to see, and the United States is the most concerned.

"Your Majesty, the American ambassador is here." In Riyadh, King Fahd was once again under pressure from the United States.

King Fahd knew that the US ambassador must have come to put pressure on himself, but he has no other way now, he must accept the move.

Soon, the American ambassador walked in.

Because of Saudi Arabia's pro-US policy, the US ambassador has a very high status in Saudi Arabia, and the relationship with the Saudi royal family is also very good. But now, because Saudi Arabia disagrees with the US on the issue of escorting the Persian Gulf, the US ambassador has also begun to criticize Saudi Arabia hardened its attitude.