Don't talk about martial arts, I'm a war contractor

Chapter 499 Combat Patrol, Nautilus
After all, the Harrier is notoriously difficult to control, or in other words, this type of short take-off/vertical landing fighter requires a lot of pilot skills.

If you don't have good skills, the F-35B can eject you on the spot, and the loss from a crash is in the billions.

Xia Yu was more worried that the 12 fat electric planes bought by Xi County might not be able to withstand the crash, but this would also produce more "Cullinan fragments" for him to assemble a complete aircraft.

"Our Sea Harrier is in good condition after maintenance. We will fly a few more sorties this time."

Xia Yu warned the fruit bat.

Sharpshooters are fed with bullets, and ace pilots are also fed with flying hours. As a boss, he has a system that does not require grinding, but he cannot be pinned on one vehicle unit.

You should invest in employee training if necessary; there is no need to save money in this regard.

"Yes, boss!"

After looking at the entire ship, Xia Yu returned to the shore and began to analyze the intelligence related to pirate attacks in the Malacca Strait this year.

More than 40 cases occurred in the first half of the year alone, which means that the number for the entire year is likely to exceed .

More than 50% of the pirate attacks target tankers loaded with crude oil and refined oil. After all, these things are too easy to sell in the international market.

What surprised Xia Yu, a newcomer to the PMSC business, was that if you wanted to grab oil, you didn’t have to target the tankers.

Just like oil thieves on land who steal diesel from trucks, these pirates directly bribed the employees at the port gas stations. They knew which bulk carriers and container ships had just been refueled and when they left the port.

Then they would block the road they had to take, stop them and start pumping out 1,800 tons of heavy oil in just a few dozen minutes.

For this kind of refined oil that can be burned directly, there is no need to go back to the port. Instead, you can directly find sellers on the high seas to refuel at a low price, complete the whole process of robbery and selling the stolen goods, and directly take back the US dollar cash.

What is professionalism? This is it. They do their work much more meticulously than their black counterparts. Last year, they even set a record of attacking three ships in six hours.

Judging from this year's files, no major crime has been committed yet, but if the defense department does not intervene, it is only a matter of time before a major crime occurs in Southeast Asia in the second half of the year.

But Xia Yu came, and if he wanted to make a living, he could only let these pirates go to the sea to feed the fish.

"Dip~dip~dip~~"

The satellite phone suddenly rang, and when it was connected, it was Joseph, the captain of the Haiyan.

"Boss, we have arrived in the Southeast Asian waters."

"Let's go to Xinjiaxiang for supplies first, and then we'll set off together."

"Yes, boss!"

After ending the communication, the Haiyan, which had just completed its deployment in the Pacific, continued to sail towards Malacca.

Before they arrived at the Dashi base, Xia Yu boarded the Haiyan on AS 550.

This 3000-ton professional scientific research vessel is more than two sizes smaller than the 8000-ton Jihuo, but it is not a polar scientific research vessel. It needs to rely on its tonnage to fracture the ice to move forward. With this displacement, the ship is equipped with a full range of deep-sea scientific research equipment.

The most important of these is the Argus Worker Rov.

[Sub-project: Remus 6000 AUV]

[Completeness: 100% (printable)]

After turning on the system, Xia Yu first opened a spindle-shaped autonomous underwater vehicle that could be remotely controlled without the need for cables.

This thing is like a torpedo. With a 22-hour endurance, it can dive to a depth of 6000 meters on the seabed to search for traces of shipwrecks.

Once a discovery is made, it is time for the Argus Worker Rov to take action.

The 5-function Schilling Rigmaster and Atlas1x7-function Schilling T4 manipulator arm give you both hands on the seabed.

The Hood's bell was fished out from the bottom of the sea, so it can be said to be very powerful.

"Print!"

Xia Yu chose to print the sub-projects directly. The subsystems on such a large ship can be printed in batches directly, but he has to stay on the ship.

Just stay here. In addition to the captain's suite on the Jihuo, as the boss, we also have a room on the Haiyan. You can stay as long as you want. Xia Yu will stay here from now until the official sea deployment.

【Sub-project: Argus Worker Rov】

[Completeness: 100% (printable)]

"Print!"

Select the remotely operated submersible to add to the printing sequence, and the progress bar will increase to 85.3 working hours.

Although high-tech items are small in size, they still require a lot of effort to make, and even more effort is the modification of the Nautilus.

A week later, the Haiyan arrived at the Dashi base, completed supply and rest, and under the escort of the Jihuo, officially began scientific research and exploration in the busy Strait of Malacca, searching for sunken merchant ships and warships.

After returning to the Jihuo, Xia Yu officially began the modification and upgrading of the Nautilus.

[Discovered submarine × 1, effective modification parts × 2 (type), can be modified]

Xia Yu moved the Type 206 submarine and two underwater detectors from berth No. 1 to the marine vehicle modification laboratory that was unlocked last year.

Even so, the modified Nautilus still had a diving depth of only two to three hundred meters, so he invested in the design of a double hull and chose to use titanium alloy to strengthen the structural strength of the hull.

"Modification!"

After fine-tuning the final rendering, Xia Yu directly chose to modify, and a progress bar popped up on the system.

[Estimated remaining hours of modification: 134.8]

In a little over five days, less than six, his Nautilus would be as good as new.

Although Xia Yu was happy, he did not forget to work.

"Om~~"

Driven by the airflow, the meritorious Sea Harrier parked in the center of the dock landing ship's helipad took off into the air, and the fuel gauge index in the fruit bat's sight dropped rapidly.

The countdown began from this moment on. The remaining fuel was only enough to fly more than 200 kilometers before entering the warning line where it had to land, which meant that the combat radius was compressed to within 100 kilometers.

But they were just doing training, and after flying seventy or eighty kilometers, an A330 MRTT multi-purpose aerial refueling aircraft belonging to the Singapore Air Force had been waiting for a long time.

The aircraft, which was delivered only last year, was still very new. The Sea Harrier followed the refueling hose it towed and, under the control of the Fruit Bat, pushed the refueling port into the drogue. Tons of jet fuel also poured rapidly into the fighter's fuel tank from the channel connecting the two aircraft.

The fruit bat's mood suddenly changed from anxiety about going out with a mobile phone with only 50% battery to a full sense of security after plugging in a power bank. After all, the combat radius suddenly became 750 kilometers × N.

"Open the bow door and release the unmanned combat boat,"

Xia Yu put down his telescope that could not see anything, looked at the images sent back by the scanning eagle on the screen, and gave orders.

"Yes, boss!"

The bow door, which is basically only used for cargo loading and unloading in the port, opens to both sides. Because the front part is a dry dock, seawater cannot enter in calm sea conditions, but the small boats inside cannot get out either.

Fortunately, the JARI-USV multi-purpose unmanned combat boat has a displacement of only 20 tons, and it can be directly sent to the sea using a vehicle tugboat frame.

"Buzz~~" Two 1200-horsepower diesel engines started, pushing the unmanned combat boat to cut through the waves, and soon disappeared from sight.

Their company's JARI-USV is definitely for long-term reuse, but since there are suicide drones, there must also be suicide unmanned boats.

The total cost of filling a small boat with explosives and adding a remote control kit is only a fraction of that of an anti-ship missile, but its defense is almost zero and can be blown up by a single burst from a heavy machine gun.

It's okay for pirates or the military to use it to attack merchant ships, but the success rate of attacking warships is too low.

This is just like how 9% of the kills of U-boats in World War II were merchant ships. Destroyers and anti-submarine boats have such a strong inhibitory effect on U-boats that even an anti-submarine net can stop them.

However, as long as the price is cheap enough, the shark swarm tactics can be used to block a narrow sea area and turn it into a semi-submarine for Mexican drug lords to transport goods, and the effect can be even better.

Standing in the command room of the bridge, Xia Yu was daydreaming while keeping in touch with the Fruit Bat crew and monitoring the information sent back by the unmanned combat boat and the Scanning Eagle.

This is a cargo-carrying maritime combat patrol, and it is also a combined training. After all, this set of tactics has not yet been used in actual combat.

Unmanned combat boats are built to be sold, and are very suitable for buyers who have dock landing ships and amphibious assault ships. However, useful equipment is not exaggerated, and sales are achieved through actual combat.

The Asian branch urgently needs results, and combat patrols after going to sea are the first step.

You don't have to encounter pirates on the first day. Adapting to the rhythm in the actual combat environment is more important than getting kills.

"Pay attention to comparing the location information of registered merchant ships. We need to find that key ghost ship."

Xia Yu said to Lao Zhao who was at the helm.

If pirates want to steal oil, they cannot steal a few tons with just a speedboat, so they will have a "tanker" converted from a scrapped ship to transport and sell the stolen goods.

Such ships are unregistered ghost ships and will not appear in the merchant ship real-time logistics information sharing system.

As long as they caught one, it would be equivalent to discovering a nest of pirates, and they would naturally be the focus of their combat patrols.

Unfortunately, there were no discoveries during the first week of patrol, but the Haiyan, which they were escorting, made some new discoveries.

"Calling the boss, we seem to have spotted a submarine."

Joseph contacted Xia Yu on the radio.

"Submarine? I'll be right over."

The work was thrown to Lao Zhao, who took the AS 550 directly to the Haiyan, which was dozens of kilometers away.

"That's it. No scientific expedition team has reported this coordinate yet."

Xia Yu looked at the submarine wreckage on the screen. The shape did not look like a U-boat.

There are U-boats in Asia as well. After all, the Japanese are also one of the Axis powers. The Japanese have exchanged a lot of supplies with them, but most of the submarines sunk in the Southeast Ya waters are from the United States and Japan.

"Boss, after comparing the shape and size, we can basically determine that this is a Fugu-class diesel-electric submarine, also a 2410-ton giant."

Joseph said affirmatively.

Magnesium's submarines lost 52 submarines in World War II, less than a fraction of the Wolf Pack, but after all, they were small in scale, and this number also accounted for 22% of the submarine force.

If Lao Mei traveled back to World War II, he would not serve on the warship in Pearl Harbor, nor would he be a submarine soldier.

"So which ship is this Puffer class?"

Xia Yu continued to ask.

"The submarine number was covered by marine life, but it sank in the Malacca Strait. It was most likely the Grendia. There were 76 survivors, but they were all captured by the enemy himself."

Being captured by the Japanese is not a good thing. Living may be even more miserable than dying.

"Grendia? Let's explore it next."

"Yes, boss!"

Joseph, who was receiving instructions from his new boss, did not notice the playful expression on Xia Yu's face.

As the first submarine discovered under his leadership, this Puffer-class submarine will definitely be kept as a collection and placed in his underwater base.

However, since the Haiyan is exploring it, Xia Yu plans to go to another sunken warship in the nearby waters first.

"Wow~Wow~~"

That night, he took off under the cover of darkness, and the helicopter flew a few kilometers before diving into the sea.

Wearing a fully enclosed diving suit, Xia Yu dived to a depth of 100 meters, and then waved his hand to release a big guy.

Compared with the compact Type 206, the Nautilus is two sizes larger with a double-layer titanium alloy hull and optimized propeller structure, and its underwater displacement reaches 800 tons.

The eight 8mm torpedo tubes at the bow were also reduced to two. After all, as long as he is in the submarine, he has unlimited firepower.

So he modified the six launch tubes above into release cabins for two types of underwater detectors, instead of mounting them on the outside of the submarine and destroying its streamlined structure underwater.

After turning on the underwater searchlight and swimming around the Nautilus, Xia Yu did not enter through the hatch of the submarine's hull. Instead, he chose to remotely open the cover of a torpedo tube and went directly in through this auxiliary escape passage.

He came inside the submarine and the lights came on.

Opening the small refrigerator in the torpedo compartment, Xia Yu took out a can of beer and drank it all. Diving is very physically demanding, so he has to replenish his energy in time.

The interior of the original Type 206 submarine was a bit crowded, but after his modification, it has a kitchen, dining room, bedroom suite, and a game room and private theater.

By the way, in addition to the shower, there is also a jacuzzi in the bathroom.

This is the space freed up by removing the two MTU V2 12-stroke 4 horsepower diesel engines and the fuel tank. Before today's upgrade, Xia Yu had made drastic upgrades to the interior of this accessory boat.

The hot and noisy diesel power system was the first one he cut off, and he upgraded the structure of the battery compartment into a replaceable large battery pack, turning the Nautilus into a fashionable pure electric submarine.

There is no need for any AIP system. Although there is no battery swap station in the sea, Xiayu is a human-shaped battery swap station.

He can replace the power battery pack with a capacity of 1800 degrees with a wave of his hand. From then on, he no longer has to worry about battery life and ventilation, and there is more available space on the submarine.

However, submarines are vehicles that can be used in this way, and fortress-style bases still require small nuclear reactors for power supply.

Walking barefoot on the solid wood floor, Xia Yu passed through several functional cabins and came to the cockpit located directly below the hull.

After finding the host and setting the GPS coordinates and depth, the auxiliary driving module controls the motor to output power to the propeller, and the Nautilus drives towards the target location at high speed.

Because the location was not far away, they arrived before Xia Yu had even finished half of his roast goose for midnight snack.

"Pfft~~"

The Argus Worker Rov at the bow was pneumatically ejected and swam toward the seabed, pulling the cables, until six 6W LED lights illuminated the two large gun barrels directly in front.

"Twin 203mm main guns. This caliber is not bad."

Throwing away the clean roast goose leg and wiping his hands, Xia Yu couldn't help muttering to himself as he looked at the images transmitted by the F/Z HDTV 1080p camera on the screen.

(End of this chapter)