Go back in time and be a chaebol

Chapter 1072 The Rhythm of Making Dumplings (Third update, please subscribe)

No one knows the Navy better than me!
At least to a certain extent, no one understands the modern navy better than Li Yian.

The reason is simple: he is indeed standing on the shoulders of historical giants!

What era is it now? It is the 1950s, an era when old and new warships were replaced by new ones, an era when missiles replaced artillery and moved towards missile warships. At the beginning of this era of change, the navy made too many attempts.

Therefore, standing on the shoulders of historical giants, Li Yian can directly skip those attempts that were eliminated.

"Build a new type of guided missile destroyer."

Cheng Zhiyuan didn't say much at this time, but what he said hit the spot in Li Yian's heart. Missile destroyers are undoubtedly the real future. Not only that, his "experience" in "making dumplings" is far more than others. For example, the US Navy made a mistake in making dumplings - nuclear power eroded the Navy's already small budget, which directly affected the scale of the US Navy's "making dumplings". As a result, until the late 70s, many auxiliary ships were equipment from the World War II period. Yes, there are times when the landlords have no surplus food.

In comparison, Tangshan's rapid development in the new century was much more rational and cautious - it continued to build large numbers of destroyers, and when the destroyer fleet and auxiliary ships grew to a certain size, adding aircraft carriers would form a complete aircraft carrier battle group.

"The Navy's technical department has developed a miniaturized twin-tilt launcher based on the US MK10 twin-tilt launcher. It launches the Sky Arrow 2 air defense missile, which is already very mature and has a range of up to 60 kilometers. It can provide regional air defense for the fleet."

Listening to Cheng Zhiyuan's introduction, Li Yian recalled the time when he had watched naval air defense missile target practice. From the perspective of later generations, the twin tilted launcher was definitely backward, but this was the limitation of the times.

As we all know, vertical launch is the real future.

Listening to Cheng Zhiyuan's introduction, Li Yian thought for a while and said.

"At present, the launch pad can meet the demand. However, from the perspective of development direction, I think the launch method of air defense missiles should be mainly vertical launch."

"Vertical launch?"

Zou Tongjie, who was heartbroken by the postponement of his dream of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, also became curious.

"Yes, it is vertical launch."

Li Yian picked up a pen and sketched on the notepad while saying,
"Compared with the traditional tilted launch system, the vertical launch system has many advantages. First of all, the vertical launch system has a short reaction time. The storage state of the ship-borne missile using vertical launch is the launch state. The missile is placed vertically in the launch silo in a ready-to-launch state. It can be launched immediately after receiving the order, unlike the tilted launch, which requires turning to the direction of the target."

What does it mean to stand on the shoulders of giants?
This is standing on the shoulders of giants. In this era, no one knows the evolution of warship air defense systems better than Li Yian. The evolution of missile launchers after the war is a complicated and confusing process. The most intuitive manifestation is that missiles have evolved from horizontal to vertical, and finally evolved into vertical launch.

Eventually, the ship-borne vertical launch and multi-functional phased array radar and other systems were combined to form the so-called "Aegis system", which ultimately led the world's navies to develop in this direction!
What Li Yian is doing now is to help Nanyang reduce the cost of trial and error.

"Missiles launched at an angle will have a launch blind spot because part of the launch area is affected by the ship's superstructure. With vertical launch, the missile rises to a certain height after launch and then turns to the target direction under command control, which can effectively eliminate the blind spot of the superstructure and achieve 360-degree all-round launch."

"In addition, the vertical launch system can easily achieve a standardized structure. Anti-ship, anti-submarine, and air defense missiles with roughly the same size can be configured in one firepower unit to deal with different targets respectively. Moreover, the vertical launch system omits many complex motion and control components, has a relatively simple structure, and greatly improves reliability."

Although he knew that it was obviously unrealistic to develop the "Aegis" under the current technical conditions, Li Yian only pointed out a direction. After all, with a general direction, at least a lot of time and cost of trial and error could be saved.

After listening to your explanation, Zou Tongjie and Lin Zhiyuan, both naval generals, immediately understood the advantages of the vertical launch system. Just as they were considering communicating with the naval technical forces to develop a similar launch system, Li Yian turned his attention to the construction of warships.

"In addition, when designing warships, we must not only consider our own needs, but also the foreign trade market."

For Li Yian, who is determined to expand and strengthen the arms trade in Southeast Asia, the warship trade is definitely a big order. To put it in an expensive way, a warship could cost hundreds of millions!
"How can we get a piece of the pie in the saturated overseas military trade market? This is a question we must consider."

Li Yian said with a frown.

"In addition to the impact of a large number of retired warships, we also have to face strong competitors such as the United States and the United Kingdom in the market, so we must choose a cost-leading strategy. My idea is to adopt the modular shipbuilding concept - splitting the warship from a single system into multiple modules such as hull, power, and equipment."

In another world, this modular shipbuilding concept is an invention of the German shipbuilding industry. It not only allowed them to successfully enter the international warship market, but also created a new concept. "Compared with traditional shipbuilding, the warships built by "assembling" have many advantages: cost saving. Compared with traditional shipbuilding, multiple modules can be started at the same time, and the construction cost is also reduced. It is convenient for maintenance. When a module of the ship fails, as long as it does not involve a serious failure of the hull or power system, only the faulty module needs to be removed for repair, and the maintenance time is greatly shortened.

In addition, it is up to the individual to decide. If the customer is temporarily unable to purchase certain equipment due to financial constraints, he only needs to keep the matching installation grooves, and when economic conditions allow, the new equipment can be installed on board in a few days. Of course..."

After a pause, Li Yian smiled.

"It also makes it easier for us to improve and upgrade. For example, at the beginning, we can use a tilted launcher, and when the vertical launch system is successfully developed, we can directly replace it. The same is true for the radar system."

The seemingly simple explanation brought an unimaginable shock to Zou Tongjie and Lin Zhiyuan. They had never thought that a warship could be built in this way. This completely overturned the concepts they had formed long ago.

Just at this time, Li Yian explained again.

"Of course, these are just concepts. There is no need to try to achieve everything at once. We can first conduct some research in this area. As for the construction of the destroyer, we can do it step by step."

Speaking of this, Li Yian emphasized it again.

"If there is no suitable gas turbine, we can use steam turbines. After all, the whole world uses steam turbines now. We can consider similar products from the UK. We always need to make some purchases to maintain the balance of trade between us."

What is the biggest problem as a foreign trading country?
It's not just about selling goods, buying goods is also extremely important. If you blindly pursue a trade surplus, the balance will inevitably be broken, which is likely to lead to trade disputes. In essence, all trade disputes are caused by the breaking of the "trade balance."

Going back a long way, one of the main reasons why the Qing Dynasty banned opium was because of the outflow of silver. After the ban failed, the anti-opium faction simply said, "I think it's fine to grow poppies in the mainland. What I hate is that people in the mainland like foreign cigarettes instead of local ones." However, foreign cigarettes require silver to be imported, and the silver will flow out.

Even the closed-door Qing Dynasty knew that the trade balance had been broken and had to take measures to balance it. Not to mention the United Kingdom and the United States, which relied on trade to make their fortunes. Therefore, when developing foreign economies, Southeast Asia has always tried its best to maintain a trade balance.

Just like importing power systems for warships now, it is a way to maintain trade balance.

"Sir, this may be difficult."

Zou Tongjie had already walked out completely by now, and said with some embarrassment.

"In the past few years, we have been working with BMW to promote the development of ship-borne gas turbines. At the end of last year, BMW launched the M100 gas turbine engine based on the WP4-25 turbofan engine. It not only has stable performance and advanced structure, but also has an overhaul time of up to 5000 hours. Now BMW is still conducting research on it to extend its life. It is expected that the overhaul time will reach 10000 hours in the future. The most important thing is that the power is also very strong. The current model has reached 25000 horsepower as a warship power. Its advantage is very obvious, that is, the energy density is extremely large. Under the same power, the volume and weight are only 1/3 to 1/5 of the diesel engine, and even less than 1/10 of the steam turbine. It also has fast acceleration and fast start-up, which is particularly suitable for use as the main power of large and medium-sized surface ships! Therefore, the Navy has long determined to use it as the main power."

In other words, it is impossible to use a steam turbine that needs to boil water for dozens of hours to reach full power instead of an advanced gas turbine engine!

Zou Tongjie's answer made Li Yian shrug his shoulders helplessly and said.

"In this case, there is nothing we can do. We originally wanted to take care of the British business."

In fact, the source of Nanyang’s gas turbine engine technology is Britain. Britain not only developed gas turbine engines as early as the late 40s, but also built the 5300-horsepower complex cycle gas turbine RM60 three years earlier.

As early as the 1950s, Nanyang began cooperating with British companies in this area. Benefiting from the UK's profound foundation in this field, the Nanyang Navy's emphasis on this technology, and BMW's advanced turbofan engine technology, Nanyang has become a leader in ship gas turbines. The Navy has also determined the basic strategy that all large and medium-sized surface ships will use gas turbines as standard power due to its excellent performance.

But now, Li Yian didn't know whether teaching the apprentice would starve the master to death, but Nanyang's gas turbine engine has become Bluestar's No. 1. In fact, the same is true for the turbofan engine. It has benefited from the previous technology introduction and also benefited from Li Yian's path guidance. This is also the biggest cheat Li Yian has given.

Faced with the navy's pace of attacking in droves, Li Yian thought for a moment and said.

"We are still very lacking in experience in warship construction. I personally have some ideas..."

(End of this chapter)