The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 344 Minesweeper

While participating in the construction of the first Type 054 frigate and the first Type 052 destroyer, Liu Tao was also working on a minesweeper in his spare time.

Unlike missile boats and torpedo boats which are offensive ships, minesweepers can be considered defensive ships.

Minesweepers, as the name suggests, are ships specially used for searching and clearing mines. There are fleet minesweepers, base minesweepers, harbor minesweepers and minesweeper carriers, etc. They are mainly responsible for opening waterways, clearing mines before landing operations, as well as patrolling, guarding, and escorting.

Minesweepers have been widely used in wars since their invention in the early 20th century.

Previously, minesweepers were mainly wooden minesweepers, which could avoid triggering magnetic mines.

After the 70s, the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, Italy, France and other countries successively developed minesweepers with fiberglass hull structures, remote-controlled minesweepers that integrated boats and minesweeping equipment, and air-cushion minesweepers, which greatly improved the safety of clearing high-sensitivity mines.

China's minesweepers began to be developed in 1953 when China purchased the technical data and equipment of the 254K and 254M base minesweepers from the Soviet Union. This type of minesweeper is also called the T43 minesweeper. The domestic copy of this class of ships is numbered 6605, with a standard displacement of 520 tons and a full load displacement of up to 590 tons.

Later, China developed the Type 6605 minesweeper based on the Type 6610 minesweeper.

In addition, there is the 170-ton 057K harbor minesweeper suitable for minesweeping in freshwater harbors. This is the minesweeper with the largest number in service in the Navy's minesweeping force.

Currently, another model under construction is the Type 1976 minesweeper, a new generation of integrated harbor minesweeper proposed by the Navy in 082. The construction of this minesweeper has just started. It can not only sweep mines with minesweeping equipment in a centralized control room, but also can sweep mines remotely on the command console.

Liu Tao did not focus on steel as the hull material, because a minesweeper made of steel is too dangerous for mine clearance missions, and encountering magnetic mines will almost certainly lead to death.

So, he made the hull material from fiberglass or fiber-reinforced plastic.

In the end, Liu Tao chose to use fiberglass to build the minesweeper.

Liu Tao developed two types of minesweepers, one larger and one smaller.

The larger minesweepers are designated as 'Type 083' minesweepers and the smaller minesweepers are designated as 'Type 084' minesweepers.

The Type 083 minesweeper is 60 meters long, 9.9 meters wide, has a draft of 2.6 meters, an empty load of 600 tons, and a full load of 750 tons. The main propulsion device uses two diesel engines with a total of 2 horsepower, two fixed-pitch propellers, a cruising speed of 4300 knots, and a minesweeping speed of 18 knots. The auxiliary propulsion device is a low-speed diesel engine with 11 horsepower, which drives the main propulsion propeller and thruster through hydraulic transmission.

Mine hunting/mine sweeping equipment includes sonar, intelligence center, mine disposal equipment, contact mine sweeping equipment, electromagnetic mine sweeping equipment, and acoustic mine sweeping equipment.

Navigation and positioning equipment includes navigation radar, station card, and radio positioning system.

The weapon is a 40mm cannon with an elevation of 65°, a firing rate of 650 rounds/min, a sea range of 10km, an air range of 3km, and a bullet weight of 0.36kg; in addition, there are two 2mm machine guns.

This is a first-class mine warfare vessel that combines minesweeping and mine hunting. Its remote-controlled mine-clearing equipment has a range of 600m, a diving depth of 300m, a speed of 6km, and weighs 700kg.

The Type 084 minesweeper is 52.5 meters long, 10.5 meters wide, 5.45 meters deep, 2.3 meters deep, with a standard displacement of 450 tons and a full load displacement of 500 tons. The main power system of the power plant is 2 diesel engines with a continuous power of 1.14MW, 2 electric motors with a continuous power of 147kw (2×100hP), 3×250kW power stations, 2 straight-wing thrusters, and 45 tons of fuel. The weapon is a 1mm naval gun.

The anti-mine equipment consists of two remote-controlled mine-clearing devices.

Electronic equipment includes 1 navigation radar, 1 multi-function minehunting sonar, 1 tactical data system, 1 electronic reconnaissance system, and 2 chaff launchers.

After completing the design of Type 083 and Type 084 minesweepers, Liu Tao arranged the construction of these two minesweepers.

These two types of minesweepers may seem similar, but they are actually a perfect match.

The first batch is to build 4 Type 083 minesweepers and 4 Type 084 minesweepers. If the navy is unwilling to purchase, Liu Tao is not worried, because there are many of these things that the country wants.

Although minesweepers are defensive ships, their importance is unquestionable, and minesweepers are definitely an extremely important part of the navy.

Minesweeping is considered throughout the world to be one of the most tedious tasks in maritime military operations.

Because no matter how simple the structure of a mine is, once it is laid, it will be extremely troublesome to clear it.

As long as the efforts to prevent the enemy from laying mines fail, minesweeping operations will be inevitable.

This is when minesweepers come in handy. As long as the mines are not cleared away, warships and ships cannot pass safely. Otherwise, if the mines are triggered, the losses will be very heavy.

Here, there are the weak sides, who, in order to punish their opponents, lay mines in the opponents' ports and offshore areas, block the ports and offshore areas, and thus cause great trouble to their opponents.

When the State Shipbuilding Corporation heard this, they were immediately delighted.

Since the reform and opening up, the number of military ships has been cut by two-thirds, and the number of civilian ships has been declining. In order to survive, China's shipbuilding industry has been forced to devote its energy to the vast international market.

The reorganization of the Sixth Ministry of Machine Building into the China State Shipbuilding Corporation was born out of a desire to adapt to the new environment of international competition.

Unexpectedly, things soon changed a lot. First, Liu Tao helped the shipyard get an order from Hong Kong. Later, Liu Tao focused on developing warships, including the Type 022 missile boat, Type 022A torpedo boat, Type 054 frigate, Type 052 destroyer, and now the Type 083 minesweeper and Type 084 minesweeper.

The production of these ships will allow domestic shipyards to avoid facing life and death.

They can also learn advanced shipbuilding technology and ship design and train a team of skilled shipbuilders.

Although Liu Tao was the one who developed the project, the General Administration of Shipbuilding Industry will definitely get a share of the credit.

There are few shipyards that can build large ships such as the Type 054 frigate and the Type 052 destroyer, but there are still many shipyards that can build missile boats, torpedo boats and minesweepers.

In addition, in order to have more shipyards capable of producing Type 054 frigates and Type 052 destroyers, the country has allocated a large amount of funds for the construction of several large shipyards.

These are of great significance to the country's shipbuilding industry.

Only by improving the level of shipbuilding industry and having a group of skilled shipbuilding workers can domestic shipyards take orders from the international market, and this opportunity was provided by Liu Tao.

Although Liu Tao does not belong to the shipbuilding industry system, strictly speaking Liu Tao belongs to the weapons industry system. They had no intersection before and each of them was active within their own system.

However, Liu Tao is the God of Wealth. He brought a lot of funds to the shipbuilding industry and provided it with opportunities for development.

There are even many shipbuilding technologies here that are very advanced in the world.

Many of them had never heard of it before, and even if they had heard of it, they didn’t understand it. When they wanted to learn, others were unwilling to give them the opportunity to learn.

Now, you don’t need to pay tuition fees. You just need to pass the political review and be in the shipbuilding field to learn these advanced technologies.

Workers also have the opportunity to build ships and accumulate practical shipbuilding experience.

(End of this chapter)