Great warships

Chapter 1280 Let’s help find the cause of the failure!

Soon, both gas turbines were started.

Richard was very satisfied as he watched the power supply return to normal: "There won't be another power outage this time!"

The previous power failures can be understood as insufficient power. After all, it needs to support the navigation of warships, the operation of search radars, and air conditioning!
They made many trial voyages in the Atlantic Ocean without encountering any problems. That was naturally because they did not need to turn on the air conditioning. However, after entering the Mediterranean Sea, it was too hot and they had to turn on the air conditioning, which increased the electricity load.

If I had known this earlier, I would have just started two gas turbines to save myself the trouble!

Inside the sailor's cabin.

"Jack, does sea water taste good?" a sailor joked.

"Damn it! When you ran out, you were no slower than me!" The guy named Jack was naturally not happy about the teasing. He muttered, "It's just that when you got to the side of the ship, you didn't find the swimming ring!"

"In fact, if we had been more relaxed, we would have known there would be no attack. We must learn from this lesson. By the way, this air conditioner is really comfortable."

In the past, warships did not have air conditioning. When it was hot, people would go shirtless, and it didn’t matter if they were disheveled. When they were at sea, everyone was a man, and it was okay to wear just shorts.

However, in the later period, with the need for nuclear, biological and chemical protection, the interior was completely enclosed and the heat dissipation problem had to be considered. The warship is an iron shell, just like the iron house on the construction site. Once it is exposed to the summer sun, it will be so hot that people will die. Air conditioning is a must.

If the room cannot be cooled in time, the people inside may faint or even die due to excessive sweating.

Therefore, in the later stage, all warships have to be equipped with air conditioners. Anyway, there must be an overpressure three-defense system for the entire ship, so just hang air conditioners in this system.

However, this is similar to a large shopping mall. Even if there is an air-conditioning system, it depends on whether people will turn it on. If not, it will still be hot.

"Our captain was too stingy before and was reluctant to turn on the air conditioner for us. In fact, we can turn on the air conditioner whenever we go out to sea, and we will be comfortable all year round!"

"Yeah, how much fuel can be wasted? I really don't know what the captain is thinking. The money saved from the fuel won't go into his pocket..."

Before I could finish my words, snap!

The entire ship lost power again!

At this moment, everyone was a little confused. What happened? The power tripped again?
Fortunately, with previous experience, no one ran away again.

"Wait a minute, the phone will ring soon!"

"There's a problem!" Someone started to think: "The frequent lockouts, could it be that there's something wrong with our warship?"

"What could possibly go wrong? Our warships are state-of-the-art!" Jack said, "We use the most advanced power units and integrated power systems in the world. How could there be any problems?"

At this time, the same question was being raised on the bridge.

"Now, the two gas turbines are already operating at full power, so there is no way there will be a power shortage. So, if the power fails again, there must be something wrong!"

"In previous tests, similar situations have never occurred. The biggest difference from the past is that the air conditioner was turned on this time. Is it because of the air conditioner?"

"Yes, it's very likely. Turn off the air conditioning system, restart the engine, and try again this time!" said Richard.

"If the air conditioning is turned off, the sailors may not be able to bear the heat."

"You have to endure it even if you can't! Look at our tank soldiers. When they were fighting in the desert, the temperature was often 50 or 60 degrees. They didn't have air conditioning, but they still managed to hold on."

That's absolutely true.

The British Challenger tank is also a peculiarity. When other countries' tanks were developing in an integrated manner, their tanks focused on protection, so that the Challenger 2 was tinkered with into a giant of more than 1200 tons, but the engine remained unchanged and was still the original horsepower engine.

Such power is not enough to drive a tank of 50 tons, let alone 80 tons. Therefore, their tanks are not equipped with air conditioners, which would consume precious electricity.

Originally, fighting in Europe was not a big deal, after all, it was warm there. But when we arrived in the desert, we were dumbfounded. The temperature was often 40 or 50 degrees, and the tankers had to wear liquid cooling vests. If they sweated too much, it would cause electrolyte imbalance in their bodies, and they might even need an IV of saline solution.

Even so, the British did not add air conditioning to their tanks.

If the tank driver can accept it, why can't the sailor tolerate it?
A few minutes later, the engine restarted.

"It's turned on again." Jack said, "It looks like we don't have to run out, we just have to wait. Wait, why isn't the air conditioner on?"

"It's too hot. How can we bear this? How about we go to the deck to cool down for a while?"

"Will this violate discipline?"

"Never mind, it's better than dying of heat."

When they went up, they found that there were already quite a few people on the deck.

The military has strict regulations. There are at least two to three hundred people on the destroyer, and most of them are not qualified to go on deck. After boarding the ship, they work in the cabin until they come back.

Like an aircraft carrier, although the deck area is large, ordinary people are not allowed to go up there unless necessary and can only stay in the cabin.

But now, there are too many people in the cabin, so sailors wearing large shorts with a Union Jack pattern appeared on the deck, forming a beautiful scenery.

"Wait a few more hours, the sun will go down, and then it will be cooler." Richard stood on the bridge and looked at so many people on the deck, but he didn't stop them. After all, he knew it would be too hot without air conditioning.

Fortunately, the sun is about to set.

Without the air conditioner, the machine should work normally now, right?
But not long after, there was a snap and the circuit breaker tripped again.

This time, Richard was angry.

"Damn it, what the hell is going on? Why is there always a problem with the ship's integrated power system?" Richard said angrily, "We are a warship, a combat machine, and this kind of accident happened before we even entered the war zone!"

Richard was very angry, and the others were very puzzled.

What happened?
I clearly didn't do anything, it was just the same as before, everything was fine in the Atlantic, so why did problems arise when entering the Mediterranean?

"Did someone use electrical appliances illegally, causing excessive power load?"

This is nonsense. Each cabin has a dedicated air switch. Even if someone uses high-power electrical appliances, at most the circuit breaker in their own cabin will trip. It is impossible for the main circuit breaker to trip!
"Okay, let's check each cabin one by one and check our power supply lines. Our system is still not smart enough. It would be great if it could self-diagnose and isolate the cabins with problems!" Richard nodded.

So the technical officers on the warship searched everywhere in the cabin with flashlights, but found nothing.

However, the sun had already set and the temperature outside was gradually dropping. In the evening, Richard gave another order: "Restart the engine!"

Everyone looked at the cabin lights above their heads in fear, hoping that there would not be another accident of the brakes falling off. It was soon going to be dark, dark inside and dark outside. What could they do?
One minute, two minutes, half an hour, one hour...the power supply system is very stable.

"It seems to be just an accidental malfunction. I hope it has disappeared automatically." Richard said: "Next, we need to speed up and reach the cruising area as soon as possible!"

"Captain, to avoid similar accidents, should we drive slower? Just in case..."

"Nothing will happen. I believe in our warship! Such an accident will never happen again!"

Rodney had no choice but to nod, after all, he was not the captain.

The night was dark and the gas turbine was making cheerful sounds. Except for the personnel on duty, everyone else fell into a comfortable sleep. However, there was always someone who would suddenly open his eyes and look at the light still on above his head, only then would he feel at ease and continue to sleep.

the next day.

Richard yawned and returned to the bridge.

"Nothing happened last night, did you?"

"No, our power system is operating normally, there are no accidents!"

"It seems that we just ran into an evil spirit yesterday. Let our military woodcarver perform a ritual to exorcise the evil spirit."

"Yes."

Soon, a young carpenter appeared in every corner of the warship, muttering some incantations and holding a special staff in his hand, and thoroughly tossed it from front to back.

"Okay, our warships will be protected by Shangdi!" said Master Mu.

As soon as he finished speaking, snap!
The brakes tripped again!

Everyone was dumbfounded.

Why did the fault occur again?
Then let’s troubleshoot!
Richard looked at the nautical chart and saw that the target was still 500 nautical miles away. For safety reasons, it was better not to get any closer. Without power supply, their warships would be lambs to be slaughtered, so they should wait for repairs.

The problem is, in order to fix it, you have to find the problem first, and they don’t even know what went wrong!
After another day of troubleshooting, the problem miraculously disappeared again in the evening.

In the cabin, the sailors continued to talk.

"This is definitely not a random failure. I bet it will happen again tomorrow!"

"It's terrible for the guys on night shift. When they want to sleep during the day, something breaks down!"

"It's strange, what's the problem?"

"Who knows? Let's look at the technical officers. We don't understand these things."

In the conference room on the bridge, everyone had a serious look on their faces.

"We must find out the cause of the failure!"

"I'm afraid this is difficult. After all, we are not a design department. I think the best way is to drive the warship back and let the design department check it."

"Go back? We are on a mission now! We are the advance team and we are leaving before we even reach the enemy's doorstep. If word gets out, the whole world will laugh at us and think we are cowardly!"

If it was just a normal action, it would be fine, but now it was not possible. They were going to fight and cause trouble! As a result, they ran away in disgrace halfway, and the colonel didn't know how to be happy.

"Yeah, we absolutely can't go back like this, we need to find the problem first!"

How to find the problem? Everyone was at a loss again.

At this time, a young technical officer spoke up: "The failures in the past two days have a regular pattern. They appear during the day and disappear at night, so..."

"Is this a virus attack? Someone opened a backdoor in our warship's system and planted a virus?"

"No, no, I mean, maybe it has something to do with the temperature? It breaks down when the temperature is high during the day."

"Temperature? How is that possible? We are in the Atlantic Ocean..."

"The temperature in the Atlantic Ocean is low, so the fault has never occurred. But here, the temperature is high, so it is easy to have problems. I have made some comparisons and found that the fault should occur when the outside temperature is higher than 25 degrees Celsius."

"Why is this happening?"

The technical officer shook his head: "I don't know."

It was good enough that he could find the fault point, but why did it fail? Only God knows!
Meanwhile, in the East, in the capital, at the TV station.

"Hello, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Zhang Zhong's program. As everyone knows, the world situation has changed a lot recently. However, in this episode, Zhang Zhong does not want to analyze the world situation. He only wants to analyze the Type 45 destroyer HMS Courageous, which entered the Mediterranean for the first time."

Zhang Zhong's expression was calm, but he was very excited in his heart. Thanks to Mr. Qin's analysis, he suddenly realized how serious the failure of the Type 45 destroyer was!

It must be broadcast, the fig leaf of British technology must be torn off, the British are far behind the whole world, and anything they produce has serious flaws!

"This warship is the first modern air defense ship of the British Navy. It has an active phased array radar and a vertical launch system. It is considered to be the most powerful warship of the British Navy. However, we found that its actions have been very strange since it entered the Mediterranean."

A picture appeared on the screen, which was obviously taken from space.

"Soon after entering the Mediterranean, the warship suddenly stopped. We can also zoom in. What do we see? Someone is diving! We don't know if the British Navy has the habit of celebrating by diving after entering a new ocean, and more than once, because not long after, they dived for the second time!"

The video displayed on the screen is very funny. Although it was shot from space, it is precisely because of this angle that the big ball on the top is very obvious. Therefore, any expert can recognize it: it is definitely a Type 45 destroyer!

So why did those people jump into the water?
"Let's take a closer look. The wake of the warship has also disappeared, and the radar antenna on top has stopped rotating. This shows that the sailors jumped into the water because the warship had a huge malfunction, which led them to think that the warship was going to sink. So, what exactly was the malfunction? In this case, Zhang Zhong boldly guessed that it might be a lock failure."

"Damn it, how did he know that?" Later, the video was transmitted to the Type 45 destroyer. After all, it was related to this warship. After receiving it, the British intelligence department responded immediately.

"They have been watching us, waiting for us to make a fool of ourselves, or they were the ones who caused the failure!"

Richard gritted his teeth and said, "Hmph, when the mission here is over, we will go to the East..."

At this moment, on the screen, Zhang Zhong continued his analysis.

"The design of the Type 45 destroyer is extremely unscientific, especially the power system. We know that destroyers often use a combination of diesel engines and gas turbines. Diesel engines are used at low speeds and gas turbines are used at high speeds. These are nothing, but the diesel engine of the Type 45 destroyer has a total power of only four megawatts, which is too small!"

"This power can only allow the Type 45 destroyer to reach a cruising speed of about ten knots at most. At this time, no high-power electrical appliances can be turned on, otherwise the power supply will definitely not be enough. As a warship, at least the radar should be turned on when cruising, right? Therefore, the diesel engine has become useless, and the gas turbine must still be used for normal cruising."

"This can be compared with the 052C produced by Dongfang. The diesel engine used for cruising has a power of 8840 horsepower per unit, or 6.6 megawatts. Two units have a power of 13.2 megawatts. Only this power can meet the cruising requirements."

"Because the diesel engine is not powerful enough, we have to start the gas turbine frequently. The Type 45 destroyer uses the WR21 gas turbine, which has a power of 21 megawatts. The power is still insufficient. You know, our gas turbine with a displacement of 26.7 tons has a power of megawatts. However, this is not the main point. The most important thing is that this gas turbine uses the most useless intercooler heat recovery system!"

"The idea of ​​this system is very good. It brings the exhaust gas back and then outputs it to the middle section of the gas turbine to preheat the gas in advance, thereby improving efficiency. It may be OK in the cold Atlantic, but it will fail in the tropics! If the technology is really good, why didn't Westinghouse use it? Instead, it sold this technology to the British at a high price!"

"Is there something wrong with our gas turbine?" Richard looked at his men: "Do you think this analysis makes sense?"

"That's right, it makes sense, very reasonable!" The technical officer who had just proposed the high temperature theory responded, "That should be the case. Our gas turbine has an intercooler and heat recovery system. In tropical areas, hot air is sucked in, and then it is heated in the middle section, which will overheat. Therefore, the gas turbine will malfunction, thereby reducing power output, and even in extreme cases it may be reduced to zero! And our electricity consumption is fixed. Because of the overload, the integrated power system of the entire ship has tripped!"

"At night, when the air outside gets colder, the fault disappears naturally!"

Everyone was impressed and said that Oriental people are so amazing. We haven’t found the reason yet, but Oriental people have found it through the air!

But how to solve it?
East.

"Mr. Qin, even if we really know the reason, we shouldn't tell the British, right? Let them find it themselves, which may take a long time." Xu Zhengyang said curiously.

"Yes, it would be best if they built a few more, and then if they found any problems with the warships, they could replace them all at once, which would cost a huge amount of money." Qin Tao said, "I shouldn't have meddled in other people's business, right?"

"No, you have your own intentions."

"So what do you think I mean?"

"do not know."

"What do you think? Will the British admit it or not? If they don't admit it, will they have to let the Type 45 destroyer go up and die?"

Xu Zhengyang understood instantly.

Given the arrogance of the British, they will certainly not admit it. They will announce to the outside world that the Type 45 destroyer does not have any technical faults. How could their main warship produced in the UK have such a technical problem?
To prove it, the Type 45 had to go up, and once it went up... then don't come back. What's the use of a warship that frequently breaks down? It's better to just sink it!
(End of this chapter)