Rebirth of the 1980s: The Military Industry Empire

The J-11 fighter taxied to the apron, and after stopping, the engine was shut down. Lei Zi and the radar officer got out, and others were already inspecting around the aircraft.

Looking at the majestic appearance of the aircraft, everyone was filled with emotion. The biggest problem for the navy in developing aircraft carriers was the carrier-based aircraft. The existing domestic fighters were all high-altitude, high-speed types with high landing speeds and low lift characteristics, making it difficult to modify them into carrier-based aircraft.

Unexpectedly, this problem was solved by Chief Engineer Qin. The nation completed the feat of reverse engineering the Tomcat fighter. This fighter was originally a carrier-based aircraft and did not require any modifications!

"I really hope this aircraft can fly onto our aircraft carrier deck as soon as possible," Old Liu said. "It's a pity we don't have an aircraft carrier yet. Chief Engineer Qin, can we continue discussing the aircraft carrier deck steel?"

"We can't rely on others for this; we can only rely on our own research and development," Qin Yang said. "I believe domestic steel companies have the ability to complete the research and development of aircraft carrier deck steel. When this kind of steel comes out, not only will we have aircraft carriers, but submarines will also be able to dive deeper."

High-strength steel is not only used on the decks of aircraft carriers but also on submarines. In fact, the demand for submarines is even more urgent. After all, what withstands the pressure of seawater for submarines is the steel-made hull.

For every ten meters of depth that seawater descends, the increase in pressure is roughly equivalent to one atmosphere. If it were at a depth of one hundred meters, it would be equivalent to ten times the atmospheric pressure on the Earth's surface, simply a forbidden zone for ordinary life.

When salvaging deep-sea fish, as soon as the fish are brought up, it is discovered that the fish will explode and die. This is because their bodies have adapted to the atmospheric pressure of the deep sea. When they reach shallow water or above the sea surface, the internal pressure is released, causing them to burst.

Submarines enter the deep sea relying on their pressure hulls. With the current domestic technology, submarines can only dive one or two hundred meters, not even reaching three hundred meters, while Western submarines already use three hundred meters as the standard, and some can even dive to four or five hundred meters. This is because they use more excellent high-strength steel plates.

The old Russians took a different approach, using advanced titanium alloys to build submarines, which can dive to greater depths, even navigating below one thousand meters, leaving other submarines far behind.

For the East, the priority is to achieve submarines with a diving depth of three hundred meters, which requires advanced steel first.

"Chief Engineer Qin, your words are as good as saying nothing," Old Liu said dissatisfiedly. "When we were talking about boilers just now, you said to hand it over to the relevant domestic units, and we agreed, after all, your Factory 960 has never produced boilers. But, your Factory 960 has a steelmaking plant, you can smelt electroslag remelting steel and manufacture advanced cannons. Can't you take on the research and development tasks for aircraft carrier deck steel and submarine steel?"

Qin Yang frowned slightly.

It wasn't that he was declining, it was that he really didn't have the technical reserves. Those people he was familiar with were either still in school or had just started working.

Back then, the country decided to repair the Varyag, which required a special symmetrical bulb flat steel. The country entrusted this arduous task to Zhou Dan, a senior engineer at the Steel Research Institute of Anshan Iron and Steel Group. She had been engaged in the research and development of steel for surface ships for 24 years and was considered a veteran. However, that was already in 2008, and now it's 1984, exactly 24 years, meaning that Zhou Dan has just started working and is still a young technician.

Later, the country wanted to build its own aircraft carrier, which required aircraft carrier deck steel. The person in charge of this research project was Zhao Gang, the deputy director of the Military Products Research Institute of the Steel Research Institute of Anshan Iron and Steel Group. At that time, it was already after 2010. Now, Zhao Gang must have just started working not long ago.

At that time, when building, importing from foreign countries was also considered, but in the end, it was decided to develop it independently. They overcame various difficulties, especially manufacturing a world-class ultra-wide rolling mill...

Wait, I've got it!

"Ordinary steel plates are only two meters wide," Qin Yang said. "If used on aircraft carrier decks, that means multiple welds, and the more welds, the more unfavorable it is to the aircraft carrier deck."

This is well known. The smaller the size, the greater the amount of welding. During the welding process, the quality of the welds may not reach the level of the steel plate, which will lead to a decrease in the quality of production.

Simply put, if the deck of an aircraft carrier cracks, it will definitely crack from the welds.

"For the development of the aviation industry, we specially manufactured a 65,000-ton hydraulic press, setting a world record. At the same time, to help the navy build aircraft carriers, we are also willing to join forces with First Heavy Machinery again to jointly develop a 5.5-meter-wide rolling mill, which can greatly reduce the length of aircraft carrier deck welds."

Aircraft carrier decks belong to medium-thick plates. This kind of steel plate needs to use hot rolling process, mainly including medium-thick plate rolling mill, hot continuous rolling mill and Steckel mill. The most important device is the medium-thick plate rolling mill, which bites and rolls the heated steel billet through the upper and lower rolls in the rolling mill, and finally rolls it into a steel plate. It's like making a pancake, using a rolling pin to turn the dough into a pancake.

The size of the rolling mill is mainly determined by the width of the roll surface of the roll, mainly divided into 8 levels: 1800 mm, 2300 mm, 2800 mm, 3300 mm, 3800 mm, 4300 mm, 4800 mm and 5300 mm. Each level can be adjusted up and down by 200 mm.

Generally speaking, the steel plates required by regular customers are two meters wide. Larger ones, three or four meters, are enough. Rolling mills exceeding five meters? There are only six in the world!

If we want to do it, we should do the biggest. Only by making this kind of rolling mill can we complete the manufacture of aircraft carrier deck steel. At the same time, this is not just a rolling mill, but starts from the process of casting steel billets, and it takes more than a dozen steps to make it. This is equivalent to Factory 960 building a modern steel rolling mill from scratch again!

The investment is huge, and the country definitely doesn't have this funding. It would be great if Factory 960 is willing to pay for it.

Old Liu thought about it simply, and then nodded: "Okay, then let's do it as you said, we will find relevant steel companies to be responsible for research and development, and you will be responsible for production!"