The rise of great powers: starting from military industry

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 described as defensive ships.

Minesweepers, as the name implies, are ships specifically used to search and remove mines. There are fleet minesweepers, base minesweepers, harbor minesweepers and minesweeper carriers, etc. They are mainly responsible for opening up waterways, clearing mines before landing operations, and patrolling, guarding, escorting and other tasks.

Since its advent in the early 20th century, minesweepers have been widely used in wars.

Before, minesweepers were mainly wooden minesweepers, which can avoid triggering magnetic mines.

After the 1970s, the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, Italy, France and other countries successively developed minesweepers with fiberglass hull structures, remote-controlled minesweepers that integrate minesweepers and minesweepers, air cushion minesweepers, etc., which greatly improved the safety of clearing high-sensitivity mines.

China's minesweepers began in 1953 when it purchased 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 imitation of this class of ships is numbered 6605, with a standard displacement of 520 tons and a full load displacement of 590 tons.

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

In addition, there is also the 170-ton 057K harbor minesweeper suitable for minesweeping in freshwater harbors. This is the minesweeper with the largest number of minesweepers in service in the navy's minesweeping forces.

Currently, there is also a new generation of harbor minesweepers proposed by the navy in 1976, that is, the 082 minesweeper. The minesweeper has just started construction. It can not only sweep mines with minesweeping equipment in the centralized control room, but also remotely control minesweeping on the command platform.

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

Therefore, he chose fiberglass or fiber-reinforced plastic as the hull material.

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

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

The larger minesweeper was named the ‘083-type’ minesweeper, and the smaller minesweeper was named the ‘084-type’ minesweeper.

The 083-type minesweeper is 60 meters long, 9.9 meters wide, 2.6 meters draft, 600 tons empty, 750 tons full, and the main propulsion device uses two diesel engines with a total of 4,300 horsepower, two fixed-pitch propellers, a cruising speed of 18 knots, and a minesweeping speed of 11 knots. The auxiliary propulsion device is a low-speed diesel engine with 750 horsepower, which drives the main propulsion propeller and side thruster through hydraulic transmission.

The hunting/minesweeping equipment includes sonar, intelligence center, mine-clearing equipment, contact minesweeping equipment, electromagnetic minesweeping equipment, and acoustic minesweeping equipment.

The navigation and positioning equipment includes navigation radar, table card, and radio positioning system.

The weapon is a 40mm cannon with an elevation angle of 65°, a firing rate of 10 kilometers at sea, a range of 3km to air, and a bullet weight of 0.36kg; in addition, there are two 7.62mm machine guns.

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

The 084-type minesweeper has a total length of 52.5 meters, a width of 10.5 meters, a molded depth of 5.45 meters, a draft of 2.3 meters, a standard displacement of 450 tons, and a full load displacement of 500 tons. The main power system of the power unit is 2 diesel engines with a continuous power of 1.14MW, 2 electric motors with a continuous power of 147kw (2×100hP), a power station of 3×250kW, 2 straight-wing thrusters, and 45 tons of fuel. The weapon is a 30mm naval gun.

The anti-mine equipment is 2 remote-controlled mine-clearing devices.

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

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

These two minesweepers seem to be not much different, but they are actually a high-low combination.

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 minesweeping forces are definitely an extremely important part of the navy.

Minesweeping is considered one of the most cumbersome operations in maritime military operations all over the world.

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 action to prevent the enemy from laying mines fails, the minesweeping operation is inevitable.

And minesweepers come in handy at this time. As long as the mines are not cleared, warships and ships cannot pass safely, otherwise the mines will be triggered and the losses will be very heavy.

In this, there are weak sides, who are unable to resist the enemy navy, and lay mines to block the enemy navy; there are also offensive sides, who, in order to punish the opponent, lay mines in the opponent's ports and offshore, block the ports and offshore, and cause great trouble to the opponent.

When the State Shipbuilding Corporation heard this, it smiled.

Since the reform and opening up, the military ship list has been cut by two-thirds, and the civilian ship has always been in decline. In order to survive, China's shipbuilding industry can only be forced to devote its energy to the vast international market.

The Sixth Ministry of Machine Building was reorganized into the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation to adapt to the new environment of international competition.

Unexpectedly, things soon changed a lot. First, Liu Tao played a role in the shipyard's order from Hong Kong. Later, Liu Tao focused on the development of warships, and had 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 has saved domestic shipyards from facing life and death.

And they can also learn advanced shipbuilding technology and ship design, and train a team of skilled shipbuilding workers.

Although Liu Tao was the one who developed it, the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation will always share a share of this achievement.

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

In addition, in order to have more shipyards that can produce 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 shipbuilding industry across the country.

Only by improving the level of the shipbuilding industry and having a group of skilled shipbuilding workers can domestic shipyards go to the international market to receive orders, 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. In the past, everyone had no intersection and each was active in their own system.

However, Liu Tao is the God of Wealth, bringing a lot of funds to the shipbuilding industry and giving the shipbuilding industry an opportunity to develop.

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

In the past, many of them had never heard of them, and even if they had heard of them, they did not understand them. If they wanted to learn, people were unwilling to give them the opportunity to learn.

Now, you don’t need to pay tuition fees, as long as you pass the political review and are in the shipbuilding field, you can learn these advanced technologies.

And workers also have the opportunity to build ships, thereby accumulating practical shipbuilding experience.