Chapter 556 Joint Anti-Submarine Exercise!

The French fleet's trip this time was quite long.

After all, they came here with the mission of bringing the two parties closer, so most of the activities were actually on shore.

By the time the two sides conducted joint exercises, it was already the afternoon of the fourth day of their visit to Hong Kong.

Originally, if we put it aside a year or two ago, like the relatively delicate relationship between China and France, the so-called joint exercises usually meant each sending a ship out to engage in fleet navigation, or light semaphore signal training, etc. There is no nutritional content.

Usually, it is even done on the way the visiting fleet leaves port and returns, and the passengers are sent off directly after the end.

However, in the past year, thanks to previous cooperation opportunities, the relationship between the two countries has developed rapidly. Therefore, after the French took the initiative to conduct more in-depth and larger-scale exercises, our military also took advantage of the trend and gave a positive respond.

Of course, on the other hand, our military does have a serious lack of experience in anti-submarine warfare.

Considering that many of the navy's current advanced anti-submarine equipment and technologies come from France, it is obvious that a lot of experience can be gained by conducting a joint training directly with the French army.

With the sound of a whistle, the Daocheng and Jean Bart, participating in the exercise, unmoored and set sail one after another.

Multi-ship and multi-aircraft collaborative exercises are quite high-level content. The two militaries have not conducted similar cooperative training before, and it is impossible to increase their intensity from the beginning.

And although the Kagetsu-class, with a displacement of less than 3000 tons, can carry a helicopter, the ship itself does not have reliable submarine search capabilities. As a second-class colonial frigate, it is not designed to undertake anti-submarine missions.

Therefore, in the end, both sides only sent one destroyer of similar size to participate.

Anti-submarine drills are naturally impossible to conduct offshore.

What's more, the water depth in most places near the Yellow Sea is so shallow that real submarines can be seen with the naked eye, and even underwater false targets that simulate submarines cannot be arranged.

Therefore, the ship formation sailed southeast for several hours before reaching the preset exercise sea area.

According to the plan, the false target in the submarine search subject will be coordinated by a 033 diesel-electric submarine, while the target in the submarine attack subject will be an underwater target that makes noise but has no autonomous navigation capability.

Joint exercises focus on jointness and generally do not set any subjects that are too difficult.

Otherwise, it will be very embarrassing if one party fails to learn and play well. (Here @The South Korean Navy failed to dock independently multiple times during a certain Rim of the Pacific joint military exercise)

The prototype of the 033 submarine is the Soviet Type 633, which is essentially a modified Type XXI U-boat.

As a kind of naval equipment, it was already outdated in 1998 and had almost no practical value. There was no need to worry about troubles such as leaking voiceprints.

And this type of submarine is easy to detect unless it remains stationary underwater.

As an old submarine, its battery does not support long-term underwater navigation.

In short, there is almost no such thing as not being able to find the target.

At most it will take a little longer.

It can be said to be a very perfect imaginary enemy.

……

After entering the exercise sea area, the two ships quickly followed the previous arrangement, changing from running longitudinally one behind the other to horizontally one to the left and one to the right, and kept a relatively long distance from each other.

This is mainly because the four sets of diesel engines of the Jean Bart are relatively noisy. If the distance is too close, it will have an adverse effect on the gas turbine-powered Daocheng.

"Release the towed deepening sonar."

In the CIC of the Daocheng, the new captain Luo Zhangming sat in front of the command podium and gave orders calmly.

"Sonar release completed!"

After receiving the report, he continued to give new instructions:

"Send helicopters to establish an anti-submarine patrol line. The starting point is the 340 direction of our ship and a distance of 10 nautical miles."

On modern ships, every command issued in the CIC can be directly transmitted to the corresponding cabin.

Therefore, the aviation department, which had already been prepared, quickly pushed one of the helicopters out of the hangar and completed the mounting of an anti-submarine torpedo in the shortest possible time——

The cost of torpedoes (even mines without warheads) and false targets are very high, so only one is expected to be launched during this exercise.

A few minutes later, two helicopters with quite similar appearances took off from the Daocheng and Jean Bart respectively, and rushed to the corresponding positions on the side and front of the route to start submarine search operations.

Earlier, when the Type 052 destroyer was being designed, the Navy had considered using a two-machine cooperation mode with a torpedo for submarine attack and a sonar for submarine search to extend the anti-submarine combat radius of the ship-based helicopter to the extreme.

The double hangars on the 052 are designed for this purpose.

But after trying it a few times, I found that the result is often 1 plus 1 less than 2.

Later, they honestly returned to their respective ways of carrying sonar and torpedoes to carry out missions in different areas or time periods.

Of course, the French are responsible for the submarine search on the other side today, so the second helicopter does not need to be dispatched for the time being.

Although the target sea area designated for the exercise is not small, considering that the target of the submarine search is only a Type 033, there should not be a lot of pressure.

At the same time, more than ten nautical miles away.

The Great Wall submarine No. 298 is sailing slowly at the depth of the snorkel in accordance with the scheduled plan before setting sail.

"Fill the ballast tanks with water, dive to a depth of 70, and shut down the power system."

Captain Ma Jie, wearing only a vest and shorts, stood in the middle of the command cabin and issued a series of instructions with a stopwatch in his hand.

"Captain, will turning off the power system prevent them from finding us?"

The deputy captain Liu Changlin next to him looked a little worried.

One of the great advantages of conventional submarines is that they can completely shut down their power systems and emit no noise, making them immune to passive sonar searches.

"Two warships and three helicopters have demarcated the sea area in advance. If they can't even find us, Luo Zhangming might as well go home and farm."

Although Ma Jie must perform the imaginary enemy mission assigned by his superiors, as a submarine officer, his last bit of dignity requires that he at least not keep the snorkel open and buzzing all the way when he knows that the two destroyers are "hunting" him. diesel engine roaring.

Everyone knows that this kind of joint exercise has a strong performance component, but even if you are an actor, you still have to show some acting skills.

A few minutes later, Great Wall 298 followed the captain's instructions and entered a state of complete silence at a depth of 70 meters.

……

Above the water, the two helicopters have also arrived at their predetermined locations.

During the working process of hoisting sonar, the helicopter needs to maintain a hovering attitude and cannot search while moving forward. Therefore, the efficiency is not as high as expected. Anti-submarine operations are often carried out according to the jumping method of moving forward while detecting point by point.

In the command center of the Jean Bart, Vice Admiral Laurie Vojour was paying attention to the movements of the two helicopters on the radar chart and secretly calculating the time in his mind.

As a senior general who was once an aircraft carrier captain, he is very sensitive to time and can even estimate the precise time within 5 minutes without a stopwatch.

Vojour was originally going to see how long the imitation dolphins from China could last 10 nautical miles in search of submarines.

But soon, he discovered that something was wrong.

The initial movements of the two helicopters were almost completely symmetrical, but as the number of detection points continued to increase, differences gradually emerged in the rhythm of the submarine search.

"Colonel."

He looked at the captain next to him:

"Did you notice that their helicopters took longer to hover than ours on each hover probe?"

As the captain of an anti-aircraft destroyer, Colonel Eric Bernalli was not proficient in anti-submarine warfare, so he did not immediately get the intention of his superiors. He just nodded with some confusion:

"I noticed it. Maybe it's because their personnel responsible for submarine search operations are not skilled enough?"

Vojul waved his hand helplessly:

"That may be true, but what I mean is that their helicopters hovered for 90 seconds at the shortest time and 140 seconds at the longest time."

"What is the longest hover time of the AS565 helicopter on your ship under standard anti-submarine load?"

He has been out of the Navy's front-line position for some years, so he is no longer very clear about the specific parameters of the new equipment.

Colonel Bernalli looked at the aviation officer next to him.

The latter spoke quickly:

"120 seconds, because the engine can only continuously output take-off power for 120 seconds at most."

"hiss……"

Hearing this answer, Lieutenant General Wojru felt a little uneasy in his heart.

His previous plans were based on the fact that the flight performance of the Chinese Navy's helicopters was slightly worse than that of the AS565 prototype.

but……

The reality seems not to be entirely like this...