When it is necessary to drive on the sea surface, the seawater in these support legs and pontoons will be pressed out by high-pressure air, and then rely on the buoyancy of the pontoons and support legs to make the entire platform mostly float on the sea surface. This makes it possible to sail with the 4 main thrusters on the pontoons, and the fastest speed is only 10 knots, but for a monster of more than 50,000 tons, this speed is not slow at all. If the sea conditions allow, you can hire a tugboat to tow it forward, and it can be even faster.

When the launch platform arrives at its destination and needs to be positioned, the valves on the support feet and pontoons open, allowing seawater to rush in and squeeze most of the compressed air out. Using the weight of seawater, the entire platform can sink more than 20 meters or more. The exact amount of subsidence depends on the sea conditions at the time, and the computer calculates the most suitable depth. In this way, more than half of the platform is submerged under water, and the weight is very large, which is already very stable.

But this was not enough, and then it was time for the more than two dozen electrically driven, computer-controlled omnidirectional drives mounted on the support legs and pontoons to begin work. According to the accurate numbers provided by the GPS system, the computer and the sensors work closely together to rotate the omnidirectional drivers in different directions to fix the entire launch platform firmly on a certain coordinate on the sea surface. The minimum amplitude of up and down bump is not more than 3 cm, and the minimum displacement of front and back and left and right is not more than 5 cm, which can fully meet the requirements of rocket launch. Even in bad weather with level 5 wind and waves, it is still possible to control this amplitude to about 30 cm, which is very magical.

In fact, in the equatorial windless zone, there are very few times when you can catch up with level 5 wind and waves. The average wind strength here throughout the year is less than 3, otherwise it can be called a windless zone. This taste Hong Tao tried more than once when he sailed around the world. According to him, it is redundant to install so many omnidirectional drives. You can save a lot of money. But those scientists are much more rigorous than him, they all calculate according to the highest standards, Hong Tao doesn't talk a word nonsense in this regard, and he is not qualified to point fingers as a layman.

The Commander was not in the Stavanger shipyard, it was built in Scotland, which is the largest shipyard of the Kvarner Group, and the headquarters of the Norwegian shipbuilding company is not in Norway, but in London, England, and it is not known how it was considered. The Commander is much slimmer than the Odyssey. But it has grown a lot, 200 meters, but the width is only a little more than 30 meters, and the displacement is only half of the Odyssey, more than 20,000 tons.

The main reason for this length is to free up a long enough space in the bilge for the installation and storage of up to 3 launch vehicles. As for why he got three rockets on board, Levin said that it was called being prepared, in case the time of the two launch missions was too close. There is no need to let the Commander run around the world to launch the rocket, you can transport 3 at a time, and after launching, you can directly adjust the equipment on the launch pad, and then you can continue to launch.

April Fool's Day. Levin took Hong Tao to the airport, he said that he was going to the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolaev, Ukraine, for his words. Hong Tao was deeply skeptical. Not only because this day is April Fool's Day, but the main reason is the largest military shipyard in the former Soviet Union. How could an American military engineer be allowed to enter casually, even if it returned to Ukraine after the disintegration. I guess it's not so loose.

But the plane actually landed in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, and looking south from the hotel window, you can see two tall gantry cranes standing on the banks of the South Bug River. Levin said that it was the Nikolaev Black Sea Shipyard, which was famous all over the world during the former Soviet Union, and that the aircraft carriers of the former Soviet Navy were basically built here, and only here has the ability to build aircraft carriers.

In those days, the entire city of Nikolaev was under military control, not to mention foreigners, even Soviets, who could not come and go at will without a valid reason. Moreover, the city of Nikolaev is not on the Black Sea coast, it is in the mouth of a large river, it is still more than 40 kilometers from the sea, and it is difficult to spy on the situation here from the outside. So in terms of security alone, it is indeed much easier to control than the Admiral Shipyard in St. Petersburg.

"Levin, I really didn't expect that such a large shipyard would be so dilapidated, if you have such a motherland as Ukraine, how would you feel?" Early the next morning, Hong Tao and his party drove into the shipyard in a bus provided by the Ukrainian military. Hong Tao looked at the huge warships that had been abandoned on the slipway and didn't know how long they had been suspended, and he felt very uncomfortable.

He hates a country like Ukraine, lives spinelessly, and for the sake of those illusory promises of the West, he has paid for his own martial arts, not only dismantling the nuclear bomb, but also giving up such an important shipyard. Even a permanently neutral country like Switzerland relies on its own powerful force to send a signal to the surrounding countries: Don't look at buddies with good tempers, but buddies are not easy to mess with, it's better not to mess with me, if you mess with me, I will play with you!

It's the right idea to want to live a good life and not want to spend national resources on a hopeless arms race, but you can't just leave it all wrong, and make yourself a noodle country that has no ability to resist and doesn't have the slightest real skills, isn't it waiting for others to take care of you? The situation in later generations is indeed the same, Ukraine did not please the West, but also provoked the brother Russia next to it, and when Russia just recovered its body, it immediately took this spineless brother to open the knife, and it was a big mouth when it was round, and it took away its Crimean Peninsula, this kind of good thing in its hands is really a waste. As a result, Ukraine, which was beaten, hastened to file a complaint with Europe and the United States, but who will take a waste in their eyes, and no country will really help it. A spineless person, even if he surrenders, will not gain enough respect, he is completely a rag and throws it away when it runs out!

Now I'm not an American, you're not Canadian or Chinese, they're not Ukrainian or Russian, we're all Poseidon people." If we can't develop Poseidon Corporation, the Odyssey and the Commander will soon be like them, either rusting somewhere, or being dismantled into small pieces as scrap metal!" Levin may or may not understand Hong Tao's feelings, he avoids this issue that is more prone to ideological controversy, and pulls Hong Tao back into reality.

"These warships have been built, and they have to be returned?" Hong Tao pointed to a warship in the dock whose overall structure had been completed.

"I'm afraid so, their technology is outdated, and there are no Warsaw Pact countries to buy, so they can only rust and rot if they stay here, unless someone wants to drive them to fish, which is a good choice! Aite, don't you consider considering such a ship? I can help you negotiate the price, it must be more expensive than your sailboat, but it will not be very expensive. Don't you think it's fun to drive a warship to fish on the sea? hey, hey, hey, hey......" Levin knew that Hong Tao liked to joke, so he made a little joke with him, intending to run on his loser-like lifestyle.

"That's a good idea, Levin, I find you and my appetite, it's just that this little boat is a little small, does it have 3,000 tons?" Hong Tao knew that Levin was playing cymbals with himself, but to Hong Tao's ears, the idea was not too ridiculous.

In later generations, China, India, and South Korea have all bought Ukrainian and Russian aircraft carriers, and they have all bought them back in the name of scrap steel, especially China's Varyag, which has been directly turned into military use after going back, and the Russian side has not said anything. Since they could all buy it, Hong Tao felt that he could buy one for fun, but he didn't want to think of it as a theme park or a hotel or something, he wanted it to be a mobile home for himself at sea.

"This is an anti-submarine ship, about 6,000 tons, this is not a little guy! If you want to buy it, I will build it, you buy it, it looks very beautiful!" Amundsen heard Hong Tao and Levin chatting very lively, and also joined in, and squeezed Hong Tao with Levin.

“…… What kind of ship is that? a large cruiser?" Hong Tao looked in the direction of Amundsen's finger, and a strange-looking big guy was quietly parked in the harbor. Hong Tao is a pseudo-military fan, and he really doesn't know what kind of ship this is. It looked like a large cruiser, but behind the bow tower was empty, as if it had not been built.

"Hehehe, it's a helicopter carrier, and the Russians call it an anti-submarine cruiser. You can see that the front half of it is the layout of a cruiser, but behind the chimney becomes a helicopter deck, which is an interesting design idea. Alex...... Is this Moskva or Leningrad?" said Amundsen, who spoke noticeably more as he spoke about the ship.

"It's the Moskva, poor fellow, and the guys up there are figuring out how to sell it for scrap. When I built it, I was a technician who had just graduated from college, and I was on the slipway over there. Amundsen asked about the Ukrainian ship experts, who will assist the Ukrainian and Russian rocket experts in Poseidon to install the rocket launch equipment for the Odyssey and the Commander.

"Mr. Alex, can I ask you how much you plan to sell it for?" As soon as Hong Tao heard that this aircraft carrier was really going to be sold, his spirit immediately came, and it seemed that his luck was really against the sky, and he could come whatever he wanted. (To be continued......)