In March 1937, the U.S. and Japanese navies were still fighting to the death in the vast Pacific Ocean, and hundreds or thousands of soldiers died almost every day, while on the other side of the world, in the same raging North Sea, the smoke of war had long since dissipated, but even so, ships and ships passing through this sea still needed to beware of mines and anti-submarine nets left over from the war. Their warships often sail alone or in small groups across the North Sea, from the Baltic to the Barents Sea, or the other way around, traveling thousands of kilometers from one naval base to another, which is not far away in a straight line, and is often thought to have reconnaissance purposes to spy on the military deployments of other European countries and important economic activities. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Most days in the spring are rainy or foggy, and the humid air makes people feel that everything is moldy or rusty. The sky finally cleared, and the fierce sea breeze swept up waves for several meters, slamming against the bulwarks of passing ships.

It was in such sea conditions that the two warships flying the green, white and yellow tricolor flags remained in a neat formation on the sea east of Scotland and west of Norway. The lead ship was the von der Tann, once the famous fast capital ship of the Second German Reich Navy, which was converted into the Irish Navy after the last major war, and was given the name "Belfast". This large battleship, which was completed and commissioned in 1909, was 28 years old by 1937. After the second modernization, its standard displacement was increased from the original 19373 tons to 24375 tons, The maximum speed was increased from 24.2 knots to 25.4 knots, the main gun followed the original three-seat triple configuration, the caliber was still 283 mm, but the multiple diameter was increased from 50 to 56, and the full charge fired a 350 kg armor-piercing projectile, the gun ejected at a speed of 880 meters per second, capable of penetrating 343 mm thick homogeneous armor at a distance of 15,000 meters, and the maximum range reached an astonishing 40 kilometers.

The second modernization of the flagship of the Irish Navy not only replaced the hardware such as the main gun, secondary gun, boiler, and engine, and comprehensively optimized the configuration of air defense and mine protection, but also added the AI-made MC-IIIA shipboard fire control radar and the "Hamilton" mechanical shooting calculator with performance comparable to the German-made Lorentz-IID, which greatly improved the long-range shooting accuracy of the main gun. From a technical point of view, the Irish Navy has taken the design potential of this warship to the extreme.

Accompanying the "Belfast" is the light cruiser "Stokes", which began construction in 1934 and was officially commissioned in October 1936, which belongs to the improved version of the Fiona class light cruiser, also known as the Stokes class, in terms of the main technical data, it is similar to the Fiona class, and it seems that it has only been slightly improved on the basis of the Fiona class, but after many years, people will be surprised to find that the Irish are actually in the stage of theoretical research on ship-to-ship and ship-to-air missiles, Just reserve space for their cruisers to add missile weapons!

This inconspicuous two-ship formation in the Pacific theater has been cruising in the North Sea for more than a week, using the Allied naval base in the Faroe Islands in the north as a supply base, covering the entire northern part of the North Sea, from the Forth of Scotland on the east coast of Scotland to the Bokenfjord of western Norway. Towards the end of the cruise, the two-ship formation returned to the inaccessible sea, where three strange-looking man-made structures stood in the middle of the ocean, three sturdy offshore drilling platforms to be exact.

Approaching the platforms, the two Irish warships slowed down and slowly circled them.

In an anti-aircraft gun emplacement on the starboard side of the "Belfast", three young naval non-commissioned officers stood side by side, smoking and chatting:

"What a great project! Even if you can't drill oil deposits in the end, you can also use it as a sea hotel, escape the heat in summer, and watch the snow in winter, which will definitely be sought after by travelers. ”

"Just kidding, huh? The cost of such a drilling rig on the bottom of the sea is definitely tens of millions, and if it is converted into a hotel, how much accommodation will it cost to pay for itself in a few years? ”

"Well, I'll tell you the truth, I was joking. His Majesty Joachim has never failed to plan and implement a project himself, and I firmly believe that this time will not be an exception. ”

"But I can't figure it out, there are so many untapped oil fields in Persia, and our oil exploration in Bahrain is going on smoothly, so why go so far to drill here?"

"If you can figure it out, you won't be standing here now, but will be called by the Royal Institute for Strategic Studies as a senior adviser, enjoying a high weekly salary and three months of vacation a year!"

"Well, that's a department full of geniuses, and people with ordinary IQ aren't even qualified to serve tea and pour water!"

"So, with these extraordinary people who specialize in research and analysis, each of our important investments can receive several times or even more than ten times or dozens of times of returns. See, it may not be long before these maritime ******** are able to bring considerable benefits to Ireland. ”

"This is the high seas, if the oil fields are really drilled...... Is there no problem with ownership? ”

"Even if there is a problem, don't we still have us? Unless the Germans fight with us, what other country in the neighborhood can force us to make concessions? ”

"Scotland, England, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Denmark......" one of the non-commissioned officers counted one by one, and it was clear that none of them could wrestle with Ireland militarily and diplomatically. After more than two decades of hard work, and the merger of Welsh's industrial and labour resources, the Kingdom of Ireland has become a super-second-rate power - a qualitative gap between it and a true first-class power, but only an order of magnitude different from a weaker first-class and quasi-first-class power, and it only takes a strong breakthrough in the economic or military fields to cross this line.

Huge hollow steel columns are firmly rooted in the seabed at a depth of more than 80 meters, supporting a huge steel frame building, which can accommodate up to hundreds of workers to work and live here...... In the eyes of ordinary people, these three offshore drilling oil fields that have been built since the summer of 1936 are indeed dreamy and mysterious novelties, in the first few months, only occasionally fishing boats passed by, since a Danish journalist took a photo and published an article under the name "The Irish Castle on the Sea", the crowd of spectators who came by boat or charter began to flow, and soon there were shrewd shipping companies to adjust the original cruise ship routes in order to let passengers see this sea wonder, at the same time, European ships came one after another, Their military brass, as well as military observers, were intrigued about the existing and potential military uses of the offshore platform, and even the German Navy, which had been notified by Irish officials beforehand, could not resist asking a barrage of questions from its hardcore allies.

Looking back from the end of the 20th century, the North Sea oil fields are undoubtedly a major discovery that has affected the world economic pattern, with oil reserves of nearly 5 billion tons and natural gas of about 1.5 trillion cubic meters, although the absolute value only accounts for 2 percent and 1 percent of the world's proven oil and natural gas reserves, it is enough to meet the industrial needs of all the Nordic countries and the British Isles, so that they can get rid of their dependence on the Middle East and the Americas oil producing regions, and even have a large surplus.

Since oil exploitation has entered the threshold of industrialization, North America, Central America, West Asia, South Asia and other regions have successively explored a large number of oil fields, the seabed oil reserves of the North Sea oil fields are second only to the Persian Gulf and Maracaibo Bay and rank third in the world, the reason why it has not been noticed by oil and gas exploration workers for a long time, the most important reason is that the North Sea region has harsh climatic conditions, more than two-thirds of the time in the year is rainy days, high winds and waves, and the surrounding land is bedrock outcropping, and the submarine oil fields are hidden in the graben area. In the south, the Upper Permian sandstone is the main target layer, and there are atmospheric fields such as Lerman, Indifatigpur, Hewitt, Sisore and Audrey. The Tertiary sandstone and chalk layer below the middle are the main production layers, including the Ekofisk and Fortis large oil fields, and the Frigg gas field. In the north, Jurassic sandstone is the main production layer, including Brent, National Bay, Sissle, Ninian, Oselberg, Gulfax, Snorrie, Sislepna, Piper, Claymore oil field and Troor gas field.

Historically, the Groningen gas field off the coast of the Netherlands was discovered in 1959, the southern gas field complex in the North Sea was discovered in 1965, the Ekofisk oil field in the central graben area was discovered in 1969, and the Brent oil field in the Viking graben was discovered in 1971. Despite the fact that seabed oil is more difficult and expensive to extract than onshore, littoral countries are determined to do so. Britain's North Sea oil fields began to produce oil in 1975 and exceeded 100 million tons in 1984, while Norway surpassed the UK in production in the 90s and became an emerging oil and gas producer......

"Attention! An unidentified ship has been spotted in the northern seas! Contact is expected to occur in 60 minutes, please enter the post of all combat-ready duty personnel! Repeated, an unidentified ship was found on the northern sea, and it is expected to come into contact in 60 minutes, and all the combat readiness duty personnel entered their posts! ”

When this serious sound came from the horns in the cabin and in the passage, the two Irish warships also began to turn and accelerate. Although this area of water was beyond the effective range of American and Japanese warships, and the possibility of a surprise Russian attack on the Western Allies was very small, the officers and men of the Irish Navy, accustomed to the mentality of war, quickly rose to the occasion. If it was just an ordinary civilian ship full of curiosity, the size and strength of the warship were strong enough for the ship's helmsman to understand the attitude of the other party, but if it was a warship of another country, especially a country outside the camp of the Western allies, such as Soviet Russia or Norway, then the situation would be different. As the guardians of offshore drilling platforms, they need to keep out all kinds of potential threats, and the technology of building offshore drilling platforms based on Tesla's plan by Irish professional institutions that has spent 20 years and tens of millions of dollars cannot be easily obtained by the outside world.

(End of chapter)