Submarine Project 419 finally surfaced and headed for the island. If you look at it from the air, it is easy to see through comparison that this simple pier is indeed a little small.

Cheng Dayang drilled out of the shell and looked at the island. There are indeed several small cranes on the dock, and there is even a small track that leads to a warehouse in a cave in the mountain in the distance, and it seems that the defenders of the island usually use this track to push the rail trolleys between the warehouse and the dock.

He was a little anxious to go to the warehouse to see what the British had left, maybe some canned fish?

Of course, there must be some deployment before leaving. The first is to turn on the air warning radar and the sea search radar. He needs to be just in case, once a plane flies through the air, it is easy to see the problem from the length of the pier compared to the submarine, and even worse if the photo is taken. He then handed over the inspection of lifting equipment and the dismantling of the nuclear bomb to Shuping. After deploying these, he took Lu Qingshan off the submarine. He had to go to the front station, the crew of 419 hadn't left for a long time, and it seemed that it was time for them to get off the submarine and walk around.

Shu Ping received the task and went to check whether the HAECO equipment was in operation and prepared for the dismantling work. According to the plan he developed, the dismantling would start with the No. 1 and No. 3 launch tubes, the most advanced on the side of the submarine, and only two at this time. Specifically, a crane will lift about 2.5 meters to expose the warhead, and then a bracket will be erected on the deck of the submarine to bear the weight of the warhead with the fairing. After dismantling, put the projectile back into the launcher. In fact, there was a great deal of uncertainty in this task, on the one hand, the shape of the warhead inside the fairing, and he had only seen the drawings, but not the inside. On the other hand, on the deck of the submarine with a slight shake, he was not very sure whether the conditions for removing the fairing were met.

The sun was shining overhead, and it was only January, and it was already very hot. This made him feel more and more that it was very inappropriate to disassemble the fairing on the deck, and in the *cabin, it was even more dangerous to further disassemble and reset* the warhead, after all, there were a large number of highly toxic and even radioactive materials inside the nuclear bomb. He saw that there was a track leading to the warehouse in the distance, and suddenly it occurred to him that a backup plan could be implemented.

Cheng Dayang led Lu Qingshan into the warehouse, where the boatswain was leading people to count supplies. Apparently this is the warehouse of the British Royal Navy, which stores all kinds of supplies, from clothing to food. He thought that taking some from here should not arouse too much suspicion, after all, it was a time of war.

"Lao Cheng, this is a floor, and there is an underground warehouse, and it is not bad for the British to engage in infrastructure construction." Lu Dacheng came first, so the situation here is relatively familiar.

"Well, maybe it's because of the storm, air raids are also useful, there are underground facilities in anticipation, let's go, go down and have a look."

They walked down the passage through a door and entered the underground part of the warehouse, which was a concrete-isolated underground warehouse, which made Cheng Dayang temporarily lose contact with the submarine.

"I didn't expect the British to be so good at hiding things."

"Yes, the last time I was on a mission in southern Burma with my team leader, we found that the Independence Army was looting the British warehouses, and the Japanese there were all driving in Wesley jeeps." Lu Qingshan said.

"It's better to be cheap than cheap for the Japanese, but unfortunately we can't fit that much in our boat. Look at the red wine, but unfortunately we have to be disciplined not to drink, but the Royal Navy has this tradition. ”

"You can't get on the boat, you can't get off the boat. I don't think the Japanese will come in a short time, so it's better to give everyone a holiday and go to the island to relax. ”

"That's exactly what I mean. This is good for the restoration of combat effectiveness. ”

The two walked side by side to the depths of the underground cavern, and found that there was indeed a bomb shelter, and there were some passages that went deep into all directions of the small island.

A sailor arrived from behind.

"The captain and the mechanics said that it is too risky to dismantle in the open air on the deck, and if there is a mistake, it will contaminate the submarine, and there is not enough space. He wanted to get the warhead out of the warehouse and reset the yield controller. ”

"This ......"

Cheng Dayang thought for a moment.

"You tell him not to worry, stop first, this matter has to be discussed with the political commissar. I'll go back. ”

Cheng Dayang was in a hurry to go back, leaving Lu Qingshan alone to continue exploring the underground passage. Lu Qingshan fell into the same problem as a scout, no matter which new place he went to, he always had to be familiar with the local terrain first, even if he was hospitalized in the hospital, he had to take the time to find out the passages everywhere, maybe it seemed to ordinary people that he was purely full, but if he didn't explore it clearly, he would feel uncomfortable.

When Cheng Dayang returned to the submarine, the first one* had been disassembled, about half of the bomb body had left the launch tube and was suspended in mid-air, and the warhead (attached to the fairing) had been moved to the deck, waiting for the next dismantling plan. There was some wind and swells on the sea, and it seemed that Shuping's plan made sense, and there was considerable risk in carrying out the second step of disassembly (disassembling the fairing) in the open air.

The political commissar and Shu Ping were already waiting in the conference room, and together with Cheng Dayang, they immediately started a discussion on this issue.

Shuping's reasoning was simple, he needed a safe working environment, and the second step of separating the warhead from the fairing was carried out steadily, although this step still did not involve hazardous substances. But then the third step would be a risk of contamination, because he would disassemble the warhead and reset the initiation relay to ensure that the warhead would explode at full yield once the power was applied.

Considering that the reflective layer of the nuclear bomb used a highly toxic substance, he felt that it was not appropriate to carry out this dangerous work either on the deck of a submarine or in the * cabin, and that it was better to find a place on the island that could shelter from the wind and rain and have stable light.

Cheng Dayang felt that the inappropriateness of this plan was that once the nuclear bomb was moved to a warehouse 500 meters away, and at the same time the Japanese ship was found to be approaching, it might not have time to respond, and the distance of the sea search radar was only a few dozen nautical miles, which was about one to two hours' voyage of a warship. The warhead is also not a trivial thing. It requires a complex rail cart transportation and crane loading process, which also excludes the time it takes for 419 to leave the port and dive. Shu Ping has always been a person who pays lip service to risk control, but he is more concerned with the controllability of the project than the accidental consideration of Cheng Dayang's appearance from the enemy. There is an inherent contradiction between these two ways of thinking about risk control, which had already arisen in the shipyard in Shanghai, when Shu Ping had forced Lin Xiuxuan to accept the time frame he had set to ensure that the production process could be controlled, and his proposal to speed up production was barely compromised, so that Lin's response in the last few days was somewhat stretched.

At the time of the stalemate, the political commissar put forward an opinion that he believed that Shuping's proposal was more sound. In addition to the opinion, he also gave a plan. UAVs can be used to conduct sea alerts, which can expand the distance of sea search to more than 120 kilometers (with a radius of 80 kilometers to do a circular flight around 419). Spotting the enemy fleet at this distance means that even if the enemy fleet approaches at full speed, it will take at least 3 hours, which is completely adaptable.

However, there is a loophole in the scheme, that is, the part of the air alert still needs to rely on the air warning radar on the enclosure. The aircraft approached from 150 kilometers away from the radar's farthest warning distance, and it only took 30 minutes. This time is still enough for 419 to dive, but it will certainly not be too late to return the warhead to the submarine. The political commissar further elaborated that once this situation arises, the unfinished dismantling of the nuclear bomb can be placed on the island, and then 419 dives to take shelter for the time being, and then floats when the plane passes. Considering that there is no airport on the island, there should be no planes landing here.

This plan is obviously operable, of course, not foolproof, and the fact that no one at the meeting mentioned the possibility of the Japanese paratroopers being airdropped does not mean that they do not know, but this possibility is much smaller than other threats. To what extent has history changed because of the three unsuccessful traversers? This, of course, is unpredictable. In known history, the Japanese did not have the surplus forces to occupy the Andaman Islands, let alone use paratroopers.

In any case, taking such a small risk can offset the big risk of dismantling such a dangerous object in the cramped cabin of 419, which seems to be a good risk. Cheng Dayang has criticized Lin Xiuxuan's actions countless times, but now, it is finally his turn to make a choice after repeated trade-offs. In fact, even after much hesitation, he didn't seem to have a choice.

"I agree in principle with the commissar's proposal. As soon as an enemy reconnaissance plane is spotted, SCP-419 immediately dives to avoid being detected by the aircraft, but people must be left on the island to take care of the nuclear bomb, which must not be missed. After a 20-minute stalemate, Cheng Dayang stood up and assumed the responsibility of the chief officer.

"If that happens, I'll stay on the island." Shu Ping also stood up and took his share of responsibility on one shoulder.

"Okay, that's it. Just let it go. ”

About 300 paratroopers from the Kume Airborne Brigade are sitting in grass waiting for new instructions at the airport in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with their parachutes and equipment thrown aside. Some of the paratroopers smoked, some chatted, and made trouble, waiting for the final fate.

The airborne landing a day earlier should have failed, which obviously increased the doubts of the command about the continued use of the Airborne Forces, so the boarding order for the next move was never given.

It is said that the command has two new plans for the use of paratroopers, the first is to throw paratroopers on uninhabited islands in Andaman and seize the warehouses left by the British. The second option was assigned to the 55th Division, forming an independent battle group to attack Rangoon with infantry.

At this time, the commander was crying with General Iida on the phone, saying that neither of the above two options was feasible, the first one involved technology, and with the current level of Japanese paratroopers, if they were unprepared, they would suddenly drop airdrops on those small islands with an area of less than 1 square kilometer, and it was inevitable that people would fall into the sea and drown. The second option concerns honor, they are highly trained and skilled, and they cannot be put into battle as ordinary infantry squadrons, which would be too humiliating. As a result, General Iida rebelled, saying that since the paratroopers claimed to be skilled, why did they not dare to go to the Andaman to recover a few small islands without defenders? Iida's command did not know where to get the information that the islands were stockpiled with a large amount of British armament, which he needed to support his early attack on Rangoon. He felt that although the airborne troops did not play much role in actual combat, it was really unreasonable to shirk doing such simple work.