Earlier, on the other side of the exercise area, slightly closer to the middle.

Underwater.

Inside the command cabin of the Great Wall 298 submarine, it was as quiet as death.

In fact, none of the submarine search equipment is sensitive enough to detect conversations inside the submarine, and the prohibition of speaking in silence is just an exaggerated description of some literary works.

But in a state of imminent combat, it is really necessary to ensure that there are no unnecessary conversations in the command cabin.

Captain Ma Jie looked down at the stopwatch in his hand, the minute hand on it was about to turn three-quarters of the dial for the second time after one turn.

This means that almost 1 hour and 45 minutes have passed since their dive.

Although as an "imaginary enemy," the Great Wall 298 boat entered the exercise area earlier than the two warships, this wait was inevitably too long.

"Captain, this is not right, it is said that the participating fleet should have been found a long time ago?"

Yang Shan, the political commissar next to him, who was also dressed coolly, whispered.

In the case of a conventional submarine in complete silence, the battery can last underwater for about 8-10 hours, so it will not encounter the problem of insufficient energy.

However, according to the drill plan set before the voyage, the submarine search process should only last about 20 minutes at most.

What's more, they almost parked the submarine a little east in the middle of the predetermined sea area, and did not sit on the bottom.

Whenever an active sonar comes over, it should be able to find the target.

When the time comes, just struggle a little and then float up.

But after all this time, nothing seems to be happening around.

"We can't be positioning it wrong, right?"

Deputy Captain Liu Changlin immediately thought of the worst possible scenario.

Now is the critical stage before he is promoted to midshipman captain, and if he pokes such a big basket in a joint foreign exercise, he basically can't expect any development.

"How is it possible, the sextant I personally watched can't be wrong."

The captain frowned and denied.

Yang Shan also felt that the deputy captain's idea was too out of tune, but it was not a problem to hold back underwater all the time, so he proposed:

"Why don't we go up to periscope depth?"

After finishing speaking, he made up another sentence:

"Anyway, it's been so long, even if we go up and get found, we won't lose anyone."

Ma Jie lowered his head and thought for a moment, feeling that Yang Shan was reasonable.

"Drain the ballast water tank and float to periscope depth!"

A few seconds later, the reply came:

"The ballast water tank is starting to drain and is floating!"

Floating by inflating a compressed gas cylinder is a relatively quiet method.

Still, on 033's old submarine, some humming draining sounds can be heard.

For modern high-performance sonar, this sound is still relatively easy to detect.

But in this case, Ma Jie didn't care if he was discovered.

"It's already to periscope depth!"

With the sound of the operator's report, came out.

Ma Jie strode to the search periscope at the front of the command module, held the operating handles on both sides, and pressed his forehead to the eyepiece spacer.

The 033 submarine is theoretically equipped with H/SQ2-262A sonar, but this thing is to solve the problem of whether there is a problem, in fact, unless another 033 or similar old ship is sent on the other side, it is difficult to hear anything useful.

So usually the really effective reconnaissance equipment is still the optical periscope.

The captain remembered that when he dived before, the bow was aligned to the west, which was the direction of the fleet.

However, after searching for half a week, he still failed to find any trace of the two destroyers.

Ma Jie, who was a little strange in his heart, switched to the air search channel again.

Sure enough, an anti-submarine helicopter was seen in mid-air.

However, unlike what he imagined was flying towards him, the target grew smaller and smaller in his field of vision, and soon disappeared directly into the skyline.

"Old horse, what's going on?"

Yang Shan and Ma Jie have been working together on the Great Wall 298 boat for some years, and they know every move of the old guy well, and when they saw the latter holding a periscope and looking in the same direction for a long time, they also felt that something was wrong.

The latter took a step back and returned the periscope to its place:

"I saw the helicopter in charge of the submarine search climb and fly away, very fast."

"Huh?"

Generally speaking, if an old submarine like 033 is really tracked nearby by modern anti-submarine units, it is basically impossible to have any room for a turnaround except for a miracle such as sitting on the bottom.

But just now they didn't hear the kind of thump of the sound waves from the active sonar hitting the side wall of the submarine.

The three members of the command team looked at each other, and they all saw a little confusion in each other's eyes.

It stands to reason that they, as imaginary enemies in the exercise, should face a joint strangulation of surface ships and helicopters in this situation.

But now it seems that the whole world has forgotten about them.

"Sail in the snorkel state, maintain the current course, advance two."

Ma Jie took a deep breath and gave the order to start the clock of the main engine:

"Go see what the hell they're up to."

……

Just when a few people in the submarine were completely confused, the CIC on the island city ship was already busy, and no one really cared about the fact that there was a submarine of their own people in the exercise area.

Originally, when they had just received the helicopter to find the underwater target, everyone just regarded it as a normal acting process, and according to the previous arrangement, they called for the Rang Barr to go for reinforcements.

Although the performance of the French helicopter is not as good as that of the upgraded Z-9C, the several active and passive sonar buoys on board are still very effective equipment for searching for submarines in a large area.

This time, Huaxia agreed to arrange a joint anti-submarine exercise, and it also aimed to examine the way in which developed countries use sonar buoys.

However, before everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, another shocking news came from the helicopter.

"The sonar operator of machine 9686 reported that the detected target feature was not a Type 033 submarine."

The radio operator's words made the atmosphere in the entire cabin suddenly solemn.

Yang Shuyu, who was still joking with the captain, instantly sat up.

"Can you determine who the target is?"

Captain Luo Zhangming was the first to ask.

Yang Shuyu was the commander-in-chief of the Chinese side of this joint exercise, but the situation in front of him was obviously beyond the plan, so the command returned to the captain who was more familiar with the situation of the ship by default.

"No. 9686 said that it can't be for the time being, but it should be a conventional submarine that is not very large, and they are continuing to track it."

Luo Zhangming's brain was racing.

In addition to our military's, the only conventional submarines that can appear in this part of the East China Sea are South Korea or Japan.

Today's joint military exercise, because it involves the use of weapons, will definitely have to be publicly informed in advance of the scope of the exercise.

Type 052 is also the most advanced surface capital ship in China.

It's also normal for underwater villains to sneak around and gather some information.

"Confirm, how long can No. 9686 last?"

In the past, the Island City was carrying two AS565 anti-submarine planes that were exactly the same as those of the French army, and according to Luo Zhangming's experience, it should basically run out of fuel by this time.

If you can't continue to put pressure on the search for this kind of thing, then once the other party runs away at a certain time, it will be difficult to find it again.

"The pilot said that he should still be able to carry out a 15-minute submarine search mission before returning home."

The radio operator reported a report that made Luo Zhangming stunned:

"Still flying for 15 minutes?"

The navy's ship units and carrier-based aircraft units are separated in terms of organization, and they will only be together when they go to sea to carry out tasks.

These two straight 9Cs are new machines that were only delivered at the beginning of the year, and he was still a little drumming about the performance of domestic models.

But now it seems that the performance is even better than the original product......

At this time, the naval aviation officer next to him interjected appropriately:

"When the Z-9C was delivered before, the technical manual given to us by Bingfei Group showed that the range and take-off weight were indeed much better than the imported AS565."

As if to confirm this statement, the liaison officer in charge of communication between the two ships immediately reported:

"Let the Barr contact us and say that their helicopter will need to return after dropping the sonar buoy and will be ready for at least twenty minutes before it can take off again."

Obviously, Luo Zhangming's judgment just now was correct.

This newly delivered domestic model does perform better than the original.

At this moment, he was suddenly full of confidence in the new equipment in his hand.

For a new kind of equipment, especially new domestically produced equipment, it takes a process for commanders and fighters to go from being able to use it, being able to use it, and daring to use it.

In general, this confidence needs to be done slowly during use and training.

Only this time, due to the naked comparison with the French army next door, the process was directly put in place in one step.

As a result, a bold idea gradually formed in my mind -

Allowing a submarine in a submersible state to approach within 20 nautical miles of the fleet in the exercise state can already be said to be quite hostile.

After all, this is already within the range of a considerable part of anti-ship torpedoes.

Moreover, if it were not for the fact that the helicopter used active hoisting sonar to search for a location near the border, it was likely that they would have succeeded.

Therefore, we must leave some lessons for this sneaky opponent, otherwise I am afraid that next time I will have to make an inch.

But then again, this is not a territorial sea area after all, and it is impossible for someone to really sink it......

"Notify the aviation department...... Preparing to release No. 9696. ”

Luo Zhangming sorted out his thoughts and quickly issued an operational order:

"Also, hang two torpedoes and go out."

"A live ammunition, and a manipulation mine!"

(End of chapter)

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