Empire Conquest-Chapter 717 - 32: False Start

Local time, midnight on the 6th, 35 meters below the surface in the southern waters of Boss Bay, was the "Han River" submarine.

Last month, when tensions started to rise, the "Han River" followed the "Zhu Shijian" into Boss Bay, but previously it had been operating north of the carrier battle group, responsible for guarding against Boi’s military port, especially the numerous and swift missile fast boats.

With their high speed and difficulty to detect, coupled with the massive destruction capability of anti-ship missiles, many small navies have chosen missile fast boats as their ace weapon against carriers.

This reputation was not unearned.

The first large battleship to be sunk in the great war fell victim to an anti-ship missile launched by a missile fast boat!

The appeal of missile fast boats lay in their low cost.

In fact, they were much like the torpedo fast boats of the two World Wars.

Navies of the great powers that could build carriers and aspired to dominate the global seas never took missile fast boats seriously.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that the "Han River" moved to the southern side of the carrier battle group, heading to Qatar’s territorial waters to prepare for the upcoming "all-encompassing" operation.

In fact, the "Han River" was just one of three submarines participating in the strike operation.

The other two were in the Mua Sea, not having entered Boss Bay.

As the Empire Navy’s newest attack submarine, the "Han River" had an underwater displacement of over 7,000 tons and a maximum submerged speed of 35 knots.

In terms of combat capability, the "Nanjiang" class to which the "Han River" belonged could be said to be the most powerful attack submarine of the day.

Relying on two 35-megawatt gas turbines, along with a composite battery of 1,200 tons, driven by a 40-megawatt main electric motor, the "Nanjiang" class had a maximum underwater speed of 35 knots and a submerged range of up to 3,000 nautical miles at a cruise speed of 12 knots. Even at the maximum speed of 35 knots, the "Nanjiang" class could still achieve a submerged range of not less than 700 nautical miles. If sailing on the surface, it would only take four hours to fully charge the batteries, and even while snorkeling, it would only take eight hours.

The maximum safe diving depth of 550 meters and the extreme diving depth of 720 meters set new records for post-war submarines.

All these endowed the "Nanjiang" class with formidable combat capabilities.

In fact, one could see the Empire Navy’s great expectations for this type of submarine simply from its naming.

Don’t forget that in the past, only battlecruisers and fast battleships, the main battle ships, were privileged to bear the names of the Empire’s rivers.

It was because of such impressive performance that the "Nanjiang" class was incorporated into the carrier battle group, becoming a primary anti-submarine platform.

According to its design, its primary mission was anti-submarine warfare!

Based on the experience of the Empire Navy, the best anti-submarine weapon was a better-performing submarine.

Compared to other anti-submarine platforms, such as anti-submarine patrol aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters, a submarine could maintain stealth, making it more effective against enemy submarines.

To a great extent, an advanced attack submarine, undetected, could scare away the enemy’s submarines.

However, in the vast ocean, there hadn’t been a real adversary for decades.

That’s why the Empire Navy had always been looking for ways to expand the operational scope of submarines.

To put it in the words of former Chief of Naval General Staff Li Mingbo, spending over a billion Gold Yuan on an attack submarine necessitated giving the senators in both houses a convincing reason for the appropriation.

Those senators hardly understood submarine warfare, were unaware of the importance of anti-submarine warfare, and showed no interest in it.

If submarines could destroy enemy strategic targets, they would certainly be more attractive.

For this reason, once cruise missile technology matured, the Empire Navy took the lead in developing missile submarines equipped mainly with cruise missiles.

However, the existing missile submarines were actually conversions from old submarines.

It meant removing unnecessary capabilities and reducing performance indicators such as speed to make space for dozens of cruise missiles.

As for constructing new missile submarines, the work had not yet started.

At the current phase, the Empire Navy’s focus was mainly on expanding the mission scope of active submarines, such as having attack submarines carry cruise missiles for land attack duties.

The "Han River" was armed with 12 "Spear" Submarine-launched Cruise Missiles.

In fact, "Spear" was a general term for a series of cruise missiles, including the submarine-launched type, the ship-launched type, and the Army type.

At the time of design, an air-launched type was also included.

As originally conceived, the Ministry of Defense wanted to equip all branches of the military services with this type of missile, making the missile body fully interchangeable to reduce development costs and maintenance difficulties, and also by unifying military procurement, meaning expanding purchase scale, to lower the factory price of the missiles.

Regrettably, before the development was complete, the Air Force withdrew from the project.

The reason was quite simple; the Navy had strict requirements for the diameter of the missile body, which could not exceed the inner diameter of the torpedo tubes, to ensure they could be launched from the tubes. In contrast, the requirements for the length of the missile body were not rigorous; both 6 meters and 7 meters were acceptable, and there was unwillingness to reduce performance to shorten the length.

The crux was that the Army chose to compromise with the Navy rather than lean toward the Air Force’s proposal.

The Air Force had no strict requirements for the diameter of the missile body but had very strict requirements for its length and could accept a lower performance index.

The reasoning was straightforward: the missile had to fit into the bomb bay of a bomber, and if it was too long, it definitely wouldn’t fit!