Empire Conquest-Chapter 771 - 58 Successful Sneak Attack

As the deep sound echoed, all the officers and sailors aboard the Wujiang, including Ran Wenqiang, were startled.

The sound came from the west, from the direction of the military port.

However, Ran Wenqiang quickly made an accurate judgment, that it was the irregular sound of explosions, not the thumping sound emitted by active submarine sonar.

Evidently, the troops left behind had already detonated the explosives, beginning to destroy the infrastructure inside the port.

As for the naval mines that had been laid, they were all activated via remote control, that is, by sending an electronic signal that enabled the fuses on the mines to enter working state.

Of course, this was also the signal to start the war.

According to the plan devised earlier, unless the Bulan Kingdom launched an unannounced attack by sending in the Marine Corps to forcefully land, the blasting operations would have to wait until after a formal declaration of war; this was also the signal sent to the Wujiang, instructing it to proceed with the plan for rendezvous.

Of course, the first task now was to take out those three destroyers.

Besides, there was also a need to locate the Bulan submarines hiding nearby and to avoid the anti-submarine helicopters that would arrive soon.

The difficulty was not small, but it was not without hope.

The key, actually, was timing.

To put it another way, it was good luck.

About 30 seconds after firing the torpedoes, the sound of explosions reached them.

Based on their relative positions, it was certain that when the three Bulan destroyers intercepted the noise from the Wujiang, they must have been disrupted by the explosion noises in the port, possibly making it difficult to make accurate judgments, and they may automatically ignore the noise coming from the east, failing to detect the Wujiang.

Moreover, the two anti-submarine helicopters to the east, disturbed by the explosion noises, might not be able to pick up the noise emitted by the Wujiang.

The advantage of anti-submarine helicopters was their speed, but when it came to sub-hunting capabilities, they actually were not a match for anti-submarine warships.

The key point was that all three torpedoes were fully self-guided.

This arrangement fully reflected that Ran Wenqiang was an experienced submarine commander.

Although he didn’t have foresight, when making decisions and launching attacks, Ran Wenqiang chose an attack method that was most advantageous for himself.

Those were three "Y-9S" heavy dual-purpose torpedoes, which no longer needed submarine control after leaving the launch tubes.

In the initial phase, the three torpedoes were actually controlled by an inertial system.

It was only when attacking enemy ships more than ten kilometers away—when the targets were relatively close—that the mid-course navigation would be controlled by the inertial navigation system.

If the distance was too far, then wire guidance would have to be chosen, with the submarine providing adjustment commands to the torpedoes to ensure they could catch up to the target.

After patiently waiting for about ten minutes, Ran Wenqiang had to admit that he was becoming overly anxious.

The three successive violent explosions indicated that all three "Y-9S" torpedoes had hit their targets.

Then came some strange noises, and the Wujiang’s computer identified it as "hull breaking"; one of the enemy ships had been torn in two by the torpedoes.

If it had been a transport ship hit by a torpedo during a blockade mission in the North Sunset Ocean, then these eerie noises could continue for quite some time. As the ship sank, its hull would be squeezed by the seawater, deforming, and then emitting various sounds.

If close enough, submarine officers and sailors could even hear the cries for help from the ship’s crew and the sounds of despair as they banged on the hull with hard objects.

During the last great war, many submarine officers and sailors even suffered from depression as a result!

It was no surprise that the torpedoes broke a destroyer in two.

The "Y-9S" could be said to be the Imperial Navy’s, and even the world’s, most advanced dual-purpose heavy torpedo, which in addition to using a thermal propulsion system, also had powerful self-guiding capabilities.

When attacking surface ships, the "Y-9S" used a combination of active/passive sonar and wake homing guidance.

The key was actually the wake homing.

The logic was simple, in theory, it was impossible to interfere with torpedoes controlled by wake homing, because there was no interference method that could mimic the wake generated by large warships at high speeds; thus, once locked on by a torpedo, unless one could outrun the torpedo’s range, it was certain to be caught.

As for the power, that hardly needed to be said.

A hefty 250-kilogram warhead, packed with 150 kilograms of high-energy explosives, had an explosive power equivalent to 300 kilograms of TNT.

The key was also that the torpedo exploded underwater.

When dealing with surface warships, the "Y-9S" used an active sonar to control depth and proximity detonation, that is, it was controlled by active sonar to reach right below the target warship and then detonate at a depth of 3 to 5 meters from the ship, maximizing the power of the warhead.

In tests conducted by the Imperial Navy, the "Y-9S" had been able to blow a 4,000-ton warship into two pieces!

In theory, one "Y-9S" could sink or severely damage a large warship, and two could sink or severely damage a 10,000-ton warship.

Even against a carrier, only three to four were needed.

Actually, it was based on this criterion that the Nanjiang class large attack submarines were equipped with only four torpedo tubes, ensuring that when using three torpedoes to attack an enemy carrier, there would still be one torpedo left for self-defense, not being left defenseless due to firing all torpedoes upon encountering danger.

However, four torpedo tubes were indeed a bit few.

In past exercises, the Nanjiang class had suffered from not having enough torpedo tubes, which led to the decision to add vertical launch tubes starting from the third batch.

Moreover, on the next generation of large attack submarines that would replace the Nanjiang class, the number of torpedo tubes had been increased to six.