Babylonian Empire

Page 423

"Your Majesty the King." After the American ambassador came in, he said, "I heard that Iran has placed a large number of mines in the Strait of Hormuz, blocking the entire waterway. We in the United States are very worried."

"We are trying our best to remove the mines and restore the smooth passage of water." King Fahd said: "We are very confident."

"However, it is said that only five nautical miles of waterway were cleared yesterday? How long will it take to restore the passage of the entire strait?"

"These are the secrets of our peninsula defense force, and we cannot give you an accurate answer yet," King Fahd said.

"Your Majesty, the Strait of Hormuz was blocked by mines by the shameful Iranians. This is not just a matter of the Arabian Peninsula. It is related to the stability of the entire world. In the past few days, the price of oil in the world has risen again by 30.00 %[-], Many countries have begun to use their strategic oil reserves. If the Strait of Hormuz is no longer navigable, the economies of all countries in the world will be greatly affected. I hope Saudi Arabia can ask us for help from the US Navy. We will not stand idly by. "

"We are confident we can handle it ourselves," King Fahd said.

"Then we can only submit the current situation to the UN resolution." The American ambassador said: "We will not watch the Iranians block the waterway. This is related to the interests of the whole world. Moreover, Kuwait is almost unable to hold on. An hour ago, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States received a cordial reception from President Reagan. Your country has the Red Sea for shipping, but other countries only have this waterway, and their own economies are already in crisis."

"Okay, we will seriously consider it." King Fahd said.

The meaning expressed by the American ambassador is very clear. The current situation is not just a matter of the countries along the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula, but a matter of the whole world. The Strait of Hormuz is blocked, and the loss is the whole world, especially the West. nation.Therefore, if Saudi Arabia does not agree, the United States will take this matter to the United Nations to propose, and then strive for a legal excuse to enter the Persian Gulf.

Moreover, those countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, after being completely cut off from shipping, really couldn't stand it anymore.

Especially in Kuwait, the life of the Kuwaiti people depends entirely on sea transportation, and even a roll of toilet paper is shipped from outside.

Now, although Saudi Arabia is urgently sending living supplies to Kuwait by land, it is far from meeting their needs.

It should not be true to say that the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. took the initiative to seek a meeting with the U.S. president. The relationship between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia has always been very good, and they will never dismantle the Saudi backstage. However, the U.S. president met with the Kuwaiti ambassador. After all, it is not true. A good signal represents that the United States wants to disintegrate the peninsula defense force.

"King." At this moment, Prince Sultan walked in.

"How is our mine removal?"

"It is very difficult. According to the current progress, it will take at least half a month, and it is still under the premise that the Iranians will not rearrange the mines." Prince Sultan said.

King Fahd showed a worried look on his face. In this case, the problem is very big.

"His Royal Highness, His Excellency Qusay from Iraq sent several mine-sweeping ships and said that they could quickly clear a route for us. Now, their mine-sweeping ships have already set off." At this time, a secretary came in and said.

4 Chapter Seventy

Iraqi minesweepers?King Fahd was very surprised. Iraq only had a few Soviet-made Yevgenia-class minesweepers and Yugoslavia-made SALAM-AL-DEEN-class coastal minesweepers. Even if these minesweepers could carry out minesweeping activities, their effect was very limited. However, it would take unimaginable time to eliminate the mines in such a large sea area.

"Are you sure Qusay said they could clear those mines quickly?" King Fahd said.

The secretary thought for a while and said, "Your Excellency Qusay just mentioned that a route can be cleared quickly, but he didn't say that those mines can be cleared quickly."

Isn't it the same?Prince Sultan thought, but then he figured it out: This is different. He didn't say to clear all the mines laid by the Iranians, but to clear the waterway?

Now the minesweepers are scanning the entire Strait of Hormuz in a wide array, which will take a long time, but if they just clear a route along the center line, it will be much faster.

However, even so, it will take a few days. How fast is Qu Sai saying that he can quickly clear the route?

They didn't know that Qusay racked his brains and finally came up with a strange method.

The Iranians mainly deploy anchor mines, which are tied to the bottom of the water with ray cables, because they cannot be seen outside the water surface, so it is easy to touch the underwater mine body, and let this anchor mine It is also very simple to show the original shape, that is to cut Lei Suo!

In fact, this method has been used a long time ago, that is, a single ship drags and cuts minesweeping equipment.This is a cutting tool that consists of two broom cables and 16 cutting knives are installed on the stern of the ship, and is dragged by the minesweeper to cut the mine anchor cable.When the sweeping cable advances with the ship, if the cutting knife encounters the anchor cable, the power of the ship will cut off the cable and make the mine body surface, and then use artillery and other water blasting methods to destroy the mine.

However, the current mine-sweeping operations of the Saudis do not adopt this method. Instead, they use sonar to find needles in a haystack in the water, look for suspicious targets, and then confirm them, because the anchor mines are scattered and will not be arranged very concentratedly. Therefore, if you are unlucky, you may sail the boat for a day, and you will not cut a Lasso.And those with even worse luck were those ships that struck mines within a few nautical miles.

However, at least it can be confirmed that those places are safe!

Therefore, Qusay’s method is to line up these old minesweepers with cutting knives and open the way forward. Then, at least a few hundred meters in width can be guaranteed to be safe. This is a road Safe waterway!

If you are unlucky and don't cut the mines, forget it. If you do, then the two missile boats following these minesweepers will use their naval guns to blast away the anchor mines that surfaced.

Qusay's divergent thinking shines here. Originally, the minesweeper repeatedly searched all the sea areas to ensure safety. The place, save it for later!If the Iranians were not careful and dropped the mines at their doorstep, they would deserve it even more.

However, new problems will arise again, how to make the cargo ships behind follow this channel?Now there is no accurate GPS navigation equipment, so that the cargo ship can follow the trajectory of the minesweeper in front of it?That is simply impossible.Because it is not a cargo ship, there are dozens of cargo ships behind it, and if it goes a little off, there is still a danger of being struck by mines.

Qusay came up with a very clever idea, which is actually a simple method: artificially mark a waterway!

The water in the Strait of Hormuz is very shallow, with an average of only 70 meters. Therefore, you only need to drop something that can be calibrated in the center of the channel. This thing is somewhat similar to an anchor mine. The difference is that the anchor mine is not exposed, and this calibration thing can guide the course of passing ships just after it emerges from the water!

As long as the ship follows this beacon floating on the water, there is absolutely no problem!

Fortunately, the industry in Iraq has begun to rise. When Qusay expressed his ideas, the secretary immediately went to Zubayer to find workers to process a batch of these beacons overnight. It enters the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and the top is a large piece of foam with an outer layer of plastic packaging. The string in the middle is made of materials that are not afraid of water immersion. This is incompatible with modern high-tech but absolutely practical. The first beacon to guide the channel was produced in large quantities.

Following the missile boat are two ships dedicated to launching such beacons.

The only thing to pay attention to is to pay attention to the length of the string when putting it in. If it is too long, it will drift with the ocean current and will bring wrong channel information to the cargo ships behind.

However, it is still incomplete to think about it in this way, because who can guarantee that what Iran puts in the sea is only ordinary anchor mines, in case there are advanced acoustic bottom mines, magnetic bottom mines, water pressure bottom mines, etc. Things, those minesweepers who are just driving minesweepers frantically cutting mines in front will face great danger.

Therefore, to be on the safe side, at the forefront of this mine-sweeping force, there are two remote control boats dedicated to "sending death".

In order to avoid being attacked by magnetic bottom mines, the minesweeping ships are all made of non-magnetic materials, and these two remote-controlled ships specially sent to death are to enhance their magnetism, not just their magnetism. Also increase the sound and increase the water pressure of the navigation.

That is to say, similar to Khomeini's young soldiers, they were there to step on mines.

These two ships were rebuilt from old speedboats of about [-] tons. The cabins below the waterline at the bottom of the hull were separated and filled with foam plastics. In this way, when the hull entered the minefield and detonated the mines, Even if the shock waves and shrapnel produced by the explosion penetrate the hull and cause perforation, because the foam plastic filled in the hull can provide buoyancy to ensure the unsinkable body, it can still continue to perform the task of stepping on mines.

In order to ensure safety, the two ships are operated by remote control, and a device that can forward the signals of magnetic sound and water pressure is installed to make the mines explode as early as possible.

After completing these devices, an experiment was carried out on the sea outside the Fao Peninsula, and the equipment was hurriedly set off on the road.

Because Qusay knows that if this problem cannot be dealt with as soon as possible, then all countries in the world will put a lot of pressure on the Persian Gulf countries. Now the world's crude oil prices are already rising rapidly.The only ones who are happy now are the Soviets.

For Iraq itself, it is also related to vital interests, because if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, Iraq's own crude oil cannot be transported out. With the investment of pens, if it does not export crude oil and refined oil, Iraq itself will not be able to support it.

Therefore, this peculiar formation opened the curtain to clear the route in the Strait of Hormuz.

A few hours after King Fahd received the news from Iraq, these ships sailed through the port of Oman, and at four o'clock in the afternoon, they came to the outskirts of the Strait of Hormuz and came into contact with Talal's formation.

At this time, all the ships had anchored and stopped, waiting for the unimpeded waterway ahead, but after a few days, they had already become a little pessimistic.

When they saw the new naval formation approaching, the crew on the huge oil tanker and the small boats flying the Iraqi flag couldn't help but feel even more sad. What kind of ships were those?Are those capable of minesweeping?

Even some crew members are already looking forward to the entry of US Navy ships.

The same is true for Talal. Seeing that among these ships, even the warships are not fully equipped, and there are two cargo ships behind them. How can we clear mines like this?

"Is it the Iraqi navy who came to assist us in mine clearance?" Talal asked on the radio.

"Yes, we were ordered to clear the mines and ask the Saudi Navy's minesweepers to retreat." The other party shouted in the radio.

After a while, the first two ships that go up to detonate mines will not be fun if the Saudi minesweeper is hit by mistake.

"Brothers in Iraq, are you sure you can clear the mines?" Talal was still a little worried.