"It's already very cheap, and it's not easy to find such a ship."
"But we were lucky.
Completed and launched in 1981, the Sea Giant was supposed to transport crude oil around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
The ongoing Iran-Iraq war severely affected the production and transportation of oil in the Persian Gulf region, and no one dared to carry oil to the Gulf region because Iraq announced that any ship carrying crude oil produced by Iran would be the target of Iraq's attacks.
However, at that time, the ship's company was impressed by the high remuneration for transportation, and took the risk of sending the "Sea Giant" into the waters of the Persian Gulf to carry out transportation work. ” As he spoke, they had reached the middle of the ship, and Singh pointed to a large repaired hull and said, "But their luck doesn't seem to be very good."
On May 14, 1988, while sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, Iraqi warplanes were heavily damaged by a French-made Exocet anti-ship missile attack and sank in the shallow waters off the coast of Kak Island in Iran.
After the sinking, the Sea Giant remained at the bottom of the sea in this state until the end of the Iran-Iraq war. ” "You sent someone to salvage it," Fan Jian asked.
"Not really."
"My family also had a shipbreaking business, but I didn't think about going there and scooping up this behemoth," Singh said.
However, after the master contacted me, I just sent people to ask if there were any ready-made ships in India that could meet the requirements of this mission, and then I would buy them and spend a lot of money to refit them in the shortest possible time to meet your needs. ” "Then how did you get it," Fan Jian couldn't help but ask.
It wasn't until 1989 that the Sea Giant was resold to Norway's Norman International Shipping for US$35 million, and the ship was salvaged and towed to the Keppel shipyard in Singapore for extensive repairs, this time costing 32oo tonnes of steel and replacing 32 kilometres of pipeline.
After one of the world's largest ship restorations, the ship was renamed the Happy Giant and made a comeback.
However, the ship's luck was really bad, the restoration work may have been flawed, and in the subsequent operation it was always repairs and more time than operation, and the owner was finally overwhelmed, and the ship changed hands several times, and finally was sent to Mumbai seven months ago, where it was bought by a shipbreaking company for 35 million dollars, ready to be dismantled and sold as scrap metal.
When I heard about it, I gave them a little money, and the owner of the shipbreaking company owed us a lot of favors, so he sold the ship to me without saying a word, and then sent their repairmen to work with our men to repair and renovate it. ” Singh pointed to the dense blue-shirted workers on the entire ship and said: "It took 1,000 people to repair the hull of this ship alone, and 500 more people to modify the weapon system and add armor. ” Long Yun walked back and forth, and felt that this ship was really big, if it was really converted into an armed ship, I am afraid that it would be larger than an aircraft carrier, of course, no matter what, due to the shooting problem, the "Sea Giant" could not reach the combat level of an aircraft carrier, and could only be regarded as an anomaly.
For the craftsmanship of the Indians, Long Yun is still quite uneasy, this is an open people, sometimes although their work efficiency can be compared with the Chinese, but in terms of quality, it is difficult to look at the Chinese.
There were frequent jokes in the dockyard of the Indian Navy, the warship was towed back to the dock for repairs and could actually turn over in the dock, and a check found out that it was a great success when it was built, and the facilities on the bridge and deck were built too high, resulting in a drop in buoyancy in the shallow water of the dock, resulting in overturning.
In addition, there are many maintenance accidents.
For example, when the submarine returned to the dock, the soldier pressed the wrong shot button and shot the fish at the merchant ship parked near the dock, and one of the torpedo covers was not opened, and exploded directly in the cabin, resulting in the joke that the merchant ship and the submarine died together.
"Singh, there's one thing I have to ask."
Long Yun said: "How do you modify it, there won't be any baskets."
Singh patted his chest and assured in a loud voice: "No problem, I know Mr.
Long, your worries, although the Indians are not at the high-end level in military technology for the time being, but the ship repairmen of our Singh family are indeed the best in India, and this time we have invited a lot of experts to come over to check for us, and on the day of going to sea, I will personally lead a team of mercenary sailors to accompany you on the voyage."
He called a manager, took the other party's walkie-talkie, and yelled at the walkie-talkie: "I'm Singh, let the chief technical guide come down, I have guests here to meet him." ” After a while, a scruffy old man with a high nose and a white head in oil-stained overalls was seen running out from under the cabin, and when he saw Singh, he trotted over.
"Mr.
Singh, it's so late, are you here for anything?"
the scruffy old man spoke English with a thick Russian accent.
"Kolovsky, tell these distinguished guests about your modifications."
"It's these distinguished guests who are using the ship this time, and they're worried about how good you are," Singh said. ” "This is a technologist from the Mikoyan Design Bureau of the former Soviet Union, Kolovsky."
Singh said.
In fact, after Long Yun saw Kolovsky, a Russian expert, he had a rough idea in his heart.
If there is any way in the world to convert a huge large oil tanker into an armed ship, there is an optimal combination, and that is Russian technology, plus Indian workers.
One is an open nation, and the other is a fierce fighting nation.
One represents the dare to change anything, and the other represents the extensive advanced technology that can be improvised.
This is not bragging, Russia, that is, the former Soviet Union's military technology has always been famous for its extensive style, take the world's first fighter capable of reaching Mach 3 flight degree MiG-25, for example, the first appearance in the sixties made the Yankees at that time pale with fright.
Mach 3 fighters were simply not able to intercept at that time, only the American XB7O Valkyrie bombers were able to reach this degree, and the Americans feared that if a large number of MiG-25s flew over Eastern Europe, it would be like no one.
After a long period of time by American spies trying to find out what technology the plane used, the mystery was finally solved after the defection of Belenko on September 6, 1976
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