Munitions Empire-Chapter 751 : 710 New weapons new countermeasures

"The higher-ups are pushing us to come up with weapons against submarines. Let's all brainstorm and see if we have any good ideas," a Shireck engineer said as he walked into the room and tossed a stack of documents onto the table to his subordinates.

A group of people looked worried, and one of them spoke up, "There's no way. We've been thinking for so many days, but we still can't solve the most critical issue."

"Yeah, we can't detect submarines in advance—that's the biggest problem," another experienced engineer sighed and added.

They hadn't known the term 'submarine' before, but the Tang Country's radio had informed them of the corresponding vocabulary.

The enemy was essentially laying all their cards on the table: just one move of lurking underwater, yet Shireck couldn't come up with any method to counter it.

"We've developed a type of bomb that can be dropped into water and explode at a fixed depth," a weapons development engineer continued, "That part isn't hard, the hard part is... when to drop that bomb."

"The shipyard has already installed the corresponding guides on the newly built destroyers for launching these underwater bombs, but it's simply giving the captains a random attack option," someone by his side shook his head, expressing frustration.

Without sonar, deep-water bombs were actually not very useful, and everyone here knew that finding the enemy was the most important method.

"I suggest setting up some large fishing nets near the harbors. Maybe that could prevent enemy submarines from infiltrating?" proposed an engineer sitting at another table.

"We're already doing that. We've set up huge fishing nets at Gobur's naval base and at Dorne's Winterless City harbor, hoping it will be effective," the leading Shireck engineer leaned back in his chair, appearing utterly despondent.

Recently, they were installing the same equipment on new battleships, as well as on battleships sent back to the shipyard for retrofitting.

Several supporting rods, similar to side paddles of a ship, were installed, and then with these rods, fishing nets were hung to prevent the "bombs" launched by enemy submarines from getting close to the warships.

"As for civilian vessels, there's really not much we can do. If warships can't solve their self-defense problem, it's even less likely for civilian transport ships," another expert shook his head, indicating helplessness.

It was different from World War II. Back then, at least destroyers had sonar, deep-water bombs, and fleets escorted by destroyers. Submarines needed meticulous tactical planning to cause trouble.

But now it was different; destroyers were too preoccupied dealing with submarines themselves, leaving no foundation for the concept of escorting to emerge.

Fleets encountering submarines could only flee, let alone escort civilian ships—in this situation, every country's transport ships could only rely on themselves.

As he spoke, he lit a cigarette. This thing was originally smoked only by the Brunas, but it had become increasingly popular and had turned into a widespread habit.

After exhaling a puff of smoke, he continued, "On one hand, we can only make transport ships maintain as high a speed as possible, which is the best strategy we know of so far."

"But fully loaded transport ships don't travel very fast!" another person pointed out the problem.

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"Then they'll just have to load less!" the smoking guy suggested more and more impractically. If every ship carried one-fifth less, it would mean a direct reduction of one-fifth of the transport capacity, a loss so immense it could be described as devastating.

The situation would only worsen with the addition of transport ships lost to sinking; no one could bear such consequences.

"Damn it, who would have thought that laundry detergent could also become a weapon!" an engineer said, starting to lose his composure.

"Torpedoes should be quite large, not very portable, and probably expensive," an adjacent military consultant analyzed, "They're reluctant to use them, often sinking our ships with small-caliber artillery after a robbery."

"Could we take advantage of that? Equip merchant ships with some concealed weapons... Try to capture a submarine, or sink the enemy!" he looked toward the engineers, inquiring about the feasibility from the technicians.

"That's feasible!" a designer immediately got excited: "We could temporarily fit some merchant ships with 90 or 100 mm caliber naval guns!"

"Makes sense! And they could be dual-purpose, for both surface and air targets! That way, couldn't the merchant ships have some anti-air capabilities as well?" Another expert chimed in, nodding.

So everyone started discussing, from the selection of the guns to whether installation should be voluntary and whether to charge a fee for it.

After the discussion, they decided to install 90 mm caliber anti-aircraft guns on the sides of a few transport ships currently under construction, giving them the capacity for a gunfight with submarines at critical moments.

The additional cost and the extra gunner staffing would have to be borne by the shipping companies themselves.

"We've also experimented with some 'torpedoes', actually, the principle behind them is very simple, but some details still need to be perfected," added the engineers who worked on developing the torpedoes to the discussion.

After learning of the existence of torpedoes as a weapon, engineers from Shireck and various nations also began researching this new type of weapon, hoping to equip their navies' fleets with these terrifying arms.

Everyone was actually quite clear that threats from below were extremely lethal, as the main warships of all countries almost entirely lacked underwater defenses and were in a completely exposed state.

To sink those heavily-armored battleships using cannons was very difficult. Not to mention the low accuracy, even after a hit, the amount of damage inflicted was generally quite limited. But torpedoes were different; just one could severely damage those expensive battleships.

Plus, these things really didn't involve much technology—everyone knew the principle of buoyancy, and it only took a simple design, referencing the principles of propellers and shells, and adding an internal buoyancy tank to create a primitive torpedo.

However, such primitive torpedoes had many problems, such as how to solve the sensitivity of impact fuses in a liquid environment, how to give the torpedo a stable propulsion system, and how to maintain the torpedo at a reasonable depth. These details were not yet resolved.

So, making reliable torpedoes that could be used was impossible in the short term, but related research had already begun, and everyone was investing considerable passion into this area.

"We must hurry with the installation of submarine nets, and then position more patrol vessels near the reserved sea lanes!" suggested the military advisor, anxious.

Recently, their navy had become a particularly unlucky target; the new weapons of the Tang Country's navy were emerging incessantly, truly giving them a headache.

The main fleet, once absolutely assured of its superiority in numbers, was now hiding and skulking about like a rat crossing the street. It had become an adventure just to return to a port for resupply, not to mention enforcing a blockade on Tang Country's shipping.

While they were discussing various technical problems, an officer pushed open the door of the office, rushing in.

With a grave expression, he placed a telegram on the desk and said to everyone present, "Bad news! Very bad news! The navy of Tang Country has started using new tactics with their submarines."

"New tactics?" On hearing this, everyone crowded around, carefully reading the telegram, and their faces turned particularly sour.

Just recently, in the Great Southern Bay of the Gobur state, a Gobur patrol destroyer and seven or eight transport ships had been inexplicably lost. It was confirmed that torpedoes from submarines had not been responsible for sinking the destroyer!

The device was a type of bomb floating in the water, fastened by an anchor chain, and it looked somewhat like a sea urchin.

As there had always been high-intensity patrols by ships, it was certain that no Tang Country navy warship had appeared nearby. This "mine," functioning in principle like a landmine and clearly laid by submarines.

"Great Southern Bay is now all but completely blocked. All vessels entering or leaving are scared out of their wits. The Gobur state has no choice but to organize people to dive and check the sea lanes..." said the officer delivering the news, "They discovered one of these 'mines' and only then realized they existed."

"Damn Tang people, damn Great Tang Group! How do they always manage to come up with such annoying things?" an engineer near breaking point exclaimed.

A few of these mines could create panic and render a port inoperative. The actual power of these things might not be very great, but their deterrent effect was absolutely real.

What's even deadlier is that the mines were laid by submarines, and no one knew when they were in place, making mine-clearing exceedingly difficult.

It's not like you can mobilize thousands of people to wade in the water every day to check if submarines had been by or if there are any mines, right?

So, the previous worry about a reduction in carrying capacity by one-fifth was actually optimistic. If you account for the impact of mines on ports, you'd be lucky to maintain half the original transport capacity.

Such a decrease in carrying capacity would lead to a sharp decline in the production capacity of the entire anti-Tang alliance and even the civilian economy would be affected.

So even though it's unlikely that the flames of war would reach the Eastern Continent, the actual impact had already spread to all of the countries in the anti-Tang alliance.

"Damn it!" the lead engineer, frustrated and angry, slammed his fist onto a technical drawing on the desk—that was a plan to retrofit existing destroyers with "underwater bombs."

Without appropriate storage and safety measures, these devices were simply mounted on deck tracks. As for where to place the bombs, how to access and use them, it was left to the sailors' imagination.

It's not that they couldn't be used; it just wasn't that convenient. As for their effectiveness, it was roughly similar to a placebo...