058 : Warship Usage
LST-808, 809, 810.
Three LSTs with 8 characters came rushing in.
All with the flag of the Blue Dragon unit planted.
I wondered if there were so many LSTs in Korea.
The size of the US warship was much larger, but the atmosphere became chilly in an instant when three ships were surrounded.
chuckle.
At first, the soldiers lined up on the deck politely saluted, then everyone widened their eyes when they saw an American soldier aiming a pistol at my forehead.
“Blue Dragon! I am Major Kim Yong-gwan of the 2nd Marine Brigade Special Forces.”
The Marine Corps officer jumped over to our boat with a hook.
I was in no position to accept a response.
Major Kim continued to speak with a firm expression.
“Your Majesty, you must explain the situation.”
Major Kim Yong-gwan grabbed the US officer’s gun and pulled it down.
“I am Major Smith. I am just carrying out orders as the commander of Operation Mekong Delta.”
“I’m sure the order doesn’t mean to put pressure on the Korean factor.”
“factor? VIP?”
“It feels like court-martial to have the liaison officer I sent twice tied up at the Saigon camp and ignored even if he kept trying to communicate on the way back.”
“Sounds useless! Operation Delta is a classified operation. Besides, this is just a family search. It is not something the Korean military dares to say.”
There is no coercion like this.
I came to do the dredging work they requested, but there is no way there can be a confidential operation that ignores the contact system.
Then the dredging should be done by the US Corps of Engineers.
Cursing rose up to his throat.
No, there’s definitely something to this.
It makes no sense that such an idiot came as a commander in such an important place, and in a matter where the stars were at stake.
Who is it? Who’s driving me to limb?
When the dredging work is finished, be sure to find it and cut it off.
“It’s the order! No disruption!”
Guy Smith tossed the construction order to me, then turned around and backed away.
It was too flimsy to be a document of the OICC (U.S. Military Commission).
Of course, there was no specification of the result of the geological survey of the river bed or how much to dredge.
It was just an order to dredge so that a 2,000-ton warship could navigate the upper Mekong River.
“Blue Dragon! Forgive me for being late.”
“no. Thank you for coming.”
As I was looking at the purchase order, Major Kim apologized for being late and saluted again.
Why didn’t the fierce tiger troops come and the blue dragon troops came?
“Our Marines are ready to go anywhere, anytime. We inform you that 705 Marines, 2nd Brigade Special Forces, under Major Kim Yong-gwan, have been mobilized to secure tactical bases in the Mekong River basin and protect key personnel under the order of the ROK Command in Zhou.”
He reported it as if he had read my mind.
It means that they departed before the Fierce Tiger troops.
Gothel asked for cooperation from the Maengho Unit, reported to the ROK Army Command in Juwol, and the Blue Dragon Unit moved… It seems that the Blue House was not playing in the middle.
“thank you.”
I’m not a soldier, but I responded with a salute.
“Where do you work? It is an order from the home country to actively support it.”
“There is Patyet Falls, no, rapids.”
I pointed to a place that was raising a lot of white foam above the river.
The Mekong River has numerous waterfalls and rapids.
Although it flows through many countries in Southeast Asia, this is why mutual trade has not been particularly active.
Even France, which built a large colony, could not open trade routes along the Mekong River.
Among the numerous rapids, Patyet is the rapid closest to the waterfall.
It is not easy to dredge because there are many reefs across the river, and even if dredging is done, the river bed is quickly filled up because of the silt pouring down like crazy.
It was like a river overflowing over a naturally created sandstone dam.
Beyond that, large warships can navigate the upper Mekong River, so in the original history, Hyunsan Construction was put into dredging here.
“You mean dredging over there?”
It seemed impossible even for the Marines.
It will be all the more so as the large dredger Jamaica, which was sunk by the Vietcong attack, is sticking its head out.
“Because I have a way. Didn’t you see my staff when you were passing through the South China Sea?”
“Don’t worry. An LST from the Marine Corps is escorting us.”
Ohh, it’s better than the US Army too.
It is quick to grasp the situation and responds accurately.
If that’s the case, that means the Blue Dragon unit has a total of 4 LSTs. it was just right
“The most important thing is the jungle on the other side. You just need to block it for two months, no, for one month.”
“of course. By the way, let me ask you a question.”
“do it.”
“You mean dredging in one month?”
“Absolutely. The sooner you do it, the less likely it is that there will be a fatal accident.”
“All right.”
Even though I knew it, the question did not disappear from the way he spoke.
Of course, even if you die and wake up in the usual way, you can’t finish the dredging work within a month.
You have to do crazy things.
I’m going to ask for that now.
“Of course, there is something you can do to help with that.”
“Tell me.”
“Please launch the two LSTs separately.”
“What maneuver? We need to report to the top.”
“I’m trying to stop the river.”
The LST is a 1,500-ton steel wall with a total length of 100 m, a width of 15 m and a draft of 3 m.
If it is placed horizontally, the water flow around it is rapidly slowed down even though it does not completely block the waterway.
Even if the flow rate is reduced, the dredging work becomes much easier.
“You mean to stop the river? You mean rapids like that?”
“Yes. Please report that. Such rapids can only be dredged by constructing a water barrier.”
This is the so-called Chairman Wang technique.
The difference is that Chairman Wang sank the old boat to slow the flow, but I will sink a caisson on each side of the river as a support pillar and block the river with an iron plate.
Of course, this is possible because the Jamaica, which is sunk in the middle of the river, is already slowing down.
Chairman Wang said that thanks to his experience here, he thought of using a boat instead of a water barrier in the Seosan reclaimed land project, and the rumor seemed to be true.
Anyway, if I used the Jamaica, the caisson, and the warship, the picture I wanted would come out only once.
“That… is that so?”
“Let me explain. Gather everyone. I will tell you what to do.”
“Everyone gather, the boss explains the construction method!”
Employees rushed in.
“We should consider the purpose of the construction rather than blindly. What is the purpose of dredging here?”
“Our forces will seize the Mekong River basin.”
Like a soldier, Major Kim answered correctly.
“Yes? Then, do ships have to go upstream and downstream to control the river? Don’t salmon go upstream to lay eggs and die? If you’ve completed your mission, there’s no need to go downstream.”
“What do you mean?”
“A large warship only needs to go up there once. Military supplies can be transferred by helicopter or rubber boat, and fuel can be received through a pipe on the land side. Isn’t it enough for a warship to go upstream and fire artillery into the jungle?”
“That means that you can seize control of the upper and lower streams.”
“That’s right. To be honest, I don’t think the Viet Cong will ever approach the Mekong Delta if we send just two LSTs upstream.”
The LST is both a warship and an amphibious ship.
A guerrilla like the Viet Cong can never go head-to-head with the regular army.
If warships are held in the river, the Viet Cong will be unable to obtain food from the Mekong Delta.
“!!!”
“Wow wow”
I didn’t even explain how to upload it, but cheers burst out.
“Boss, but how do I send it up? That big warship…”
After a long period of cheering, someone finally came to his senses and asked how to do it.
“It is to create a temporary dam and burst it all at once. At least momentarily, the water depth will increase by 4 or 5 m. With the Marine Corps LST, you can go upstream without missing that moment. Isn’t it?”
The draft (submerged part) of a warship like LST does not exceed 3m. It’s worth a try.
Moreover, the LST has a flat keel due to the characteristics of an amphibious craft, and the propeller and rudder are designed so that they do not hit the ground when landing. It is the best structure to cross the river.
“Wowaaa!”
“You’re the boss, too!”
Employees cheered as if they had already succeeded.
“Yes? When the dam bursts, go over it… are you saying?”
The Marine Corps officer was speechless.
Well, if you burst a dam and go up the waterway, everyone will react that way.
“I can’t do it twice. The caissons on both sides of the river will hold up, but the sunken ship over there, which will be the middle pillar, will be swept away together when the dam bursts.”
I pointed to Lake Jamaica in the middle of the river.
“Can’t we rebuild the temporary dam?”
“It is faster to dredge the riverbed than to recreate a temporary dam.”
“In the end, it must mean that the moment the dam bursts, you have to go up the river unconditionally. Is that correct?”
“Doesn’t salmon climb up with all its might at once? Only those who succeed leave behind a second generation.”
Patyet rapids are only 50m.
If the warship went back to full speed, it would only take about 10 seconds.
In the original history, a dozen workers lost their lives trying to clear the 50m waterway.
If you fill it with water for about 15 days and burst it, you can create a huge waterway in about 10 seconds.
Whether you succeed or not, you have to try.
“What if I fail?”
“Six months is enough to dredge. We have to remove all the rocks, remove the sand, and dig up the bedrock underneath so that the bottom of the warship does not get caught in the river bed.”
The construction of Hyeonsan took a year to complete.
It is said that they worked by firing flares every night, but how difficult it must have been to dredge such a narrow area for a year. It must have been more so because the area around Patyet was a bedrock area.
In addition, the amount of sediment that the Mekong River pours into the delta is close to 100 million tons per year.
In the 21st century, all of Southeast Asia has built large cities with sand from the Mekong River.
No matter how many waves the next day, the waterway that was caught at most will be filled with sand and gravel again.
“They said it would take six months…”
“Some of us die. People die even from poor Viet Cong bullets.”
“!!!!!”
“If successful, we can ask the US Army for two more LSTs. If the Viet Cong around here are disorganized, then you can slowly dredge up the party area.”
Two of the four LSTs can be used as temporary water barriers, and the other two can be sent upstream.
You can ask the U.S. military to give you two more LSTs on the pretext that the two LSTs are tied upstream.
More than 1,000 LSTs were built by the US military during World War II.
If the dredging work is completed only before the end of the war and the LSTs in the upper stream are retrieved, we will eventually have two more LSTs in our military.
I said it roughly because it was a gangster act, but Major Kim put on a determined expression, as if he had read my thoughts at once.
“I can…no, I will. It seems to be easier than catching ghosts.”
Major Kim looked at my face and made a promise.
If he was a friend, he would have greeted him with a fist.
Read at noblemtl
Just then, a barge carrying a caisson began to be seen in the distance.
Not only the caisson, but also the crane with a giant spider’s hand was welcome.
“Come on, let’s get ready. Place the caisson, fill the inside, cut the steel plate, block the river, and dig the rapids over there in a cascading fashion. You know!!”
“Waaa!”
Now, our staff does cutting and pasting things with their eyes closed.
“Oh, just one more thing.”
“Tell me.”
“Shoot flares, please.”
“Blue Dragon!”
Major Kim smiled slightly and saluted at the word flare, as if he had expected something bigger.
“Fire flares!”
pop! wheeei
The flares were fired even though the sun had not yet set. Everywhere was as bright as daylight.
“Wow! Awesome!”
“Watching fireworks on the battlefield.”
“That’s a flare.”
“Who knows?”
The staff also washed away the tension with intentional jokes.
“Let’s start with geological surveys. safety! safety! safety!!”
“safety! safety! Don’t worry!”
The school teacher’s forearms, which had only been holding chalk a few months ago, became as thick as those of a weightlifter.
As I lifted it up to the sky, my tendons sprang up.
He who does not work never knows this overwhelming feeling. proud of my colleagues
“Blue dragon troops, to their respective positions!”
“To the location!”
The blue dragon units also took their positions in perfect order.
There was nowhere to be reassured.
***
Unemployment in Seongsu-dong.
“Chief Kim, are all the samples ready?”
“A sample of Mr. Knights. Everything is ready. I will deliver it directly from the airport tomorrow.”
“Miss Kim, did the security of the American dispatchers go through?”
“Yes, sir. I opened an account. I deposited 3,000 USD each. I paid 8,000 dollars including tuition for international students or those who are doing something.”
“Ugh, why are school fees so expensive?”
“It’s America.”
Sambok was suffering from overwork today as well.
It wasn’t once or twice that when I woke up every morning, I wished I was sick and taken to the hospital.
‘It’s better than Chansu, but…’
In a different sense, I really wanted to see Chan-soo.
“By the way, sir. Old Man Hwang, please peck me. Polytech yarn is almost out of stock now. It’s because I can’t brush up on the old man.”
The chief said something strange.
“What are you talking about? Old Man Hwang has never delayed deliveries.”
Are you sick?
Come to think of it, you don’t look well these days.
Since we are so busy, Hwang must be exhausted from the heavy workload.
“How would you know? He doesn’t let anyone into the factory, and according to his wife, he even smokes cigarettes that he quit. Something is not going well.”
“What’s not going to work out? The money Hyeseong earns must exceed 1,000 per month.”
“Isn’t that what you said, sir?”
“Ugh! Director. Boss, this is an emergency telex.”
As I was yelling at Chief Lee for no reason, Miss Kim came running with a telex paper.
“What? Is it urgent again?”
「Send Jinhae LST to the Mekong Delta. I have something to bring to Korea. A super-large dredger engine.」
Sambok trembled when he saw the telex.
what? Mekong Delta?
Carrying a super-large dredge engine?
“You must be crazy, what kind of a merchant ship is a navy warship!”
Sambok crumpled the telex paper.
Who should be in Quy Nhon? Go all the way to the Mekong River.
Poin! Shoot aaa!
Meanwhile, an explosion was heard outside the factory.
“Eolsoo good! Long live! Long live! Ulsu! Ursoo!”
“Haa, why is Old Man Hwang doing that again…”
“Eolsoo! Ursoo!”
Looking out the window, I see smoke coming from Comet Nylon again… Nope, steam rising this time.
Moreover, old man Hwang was dancing in a drenched state.
It’s winter soon, so what are you doing to catch a cold?
In Sambok’s eyes, it seemed that the world was going crazy.
I couldn’t keep my mind at all.
Sambok wanted to calm down like old man Hwang.
