50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 844 The Enticing Russian Giant Ship

The Frunze, a large nuclear-powered guided-missile cruiser, was the second of the Soviet Union's Project 1144 cruisers.

With a full-load displacement of 24,300 tons, it possesses a variety of weapon systems, including naval guns, missiles, torpedoes, and rocket-propelled depth charges, making it an all-rounder capable of air defense, anti-submarine warfare, and anti-ship operations.

The Frunze was hailed as the world's most magnificent cruiser, but it was actually a veritable "arsenal ship," while the West referred to it as a "battlecruiser."

With nearly 500 missiles on board, even America's aircraft carriers have to detour when facing it, making it one of the undisputed maritime hegemons.

Sun Zhiwei was drooling as he looked at the "Frunze" in the port from underground. Just one of these ships would be enough to protect the entire territory of Natuna.

Unfortunately, this is the main warship of the Russians, and they have no intention of selling it.

The Soviet Union's Type 1144 cruisers were so useful that their navy was naturally very fond of them, but the construction time was too long, taking three or four years from the start of construction to the launch.

Since the first ship began construction in 1974, the dry dock at SY-189 Naval Shipyard has never been idle, with ships being built one after another.

So far, they have only built three ships, with the third, the "Kalinin," only being launched on April 12 this year. It will be at least two years before it officially enters service.

Two weeks after the completion of the Kalinin, on April 25, the fourth and final ship, the Peter the Great, officially began construction.

It is said that the Russian Navy is already accumulating materials for the construction of the fifth ship, and preparing the materials in advance can speed up the construction cycle by at least six months.

But only Sun Zhiwei knew that the planned fifth "Dzerzhinsky" would forever remain a warship on paper.

Because the "Peter the Great" was completed and launched in April 1989, the Soviet Union was already on the verge of collapse at that time, and it was impossible for them to allocate funds to build a fifth ship.

This "battlecruiser" is really too expensive. The cost of the bare ship alone is as high as 5 million rubles (9 million US dollars), which is more expensive than the cost of a 10-ton Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

What does 5 million rubles mean? At that time, the cost of manufacturing a T-72A main battle tank in the Soviet Union was only 15.53 rubles.

The money spent on building just the hull of a "battlecruiser" could produce 3220 T-72A main battle tanks, enough to equip 10 fully equipped tank divisions.

The final cost of such a "battlecruiser," fully outfitted and loaded with fuel and weapons, is said to exceed $15 billion.

It's no wonder that the fifth ship couldn't be built. Where did the Russians get $15 billion to invest in the construction of this battlecruiser in the last few years? They could have done something else with that money.

Sun Zhiwei lingered with envy over the giant ship for a while before reluctantly turning his gaze to the other warships nearby.

Besides the Frunze, there were many other warships in the port, including several destroyers with a displacement of 10,000 tons.

A quick count revealed that there were six combat ships and more than 20 other auxiliary ships.

The ships here exchange vessels with the fleet in Vladivostok every few months, so the ships will probably be different the next time you come.

In addition to the ships in the bay, the land base also has many buildings, including radar stations, satellite communication stations, repair docks, supply depots, ammunition depots, oil depots, and even a battalion of marines.

This is the peak period for the Russian bear's presence, with tens of thousands of staff and their families currently stationed at the base.

Seeing such a powerful fleet, Sun Zhiwei realized he was worrying unnecessarily; the Russians wouldn't help the monkeys deal with the Great Natuna.

Because they simply looked down on Greater Natuna, such a newly established island nation. In the eyes of the Russians, Greater Natuna was at best a match for the monkeys, and how could they, as the superpower, possibly lower themselves to directly engage in battle? As a world superpower, didn't the Russians have any pride?

Having learned about the movements of the Russian fleet in Cam Ranh Bay, Sun Zhiwei felt relieved.

He left the bear's base directly and returned to the military airfield where the monkey had just been.

The fighter jets at this airport are all parked on the outdoor tarmac, which makes it impossible for him to directly collect the fighter jets as he would at the air force bases around Thang Long Prefecture.

They could also use corruption as an excuse, since those 120 MiG-21s were all stored in the hangar, and it was unknown how long it would take for the news of their disappearance to be discovered.

In such a public place, it would be unacceptable to simply make the fighter jets on the tarmac disappear; that would surely create the impression of an alien incident.

But he couldn't just leave these fighter jets unattended. Remembering that he still had quite a few timers left over from the last use, he used these timers and a small amount of TNT to make more than 100 small time bombs.

After setting a three-day countdown for all these time bombs, they were all hidden on the engine shafts of the fighter jets.

The engine is the most important and most expensive component of these fighter jets. Such a small bomb certainly cannot directly destroy the fighter jet engine, but it is enough to twist the shaft of these engines.

After the explosion, it will be impossible for the monkeys to repair and reuse the engine. The engine would need to be sent back to the factory for repairs, which would take too much time and cost. The bears probably wouldn't be willing to pay for it.

The final result was that the Monkey Kingdom's air force returned to the state it was in a few years ago, with only a small number of fighter jets left in the country, just like the result after the massive explosion at the Bianhe Air Force Base a few years ago.

Of course, nothing is absolute. To prevent the bear from acting erratically, he still took precautions.

He cut a slit inside the main drive shaft of each of these fighter jets to prevent them from being reused.

That's enough. The Monkey family's current strength is indeed incomparable to that of a few years ago.

Despite the support from the Russian bear over the years, it is quite evident that the people in the monkey's country are impoverished and corruption has become even more severe.

Neither the navy nor the air force has returned to their pre-war peak levels; in fact, they are practically being worn down by us.

This kind of blunt-knife-like tactic of cutting flesh is indeed very satisfying.

The next day, Sun Zhiwei, disguised as a small-time businessman, rented a cargo ship belonging to a passing shipowner, Bao Chuanwang, at the Jinlan Bay civilian wharf, and had them take 150 containers of goods to Yangcheng Port.

These containers, of course, contain the 120 MiG-21s and 30 containers of spare parts.

During the container loading process, Sun Zhiwei escorted the container throughout and promptly replaced the goods inside the container when customs officers at Cam Ranh Bay conducted random inspections.

His work was not finished until the cargo ship safely left the dock. Afterward, he boarded a flight to Singapore at Cam Ranh Bay Airport.

Just before boarding the plane, he took the time to send Xu Yimin a telegram to inform him to notify the Air Force to send someone to collect the goods at Yangcheng Port.

While he was transferring at Singapore Airport and boarding the Gulfstream 3 that Ivan had flown to pick him up, the hundreds of bombs he had timed for three days finally exploded.

(End of this chapter)