Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 177 Launching the Warship
Seeing that escape was impossible and their defenses were impenetrable, the soldiers on these warships all surrendered obediently.

The whole process went very smoothly. Apart from the three guys who jumped into the water being killed, all the remaining crew members were captured.

After confiscating the weapons of these naval soldiers, Wang Gensheng gave the following order:
"Who is the captain of this warship? Get it moving and out of this area right now!"

However, after a long while no one stepped forward to admit it, Wang Gensheng became furious and immediately said:

"So none of you are going to step forward! You think I'm easy to talk to and won't dare to use a gun to kill anyone, right?!"

As Wang Gensheng spoke, he raised the muzzle of his gun. Seeing this, only then did someone weakly speak up:

"Reporting to the commander, our captain was killed by you just as he jumped overboard! So there is no captain on this ship!"

Hearing this, Wang Gensheng felt a little embarrassed, but in this situation, he couldn't care less about being embarrassed, so he continued:
"Where's the first mate? First mate, step forward and get the warship moving!"

Wang Gensheng called for the first mate, but no one responded. After a long while, the person who had spoken earlier finally said:
"Reporting, Chief, the First Mate was also shot and killed by you while jumping into the sea!"

Wang Gensheng was speechless at this, but then he thought it made sense. After all, the captain and first mate were the ship's management, like a battalion commander and deputy battalion commander, so jumping overboard to escape was perfectly normal. However, the absence of the captain and first mate wouldn't affect the ship's operation, so Wang Gensheng asked again:
"What about the second mate? I didn't kill him too, did I?"

"Yes, Chief Officer, the three people you killed were the First Mate and the Second Mate!"

Upon hearing this, Wang Gensheng was even more speechless, and then looked at the person who answered and asked:

"And what about you! What rank are you on this ship? Can you even steer this warship away? If you tell me this warship can't move without three people, then none of you will live!"

As soon as Wang Gensheng said this, the person who had answered immediately replied:
"Commander, I'm the chief engineer of this warship. Don't worry, with me here, this warship can still operate even if we're short three or thirty people. Just tell me where to go, and we'll go!"

When Wang Gensheng heard this guy say that he was the chief engineer, he immediately felt relieved. With a chief engineer there, it didn't matter if there was no captain or first mate. On the contrary, it was the absence of the chief engineer that made him worry about whether the warship could be launched.

With a roar, the engines of this thousand-ton warship were started. Fortunately, this warship only weighs about a thousand tons, so it can be considered a small warship.

Therefore, it uses a diesel engine, not the steam turbine used on large warships. If it were a steam turbine, it would take a very long time to start, not to mention anything else.

That's right. Warships don't all use the same engines. Different weights and different types of warships use different engines.

Different types of engines have different performance characteristics, which also affects the engine start-up time. Generally, warships will choose one of the three types of engines—gas turbine, diesel engine, and steam turbine—as their main power plant.

First is the gas turbine. Among the various power engines available, the marine gas turbine has the fastest and shortest preparation time. If calculated by power output, the gas turbine can reach its peak power in just one or two minutes, but the fuel preheating time is thirty minutes.

Gas turbines rely on the pressure of intake air to send it into a high-pressure combustion chamber, where pumped fuel ignites and burns to generate high-temperature, high-pressure gas, driving the impeller to rotate. Once successfully started, the gas turbine enters a stable thermodynamic cycle. Besides gas turbines, there are diesel engines. The biggest advantage of diesel engines is their shorter start-up time and ability to quickly meet operational requirements. Compared to gas turbines, diesel engines require significantly less fuel preheating time.

Because the heavy diesel oil used by warships is easier to burn than heavy fuel oil, hot air is generally used as the driving source for starting, which shortens the preparation time for starting the diesel engine.

Under normal circumstances, it takes about ten minutes to prepare for a smooth start and departure.

However, while diesel engines start quickly and are small in size, they have a major drawback: their power output cannot be very high. Therefore, large warships choose gas turbines or steam engines because these two types of engines can produce much higher power outputs.

The last type of engine used on warships was the steam turbine. When the steam turbine was working, it produced a large amount of high-temperature steam, which was transported to the boiler through pipes. This high-temperature steam heated the water after entering the boiler.

Steam turbines use steam as their driving force, so boiling water in a boiler is necessary, but obviously not the first step. The correct process is to preheat fuel oil first, and then the boiler tries its best to burn what it can to ensure energy. However, ships generally use diesel oil, which will also become sludge oil, converting the water in the boiler into steam with a certain pressure and temperature.

The steam consumption is minimal throughout the process. This steam is then sent to a turbine, where it expands and performs work, driving the turbine to rotate. The steam is then cooled into water by a condenser and returned to the boiler for the next cycle.

Compared to gas turbines, steam turbines have the highest thermal efficiency, so they can save a lot of fuel for the same driving distance.

However, steam turbines also have drawbacks, namely that they boil water very slowly. After all, heating water and turning it into high-pressure steam to drive the steam turbine takes a considerable amount of time.

It generally takes at least an hour from heating the boiler to normal operation.

Therefore, many large warships choose to use gas turbines as their power source.

However, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers or ships would choose steam turbines, since the only option for converting nuclear energy into other forms of energy is boiling water.

Despite the absence of the captain, first officer, and second officer, the warship still sailed very steadily.

The vehicle was driven to the designated stopping point prepared by Wang Gensheng, as requested by Wang Gensheng.

Only now, watching the ship begin to move, did Wang Gensheng have time to examine the warship closely.

The warship was not very long, only about eighty meters long, and its width was no more than eleven or twelve meters.

Its size is naturally incomparable to those battleships that are two or three hundred meters long, thirty or forty meters wide, and weigh sixty or seventy thousand tons.

Not only are they incomparable in size and weight, but they are also incomparable in terms of weaponry. For example, the warship captured by Wang Gensheng has a large-caliber gun of only 102 millimeters, which is completely incomparable to the main guns of battleships that are often 300 or 400 millimeters in diameter.

(End of this chapter)