Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 197 Ancient Diving Suit and Water Gear

However, just as Wang Gensheng was pondering how to make a thermal diving suit, Du Yiman sighed beside him:
"If they had all worn wetsuits, they probably could have swum back!"

Wang Gensheng was taken aback when he heard Du Yiman's words and said:

"Water armor, what is that? Why do they say that wearing water armor will allow you to swim back?"

Upon hearing Wang Gensheng's question, Du Yiman immediately replied:
"Water jackets are a type of clothing that can keep you warm while in the water. I grew up by the sea, and the seawater was especially cold in winter. But fishermen still needed to go out to sea to fish in winter. However, ordinary cotton clothes were not suitable for fishing. Once the seawater got wet, they would be even colder. So the fishermen came up with the idea of ​​using the skin of fish in the sea to keep warm. They would peel off the skin of ordinary fish or sharks and seals and sew it into leather jackets to keep warm!"

Hearing this, Wang Gensheng was also taken aback. In the past, when Wang Gensheng thought of diving suits, he naturally thought of rubber and other materials to make them. However, he did not expect that there were already animal skin versions of diving suits in ancient times.

Wang Gensheng immediately nodded and said:
"Alright! After this battle, I'll go get that water armor you mentioned!"

However, Du Yiman shook her head and said:

"Actually, we should be able to get them now. We can ask the fishermen nearby; they should have some. Then we can just buy them directly."

Upon hearing this, Wang Gensheng naturally thought it was a good idea, and immediately sent Baili Xiu with a group of people to find nearby fishermen to buy this water.

Although Wang Gensheng's cruise torpedoes successfully destroyed five of Lao Zi's warships, depriving Lao Zi of naval artillery support, Lao Zi did not give up.

Instead, he ordered Liao's army to rush to Jinzhou at all costs. There was no other way; if they didn't help Dongbei, the 400,000 to 500,000 troops would all be wiped out.

If they get help, the baby can still struggle, and if they struggle, they might be saved.

Without the artillery support of naval warships, the Fourth Field Army's Fourth Column naturally had nothing to worry about in defending Tashan.

Baili Xiu was very efficient; he returned on horseback in no time. Upon seeing Baili Xiu, Wang Gensheng immediately asked:
How can I buy water?

Baili Xiu nodded and said:
"Si Ling, we've already bought over two hundred sets, and they're all made of sharkskin. I heard from the fishermen that sharkskin is the best for keeping warm, and it's also very elastic, which helps to lock in water and prevents it from getting into the body!"

As he spoke, Baili Xiu took out a suit of sharkskin.

Wang Gensheng reached out and took the water jacket, which was made no different from ordinary tops and bottoms, just like thermal underwear.

Wang Gensheng tugged at it and found that the shark-skin suit was quite elastic, somewhat like a latex suit. He washed it briefly in the seawater and then changed into the diving suit made of real shark skin.

After entering the sea, I found that the sharkskin diving suit was indeed very good. After putting it on, I could no longer feel the biting cold of the seawater.

And surprisingly, he found swimming much easier, even faster than when he wasn't wearing the shark fin swimsuit.

This inevitably reminded Wang Gensheng of the sharkskin swimsuits that are banned in swimming competitions.

Of course, decades later, sharks are globally protected animals, so they can no longer be shot and used to make swimming suits. Therefore, these sharkskin swimsuits are actually swimsuits made to mimic shark skin; their material is super-stretch fiber, not real sharkskin. The earliest sharkskin swimsuits were produced by a company in one country. Then, in October 1999, the International Swimming Federation (IFSM) began to allow the use of sharkskin swimsuits, and they were officially banned in May 2010. During this period, many athletes wore them to set world records.

The reason why sharkskin swimsuits were banned is because they provided too many advantages to swimmers.

It is important to know that a person's swimming speed in water is affected by three factors: wave resistance, shape assist, and frictional resistance.

Therefore, wave resistance and shape resistance are unavoidable for any swimmer, but can be relatively reduced through the posture of the movement.

Frictional resistance is the friction generated between water and the body, which cannot be avoided through training techniques.

So, through observation, these brilliant minds discovered that human skin is actually not suitable for swimming. Based on the principles of bionics, they found that sharks swim very fast. Besides being very smooth, shark skin is covered with many tiny scales. These scales form a special structure that effectively reduces water resistance, greatly contributing to the shark's swimming speed. Thus, these brilliant minds, imitating shark skin, invented sharkskin swimsuits.

Shark skin swimsuits are made of extremely lightweight material with minimal resistance. They are also waterproof and quick-drying. The surface texture completely mimics the structure of shark skin. This special material and texture greatly reduces the resistance athletes experience in the water, making them a significant advantage in swimming competitions.

Of course, it still has a gap compared to real sharkskin swimsuits. For example, its warmth retention is not as good as that of real sharkskin swimsuits. After all, sharkskin swimsuits are designed to reduce the friction of athletes in the water, so they don't need any warmth retention.

The reason why sharkskin swimsuits were banned is because Michael Phelps won eight gold medals and broke seven world records at the 2008 Olympics.

Michael Phelps' success is undoubtedly due to his hard work and superb swimming skills. However, there was another contributing factor to his success back then: the fourth-generation sharkskin swimsuit from Olympus.

However, his good fortune didn't last long. A year later, Phelps lost to German youngster Paul, largely because Paul wore a more high-tech swimsuit.

So people began to reflect on the purpose of swimming competitions! Is it to see who has the most advanced technology, or whose swimsuit is the most high-tech?
So while sharkskin swimsuits are great, they go against the original intention of competitive sports. Therefore, in 2010, the International Swimming Federation decided to ban the use of sharkskin swimsuits.

However, this is not a sports meet, this is war, so in order to ensure the survival rate of their frogman warriors, let alone wearing real sharkskin swimming suits.

Even if he killed all the sharks in this sea area, Wang Gensheng wouldn't even flinch.

After all, Zhang San once said that when people are extremely hungry, they will even eat pandas. So what's a few sharks compared to winning the war and reducing the number of his precious soldiers who die?

Time flew by, and before long it was dark. During this time, a cargo ship came by and tried to tow away the powerless Congqing.

Wang Gensheng naturally disagreed with this and immediately ordered his men to use cruise torpedoes to sink the thousand-ton cargo ship.

This time, the frogman piloting the cruise torpedo calmly swam back successfully.

The reason for this is naturally because I was wearing the sharkskin swimsuit I had just bought.

(End of this chapter)