Doomsday America.

Chapter 226 The Difficult Maintenance Work

Chapter 226 The Arduous Maintenance Work (6k)

Gavin could never have imagined that as he shared his visions for the future on the radio, he would be...

His words would inspire all sorts of post-apocalyptic survival teams across the United States to build their own survival camps in a certain way.

After the broadcast ended, he simply slung his revolver over his shoulder and went to chat with his buddies.

The heavy rain started in the afternoon and continued intermittently, lasting for a while each time, until it finally stopped around nine o'clock in the evening.

The air after the rain was incredibly fresh, and it had almost completely cleaned up the stench of corpses and blood that had lingered around the manor.

On the terrace above the main gate of the manor, Gavin simply opened the window, set up a deck chair, sat there with a specially made drink, smoked, and gazed at the moon.

After a period of development, most of the lights around the manor are now turned on.

Although the battle a few days ago damaged several light sources, the area around the manor is generally well-lit.

In particular, the streetlights on both sides of the road extend from the direction of the garage to both sides of the manor, laying out two light strips all the way, adding two river-like strips of light to the extremely dark night.

The only slightly uncomfortable thing was that, in order to maintain the lighting on the road, the campsite connected several generators to continuously power the streetlights, making a slight buzzing sound of generators in the night.

Fortunately, the noise was some distance from the manor, so it wouldn't cause any problems.

While Gavin was resting in a rocking chair, Old Man Mike sat next to him, holding binoculars and a slingshot, chatting with Gavin.

In their conversations, the cowboys seemed to come alive, appearing one after another, their names and past memories recounted.

Let's also talk about the models they've worked with in the past, and some particularly interesting parties.

Of course, there are also some more extreme fans, and those are memories that every sports star can never forget.

The two chatted for a while until around 10 o'clock, when Gavin left the terrace and returned to his room.

When he returned, Nikita was sitting cross-legged on the bed, engrossed in a book.

Seeing Nikita looking so intently, Gavin casually asked a question.

"Did you take a shower, Nikki?"

"No, I'm waiting for you to be with me. I like being with you."

Nikita casually placed the book on the bedside table, got up, took off her wig, and shook her head to loosen her hair.

Gavin took off his clothes and went into the bathroom, whereupon he pulled the late-arriving Nikki into his arms and carried her into the bathtub.

Sensing Gavin's change, Nikki blushed slightly, gently rubbing Gavin's thighs as she leaned against him and asked.

"Honey, now that the camp has developed to this point, you can finally relax a little."

"Yes, we really don't need to care about everything anymore."

Gavin smiled and agreed.

By now, Thomas has managed logistics very well, and the work of the camp's logistics personnel has become visibly smoother.

Besides logistics, the explorers and vigilants, namely field and office staff, have also developed their own work habits as their working hours have increased.

At this point, Gavin only needs to make a request, and the internal and external staff can actually mobilize themselves.

Gavin didn't even need to allocate manpower.

In the office, Lao Feng and William have basically built their own teams.

In terms of field operations, Gavin also has a series of squad leaders who can serve as squad leaders, including Steve, Eugene, Martin, Sean, Edward, Hogan, Jonathan, and Otto.

The camp's population and size have also expanded from a medium-sized team of thirty people to a large team of more than eighty people.

Reflecting on what I've done these past few days.

Recalling the development of the camp in all aspects.

Gavin embraced Nikita's chest, gently kissed her cheek, and then finally let out a relieved breath.

Nikita turned and gently touched the scar on Gavin's eye, smiling as she spoke.

"So, darling, you probably don't need to talk to yourself in the mirror anymore, right?"

"Or—is there anything we can talk about? I may not be as smart as you, but I'll try my best to think for you, just as I love you as much as you love me, right?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Nikita tilted her head back and gently kissed Gavin's neck.

As she leaned towards Gavin, her chubby little feet, with her legs curled up, pressed her soft soles and toes onto Gavin's calves.

The night passed quietly as the two souls continued to intertwine. Early the next morning, Gavin and Nikita made the bed together and took the used sheets to the laundry room.

After breakfast, the crew members went about their tasks. The vigilant continued to repair the fence around the camp, while the explorers split into groups to retrieve bodies from the lake, build outposts around the camp, search for and replenish walkie-talkie repeaters, and conduct daily exploration.

As for Gavin, he didn't lead the field team out today, but instead stayed home, which is quite unusual for him.

Although he focused on managing field operations, as a leader, he couldn't be absent from the front lines of support staff for too long.

As the field teams set off one after another, Gavin saw them off and then went to check the situation near the mission board.

The logistics department has adapted to the task-based system quite well, ensuring that everyone has something to do, but the workload for each person is not excessive or to the point of exhausting them.

Gavin then left the task board and went up the stairs to the roof.

There were three groups of people working on the roof. One group was the sanitation team led by Horst. After finishing the morning's cleaning, they came to the roof to collect the scraps of meat.

The bloodstains left on the roof had long been washed away by the heavy rain, but bits of flesh and bones remained, requiring manual cleaning.

In addition, Eugene was with two other people, maintaining the machine guns in the machine gun post one by one.

As Gavin approached them, Eugene was loading blank rounds into the ammunition belt and then stuffing the belt into the machine gun.

Then, he took out a walkie-talkie and spoke.

"Guys, this is Eugene. I'm here with my men to maintain the heavy machine gun on the roof. It rained heavily yesterday, and I'm going to fire a series of blank rounds to dehumidify the inside of the machine gun barrel."

"If you hear gunshots, don't be surprised; it's just maintenance!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Eugene put the walkie-talkie back on his waist and just then saw Gavin come to their side.

Before Gavin could ask, Eugene pointed out the machine gun loaded with blanks to Gavin and then smiled at him.

"Boss, you're here! Perfect timing, help me maintain the machine gun, haha~"

"If there are maintenance problems with a heavy machine gun, it can easily cost the machine gunner his life. We can't afford such setbacks."

"no problem."

Gavin smiled and nodded as he listened to Eugene's words.

"It just so happens that I also want to learn how to maintain a heavy machine gun."

As they spoke, Gavin also joined in the maintenance of the heavy machine gun.

Eugene first fired a series of blank rounds to dehumidify the machine gun, which had been soaked by the heavy moisture after the downpour.

Eugene then carried out a series of maintenance tasks, cleaning gunpowder residue from the muzzle device, scrubbing the inner wall of the barrel, inspecting moving parts such as the locking mechanism, and then applying oil.

While busy with his work, Eugene patted the body of the heavy machine gun and said.

"In theory, a heavy machine gun should be disassembled and thoroughly maintained after firing more than 5,000 rounds. This includes ultrasonic cleaning of the bolt assembly, rifling wear testing of the barrel, and inspection of the tripod's hydraulic buffer device."

"But how should I put it, we don't have those conditions yet. We even lack SD-2 solvent for cleaning muzzle devices. We only found a little bit when we were searching for gun shops in Richard Town."

"Besides that, well, theoretically, a heavy machine gun needs to have its barrel replaced after firing 10,000 rounds because its accuracy will decrease."

"And then there's the recoil spring. Replacing this is even more important than the barrel. A typical recoil spring can only support about 20,000 rounds of ammunition. If it's not replaced, there's a very high risk of jamming."

"So, we need to keep visiting military bases to make sure we have enough spare parts for replacements, boss."

"Okay, I understand. I will assign the military base to the field target and set aside time to concentrate the team for exploration and data collection."

Gavin agreed, and then together with Eugene and the others, slowly and carefully maintained each heavy machine gun.

After the heavy machine gun has been fully maintained, their work is not yet finished, because they need to reload it!

Loading bullets into the ammunition belt one by one is a time-consuming task, even more so than eating sunflower seeds.

Gavin had been busy until 10 a.m. and still hadn't finished, so he simply put Eugene's group aside and went to take a look in the direction of the helicopter.

Sean was currently using various equipment to inspect each of the three helicopters.

Paul and Nicholas, like Eugene, cleaned and maintained the machine guns and cannons on the plane one by one.

And the equipment Sean used—

Gavin leaned closer to Sean, peered inside, and asked curiously.

"Sean, did you bring all of these back from Shepard Military Base?"

"Boss?"

Sean was taken aback at first, then grinned and shook his head.

"How could that be, boss? We won't have time to take these things when we go back to Shepard Base."

"These facilities are all in your airport. Don't you even know how comprehensive your airport's facilities are?"

"I went to your airport twice and found a lot of good stuff, especially a large number of spare parts for civilian helicopters."

While busy with his work, Sean took a moment to talk to Gavin about the helicopter's maintenance.

The maintenance and upkeep of helicopters is much more complicated than that of heavy machine guns.

The first step is to inspect the rotor system. Magnetic particle testing and ultrasonic scanning are used to check the blades to ensure there are no cracks larger than three centimeters. This process takes at least forty-five minutes.

The next step is to inspect the transmission system and clean the metal debris from the gearbox, ensuring that the amount of metal debris is less than one milligram per hour, which takes about half an hour.

The next step is to ablate the turbine blades of the engine. Local whitening is allowed, but no deformation is permitted. This step takes at least an hour.

Next, the hydraulic system is permeated through its pipes, which takes relatively little time, about twenty minutes.

This is just a routine check. Because these aircraft were just brought back from Shepard Air Force Base, Sean needs to conduct a comprehensive inspection of each aircraft step by step to roughly determine the flight time and wear and tear of each component.

The procedures include changing engine oil, disassembling and inspecting the transmission gearbox, testing the dynamic balance of the main rotor, cleaning fuel injectors, performing hydraulic servo calibration, and conducting fuselage load fatigue testing, among others.

After going through all these steps, it's already past 10 a.m., and Sean hasn't even finished the basic checks on a Black Hawk.

In short, if he were to rely solely on himself, he could only thoroughly inspect one aircraft in a day at most, but he couldn't refrain from doing so, nor could he save time on this aspect.

Several hard-core rules have been passed down from the U.S. Air Force Logistics Group, and right now, Sean is reciting these rules.

As he inspected the engine turbine blades for erosion, he exchanged pleasantries with Gavin.

"Boss, helicopters are different from biplanes. The flight principle of helicopters means that when a helicopter crashes, the fuselage and rotor will rotate in a double rotation, making it very difficult for the pilot and passengers to parachute safely."

"Therefore, the maintenance and upkeep of helicopters has always been more important than piloting them."

"This is also something I have to teach the other guys in the camp to fly helicopters before I teach them. It's lucky you met me, an ace pilot, otherwise ordinary pilots might not be able to master the whole set of maintenance methods."

"In short, boss, maintaining Black Hawk is a race against death."

"For every minute saved in pre-screening, the risk of a crash increases by seven percent."

"And for every dollar saved on consumables, maintenance costs will increase a hundredfold."

"When the mechanic applies the last drop of lubricant to the gearbox in the desert, he's injecting life into the aircraft, he's maintaining the life of the entire machine, boss!"

At this point, Sean had finally finished inspecting the blade ablation, and it was already 10:30 PM.

Gavin swallowed hard, looking at the exaggerated maintenance schedule.

This is why modern warfare is so powerful, because every system in modern warfare is a manifestation of super-strong logistical mobilization capabilities.

In the past, people believed that supplies should be prepared before troops can move.

But now, every military operation represents countless hours of hard work by a massive military logistics team!

If anyone tries to ignore the lengthy and painstaking maintenance rules and attempt to use these fierce war machines in a brutal manner...

The first destruction brought about by these war machines will not be offered to their enemies, but will instead fall upon their own heads!

Gavin pursed his lips as he watched Sean diligently maintaining the Black Hawk helicopter, then patted Sean on the shoulder.

"You've worked hard, buddy. These are tasks that only you can currently manage at the camp."

"Yeah, but it's okay. I've already started a teaching class on the task board. I'll be teaching from the rooftop every night at 8 PM, and more than six people signed up last night."

Sean chuckled and shook his head at Gavin, then continued.

"Boss, you've laid a great foundation for our camp. There are no classes or groups interfering with each other in our camp before the apocalypse. There's only the collective desire to work together to survive the apocalypse and make our lives better and better."

"This is the kind of environment we soldiers dream of."

"You're a great leader, boss, really!"

"Haha~"

Hearing Sean's words, Gavin smiled and shook his head, then patted Sean's arm.

"Stop praising me, Sean. We're all just doing our jobs, that's all."

"But you've done more than us, boss. I'm so lucky to have met our team in this apocalypse; everything here fills me with hope!"

Sean responded excitedly and then continued with his skincare routine.

He would be busy until at least two or three in the afternoon to inspect a helicopter, after which he would fly it to Livingston Lake near Houston to collect and record meteorological data.

Of course, the reason his inspection took so long this time was largely because he had just received this batch of Black Hawk helicopters.

After he spends more time thoroughly inspecting the helicopter this time, he will only need two to three hours of basic maintenance for each flight to accurately grasp the basic condition of the helicopter.

Seeing that Sean and the other two were engrossed in their work, Gavin left the roof around eleven o'clock.

I took a look around the kitchen and found that Doris's kitchen team already had four people, and they were still a bit overwhelmed.

After all, everyone in the camp has an enormous appetite!

This is also the norm in the apocalypse, because when a normal person needs to do heavy physical labor every day, his body has an extremely high demand for food.

In the world before the apocalypse, people often advocated lifestyles such as healthy eating.

But that lifestyle was mainly designed for white-collar workers and the upper class who did heavy mental work and light physical work in the office.

Consuming too much food when not requiring much physical labor is an unhealthy choice.

But who would dare to go to a construction site and ask the laborers who work all day to fast intermittently?

If they eat less, or consume less fat, meat, and sugar, they could really fall into a coma on the spot.

Therefore, Gavin would not reduce the nutritional intake of his men, given the extremely heavy workload at the camp.

After checking the kitchen, Gavin continued to wander around the manor and eventually arrived at Hela's class.

At this moment, Hela was facing five students, and they were all of different ages.

The two little devils, one black and one white, were her most normal students, while Xiao Feng and Xiao Feng's mother were respectively engaged in early childhood education and learning English.

The only Asians in the camp who spoke English were Lao Feng and Wang Ling, but Lao Feng was repairing the fence, while Wang Ling went with Martin's group to Athens to search for walkie-talkie repeaters.

Cao Xinyan could only learn English from the dedicated teacher, Hela.

Besides, Winnie was biting her pen, staring at the test paper in front of her with eyes full of despair.

That was the homework Ms. Hela assigned her.

After glancing around, Gavin returned to the hall, put on his coat, grabbed his gun, and headed towards the manor gate.

Seeing Gavin about to leave, Madison waved to him from a distance.

"Live a brilliant life, die a swift death, boss~"

"Yes, all for the sake of civilization."

Gavin raised his hand to greet them, then walked out of the manor and looked at the courtyard, which was still quite damp.

The midday sun is rapidly dispelling the moisture from the ground; presumably, the air humidity will gradually return to normal by the afternoon.

Near the distant cattle pen, the number of cattle and horses has increased due to the increase in the number of people in the camp and the increase in the demand for food.

Sariel alone was no longer able to handle the cattle and horses in the camp.

Fortunately, the 6666 Ranch team provided enough farm staff for the camp. Two middle-aged women from 6666 Ranch were taking care of the cattle pen and stable with Sariye.

Further away, a group of three or four cowboys, some old and some young, were catching chickens and collecting eggs on the grassland.

The old baron was among them, as were two young men from Ranch 6666.

They had already piled up two boxes of eggs and were still collecting them, while the Baron carried a string of hens on his shoulder and was walking back to the manor.

The vibrant scene brought a smile to Gavin's face, and as he laughed, the clanging of metalworking accompanied his laughter.

Gavin glanced at the sound of hammering. The number of blacksmiths had increased. There was a young man in Ranch 6666 who knew how to shoe horses. He and Manus were being yelled at by Old Bert, who was pulling their ears.

Among the old rednecks in Texas, there are few with good tempers, and old Bert's temper is particularly bad.

Of course, old Bert looked at Gavin like his own child, and he would never lose his temper with Gavin; he would only vent his anger on Manus and another apprentice.

These two poor young men were practically turned into potted plants by Old Bert's scathing remarks. Heaven knows where Old Bert got so many insults from; his language was even more exaggerated than that of the bastards in the army.

Gavin didn't want to experience the power of old Bert's hairdryer up close, so he shook his head, suppressed a laugh, walked to the stable, picked up a brush, found a handful of sugar cubes, and walked toward Octavian.

As Gavin approached, Octavian snorted and exhaled, then brought his lips to the raven on Gavin's shoulder.

Sensing the approaching large lips, the crow cawed twice, then shifted its position and flew away from the horse's mouth.

Octavian hummed indifferently twice and nestled his head against Gavin's chest a couple of times.

Gavin calmed Octavian down, then brushed his coat, fed him sugar cubes, saddled him, and led the horse out of the stable.

As Gavin mounted his horse, a cowboy carrying eggs waved to him.

"Boss."

"Boss!"

"Um."

Gavin nodded, got up and left the courtyard area of ​​the manor, and came to the vicinity of the dozen or so zombies that he had once imprisoned in the original stable area.

After examining all the dozen or so zombies, Gavin shook his head regretfully.

Unfortunately, none of the dozen or so zombies have shown any howling yet.

It seems that the appearance of the Howlers does require a certain number of zombies. Only when the number of zombies reaches a certain level, or when they are scattered over a certain area, will the Howlers emerge.

After confirming the progress of the experiment, Gavin left the horse farm and headed towards the cultivated area that Thomas had led the way for.

It wasn't until he stood beside the newly reclaimed land that the busy Thomas noticed Gavin. So Thomas kept his head down and worked while calling out to him from afar.

"Master, you've arrived."

"Boss!"

"Wuhu, boss!"

"Boss Gavin!"

Cheers erupted from the crowd nearby. Gavin dismounted, rummaged through his pack and pulled out several bottles of Coke, tossing one to each person.

The workers are currently setting up a drip irrigation system for the farmland. This system can effectively improve the irrigation efficiency of the farmland, but it takes a lot of work.

Fortunately, Gavin Farm has always had plans to expand its farmland, so the farm has a lot of materials that can be used for this purpose.

Once the drip irrigation system is completed, the soil, whose pH level had already been balanced by Thomas, can be officially planted.

Of course, because of yesterday's heavy rain, the newly reclaimed land needs to be tamped at least once more, and there are three tractors in the distance doing this work.

Gavin didn't know much about farming, but that didn't stop his eyes from filled with anticipation as he looked at the cultivated land.