News samples
Be the "screw" of a strong military cause
Jiefangjun Daily reporter Xiang Liming and special reporter Yu Rundong
The moonlight was cold, and the night was getting darker. The repair workshop of a brigade of the 73rd Army was still brightly lit, and several armored vehicles were quietly parked. Under the light, Ren Yong, a technician of the "Model Repair Company" and a sergeant major of the first class, was holding a wrench and tightening the chassis parts of the whole car one by one.
The crisp sound of metal collision echoed in the empty workshop, taking a wrench, cutting screws, picking copper hammers, and measuring torque...... Different tools are like fingers and flexible in Ren Yong's hands.
"Before every major mission, we work overtime to maintain the vehicles involved in the mission. He used his left index and middle fingers to grip the nut and put it on skillfully, and at the same time, he used his right hand to clamp the wrench and tighten it quickly, and the whole set of movements was smooth and orderly.
"These tools have been with me for more than 20 years. For repairmen, they are the most intimate and familiar 'comrades-in-arms'. For the wrenches, calipers, screws and drawings scattered all over the floor, Ren Yong is like a treasure.
Sometimes, Ren Yong feels like a screw installed in an inconspicuous place. When the comrades-in-arms drove the equipment to gallop in the smoke of gunpowder, their group of repair soldiers were in their own combat positions, silently guarding the equipment on the battlefield - during the day, they frequently went back and forth between the depot and the repair workshop for maintenance, and registered the performance status and failure problems of each vehicle one by one; at night, they summarized all kinds of difficult "symptoms" and formulated a maintenance support plan, and "checked" or repaired the equipment one by one......
After coming to the repair company for a period of time, Private Li Guowen got used to such a life of silently "fighting" behind the scenes. The young repairman gradually understood that choking smoke and pungent oil smell are the background color of this post, and there is no shortcut to do a good repair, only by working hard and diligently, can he practice real kung fu.
"When passing by the hot training ground, will there be a gap in your heart?" Faced with a reporter's question, Li Guowen shook his head: "Repair troops are an indispensable force for timely recovery and maintenance of equipment performance and support for forward operations. It is our mission to maintain and protect every piece of equipment. One day, it will be my turn to carry the banner of the 'Model Repair Company'. ”
"Screws also have the value of screws, we just have to be the screws!" Whenever the horn of the battlefield is blown and the torrent of steel is blown, there is always a group of repairmen silently guarding the battle position to escort the equipment.
The moon rises in the middle of the sky, and the night gets darker and darker. Under the careful maintenance of the repair soldiers, another armored vehicle was eliminated and reborn. Ren Yong climbed out from under the chassis of the vehicle, stood up, and breathed a long sigh of relief. He habitually wiped away the sweat with the back of his hand, leaving a black stain on his face.
Looking at Ren Yong's figure, the reporter couldn't help but sigh: Equipment maintenance is always only "in progress", and it is precisely because of such a group of repair soldiers who stick behind the scenes that combat equipment can have the confidence to gallop on the battlefield.
Down-to-earth, diligent, and obscure...... These adjectives are perhaps the best interpretation of the repairman. They have no great achievements, only the unremitting struggle of merging rivers into seas and gathering sand into towers in ordinary posts. The tools in their hands clanged and collided, like a piece of music written to the repairman. They compose a song about their love for equipment maintenance, and every note is engraved with the extraordinary years of youth.
Nowadays, more and more "Ren Yong" are growing up on the journey of strengthening the army. They practice their mission in the ordinary, and achieve their careers in perseverance. The equipment repaired by this group of repairmen will carry their youth and continue to gallop on the battlefield.
The "tool awareness" of a vehicle mechanic
Reporter Xiang Liming
Special correspondents: Liao Xiaobin, Yu Rundong, correspondents: Feng Yang
Officers and men of the "Model Repair Company" of a brigade of the 73rd Group Army participated in the training and support mission. Ensure the battlefield mobility of armored vehicles.
One of the tools: a wrench
Behind the humble wrenches is the unremitting pursuit of excellence
In the "Model Repair Company" of a brigade of the 73rd Group Army, there are always rows of wrenches of different specifications and models neatly stacked in the carrying toolbox of the repair soldiers. Among them, the lightest is only a few dozen grams, and the heaviest reaches dozens of catties.
These wrenches look unremarkable, but they mean a lot to repairmen.
"Every time we assemble a part, we have to work closely with these wrenches. Sergeant Chen Qian told reporters while flipping through the equipment maintenance manual in his hand, "Errors are inevitable in repairing mechanized parts, so how to narrow the range of errors is the optimal solution we are looking for." ”
Chen Qian still remembers that four years ago, he took on the task of equipment maintenance independently for the first time.
After investigating according to the equipment fault repair order, Chen Qian quickly found the cause of the fault - a nut fell off on the steering knuckle. A torque wrench took turns, and he neatly completed the fastening of the parts. On the day the vehicle was successfully delivered, Chen Qian watched with satisfaction as the armored car drove away from the workshop.
However, within a few days, the armored vehicle was again sent back for repair. Driver feedback is that the steering accuracy of the wheels is not up to the operational requirements during the training to drive through restricted sections.
Faced with the second failure of the equipment, Chen Qian was at a loss. At this moment, Zhang Yongchong, a veteran technician of the company and a third-class sergeant major, discovered the problem: it may be caused by a large assembly error of parts.
"Controlling errors is a 'housekeeping skill' that every repairman must master. Zhang Yongchong told Chen Qian, "There are about 1,000 parts installed in an armored vehicle, and if we want the equipment to gallop freely on the battlefield, we must make all the parts fit closely within a reasonable margin of error." ”
For the first time, Chen Qian realized what a small error meant to the combat effectiveness of the equipment. At this moment, he really began to understand: behind the humble wrenches is the unremitting pursuit of excellence.
In that maintenance, Chen Qian used several types of wrenches to cooperate with each other to reduce the error value little by little. After more than 2 hours of adjustment, he finally controlled the error within a reasonable range and successfully eliminated the vehicle failure.
The slightest mistake is a thousand miles away - perhaps the most appropriate portrayal of equipment maintenance. In Sergeant Shi Kaihua's heart, "0.02 mm" is like a ruler, always reminding himself to maintain a serious and meticulous work attitude.
"That was the first time I was so sensitive to numbers. Recalling that maintenance experience, Shi Kaihua still remembers it vividly.
For repairmen, the finer the equipment parts, the more stringent the specified assembly error range. As the "heart" of the whole car, every small part of the engine is very important.
That time, with only three days left before the scheduled delivery date, Shi Kaihua disassembled and inspected various parts of the engine several times, but never found the cause of the failure. In desperation, he had to call the "master" Teng Zhenhua to help him.
Coming to the repair workshop, Teng Zhenhua first inspected the engine. After confirming that the parts were functioning properly, he pulled out several thumb-sized wrenches from his pocket. "The true meaning of the craftsman spirit lies in the excellence of the details. For equipment, we have to work on the subtleties. After that, Teng Zhenhua took Shi Kaihua to check the more than 100 screws of the engine one by one.
It was the height of summer, and the temperature in the repair workshop was already approaching 40°C. The heat wave outside the window kept coming, and the foreheads of the master and apprentice were soon covered with beads of sweat, and the camouflage uniforms on their bodies were soaked with sweat.
Time passed minute by minute, and Shi Kaihua's mood became impetuous. He began to have doubts about Teng Zhenhua's approach: If there are hundreds of screws, must they be checked one by one? Will the slight error of millimeters really affect the use of equipment?
"You carefully measure the error of this valve gap!" A sudden shout interrupted Shi Kaihua's complaint. He snapped back to his senses and quickly picked up the tool in his hand and measured it carefully.
"The specified margin of error is 0.05 millimeters, and yours has a full 0.07 millimeters. On the battlefield, the extra 0.02 mm will be a painful price!" Teng Zhenhua severely criticized the apprentice. With that, he leaned directly on the oil-stained engine and used a key-sized wrench to carefully tighten a small screw next to the valve. After repeated measurements, the valve clearance was finally qualified.
The moment the engine resumed roaring, Shi Kaihua breathed a deep sigh of relief. For him, "0.02 mm" is no longer a simple and inconspicuous figure.
Today, Chen Qian and Shi Kaihua have long grown into the backbone of the company's repair. A wrench in the toolbox witnesses the growth and transformation of young officers and soldiers.
Officers and men of the "Model Repair Company" of a brigade of the 73rd Group Army participated in the training and support mission. Fastening equipment parts.
Tool 2: Pen
The strokes outlined by the tip of the pen sort out a clear and meticulous repair idea
First Sergeant Major Liu Qiang always has a pen in his left jacket pocket.
Liu Qiang has adhered to this habit for 30 years. He often said: The pen is another gun for the repairman.
This is surprising.
Liu Qiang explained that when he first came into contact with the artillery repair profession, he was often "confused" about the parts and components diagrams and intricate circuit diagrams in the equipment maintenance manual. In order to repair the equipment, it is necessary to find out every "road" on the drawings, see it accurately, and go through. Therefore, during the training in the college, Liu Qiang came into contact with a large number of equipment drawings. For each drawing, he would carefully sketch and study it with a pen.
The parts are passed one by one, and the circuits are taken one by one; if you encounter something you don't understand, mark it out and take it to ask the teachers of the college...... In this way, Liu Qiang accumulated a solid theoretical foundation.
In 2017, the brigade began to be equipped with new equipment. This veteran has also ushered in new pressures and challenges.
In the face of unfamiliar equipment, Liu Qiang once again clenched the pen and embarked on the "road to study", leading the company's maintenance team to deliberate and scrutinize the drawings of the new equipment.
Artillery maintenance involves mechanical, physical, electrical and other fields, and Liu Qiang and his comrades-in-arms have to summarize in addition to studying and studying. In two months, Liu Qiang used up more than 100 pencils and a thick pile of A4 paper to draw notes on each part of the equipment one by one. Then, he hand-drew more than 100 drawings of chassis parts, and compiled more than 20 lesson plans such as "Artillery Maintenance Experience" and "Common Troubleshooting Methods", with a total of more than 100,000 words. Soon, Liu Qiang became an "expert" in the brigade's artillery maintenance support and professional training.
For repairmen, a small pen can also exert great energy. The strokes outlined by the tip of the pen sort out a clear and meticulous repair idea. Guarding this battle position, the repairmen have always "worked hard".
Every time there is a change of seasons for maintenance, Sergeant Major Long Nengjun of the second class has to go to the armored garages of various units to "inspect" and overhaul the aging circuits.
In the eyes of his comrades-in-arms, Long Nengjun is like a "painter". Every time he participates in a repair support mission, in addition to the indispensable maintenance tools, he also carries a pencil case with several markers of different colors.
For an armored car, the fire control system alone has dozens of circuits, and the whole vehicle together has hundreds of lines, and the wires are similar in appearance and difficult to distinguish. On that day, Long Nengjun went to an armored car yard of the brigade to conduct circuit maintenance. Just when the officers and soldiers on the side were curious about how he was going to operate, Long Nengjun calmly got into the armored car, methodically checked the circuits in the car one by one, and began to mark them with the marker pen he carried with him.
"Line 1, Line 2, Line 3 ......" every circuit, every part, every fault, Long Nengjun will paste a piece of white insulating tape on it, and at the same time classify and mark the circuit number, at a glance the past is clear and clear.
"Wouldn't this be a lot more complicated and more troublesome?" The officers and men who were watching were a little worried that such a delicate method would waste time on tedious steps.
But they didn't expect that after a while, Long Nengjun came out of the car with a maintenance report and subverted the cognition of the officers and soldiers present with practical actions. "The premise of pursuing speed is to ensure efficiency, and if there is no refined classification, it is easy to fall into confusion in the investigation. Long Nengjun said, "A person, a pen, if used well, will produce the effect of '1+1>2'." ”
The pen in his hand symbolizes the spiritual quality of the repair soldiers who are not slacking off and are good at studying, and they are also constantly writing the answer sheet of the mission of equipment maintenance and support.
Officers and men of the "Model Repair Company" of a brigade of the 73rd Group Army participated in the training and support mission. Overhaul optoelectronic equipment.
Tool 3: Multimeter
Behind the fact that the multimeter is no longer "universal", it is the times that push us forward
When night falls, everything is silent. In the empty Gobi Desert, an actual combat training is unfolding.
From time to time, the evening breeze whipped up tiny pieces of sand and slapped against the field repair tent. Inside the tent, the sound of the multimeter's current continued to sound, and Second Sergeant Li Xurong was in full swing repairing a chariot.
"A multimeter, just find the fault. This sentence used to be the norm pursued by repairmen in electrical maintenance.
In the early years, the degree of informatization and digitization of equipment was low, and when electrical maintenance encountered failures, the source of the fault could often be determined by only a mechanical multimeter. However, with the acceleration of the upgrading of weapons and equipment, the technical content of equipment has also risen sharply. The era of "one trick is eaten all over the world" is long gone, and the mechanical multimeter is no longer "universal and all-purpose".
"The increasingly difficult problem of failures has forced us to 'expand' our professional skills reserve. For Li Xurong and his comrades-in-arms, whether the multimeter in their hands can be used well to create new efficiency is closely related to whether they can achieve victory on the battlefield in the future.
At the beginning of last year, the brigade was issued with a new type of equipment, the internal structure of which was very different from the previous equipment: from a single circuit to a networking circuit, from an independent unit to an integrated module. This also puts forward higher requirements for the maintenance support of the repair soldiers.
"We must rush to 'rescue' this car before the whole battalion is organized at noon tomorrow!" On that occasion, the new equipment suddenly broke down, and the battalion commander called and gave a "death order." Under tremendous pressure, Li Xurong took a multimeter and began to probe the location of the fault. No matter how he tested, the multimeter showed that the circuit was unblocked, and no fault nodes were found. Prior to this, the maintenance team had also eliminated the fault of the relevant parts, which made Li Xurong unable to start for a while.
Just when he was helpless, Li Xurong's mind suddenly flashed with inspiration: "Could it be that the circuit is falsely connected, causing the vehicle to fail to start?" He immediately picked up the multimeter and repeatedly tested the switch welding of each circuit. Eventually, the current of the multimeter showed a very weak current difference. After some exploration, Li Xurong confirmed that it was desoldering at the melting point of the neutral switch. After the re-welding was completed, the vehicle was successfully started.
"Only by deeply studying the profession, learning the skills, and mastering the laws and characteristics of equipment support under the new situation can we make more contributions to comprehensively improving the quality and efficiency of the army's equipment support. Walking out of the repair workshop, Li Xurong said with deep understanding.
"It's nothing to use it, but it can reflect the value if it's used well. For Sergeant Li Jianbo, it was an inconspicuous diode that made him truly realize the value of the multimeter and the meaning behind the position of repairman.
After investigation, Li Jianbo believed that the new equipment maintenance was a fault in the power supply system. However, after the battery was replaced, the equipment failure was not resolved. In desperation, he had no choice but to return the equipment to the manufacturer.
But the manufacturer's long maintenance cycle made Li Jianbo unable to wait and sleep.
During that time, Li Jianbo got up early in the morning and went to the repair workshop, holding a multimeter to check the ignition lock, battery, circuit interface and other parts again and again. But a few days passed, and he still found nothing.
One day after the lights went out, Li Jianbo lay on the bed tossing and turning, constantly pondering: "Since there is no problem with the circuit, could it be that a component on the circuit has failed to cause a short circuit in the power supply system, resulting in an error in the display of the multimeter?"
Early the next morning, according to his own conjecture, Li Jianbo switched to the segmented pass-through method to check dozens of electrical components on each circuit one by one. After more than 3 hours of testing, he finally succeeded in locking the fault in the isolation box between the batteries. This twist and turn turned out to be only due to the damage of a diode in the isolation box.
After replacing the new diode, the failure of the equipment was immediately solved. For Li Jianbo, this maintenance mission not only filled the gap in his professional knowledge, but also saved the troops maintenance time.
"Behind the fact that the multimeter is no longer 'universal', it is the times that push us forward. Only by constantly thinking and moving forward can we keep up with the speed of equipment updates. Li Jianbo said.
Every ordinary tool is engraved with the loyalty and love of the repairmen to the cause of equipment maintenance and support. Every bit of light and heat they emit is contributing their youthful energy to the great cause of strengthening the army and rejuvenating the army.
▲Published on April 10, the 5th edition of the People's Liberation Army Daily
Photography丨Lin Guancheng, Zhou Xintao
Source丨People's Liberation Army Daily, Learning Corps (ID: xuexijuntuan)
Producer丨Ou Can, Hou Dawei, Editor丨Liu Jianwei, Yan Shan, Qian Zongyang, Zhou Zhou, Zheng Pengrui