I built an armada.

The Eagle Tribe suffered a double loss this time.

This time, not only did they gain nothing, they also lost their first island chain.

But that's not a problem.

As Longxia grew stronger, the collapse of the First Island Chain was inevitable; it's just that the Eagle Tribe didn't expect the collapse to happen so quickly.

It's already surprising that some military bases can still be preserved.

Even so, the Eagle Tribe still managed to find a way to win.

For example, reducing the military would save a lot of money, which could be used to provide welfare to the people.

Of course, while they say that, there's absolutely no way they'll actually cut military personnel.

Forget about cutting military spending; in the end, they'll probably just pretend to reduce the military budget and then make up for it elsewhere.

Military spending may even be higher than before!

In addition, the chief claimed to have protected the interests of his allies and prevented a war.

"I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize!"

So said the Great Chief.

However, in any case, awarding the Peace Prize to such a somewhat abstract chieftain is still a bit hard to justify.

The chief's wish was destined to be in vain.

……

At the same time, Su Dingping threw himself into a new round of research and development.

A secret military base along the coast.

The old leader looked at Su Dingping in front of him and a bitter smile appeared on his lips.

He looked at the report in his hand and couldn't help but shake his head.

"You've only been on vacation for a few days, how come you've already produced another report?"

How long did it take you to produce this report?

Su Dingping's gaze drifted slightly: "Actually, it wasn't that long, only two or three weeks, right?"

"Two or three weeks?"

The old leader raised his voice.

"You haven't even had three weeks of vacation in total, so you haven't rested at all!"

“That’s not the case, actually.”

Su Dingping chuckled.

"At least when I'm on vacation, I don't work more than eight hours a day."

"Say it again?" The old commander looked at Su Dingping with suspicion.

"Okay, eight hours... Alright, alright, please don't look at me like that, I promise, it definitely didn't exceed ten hours!"

"And I definitely have enough time to rest!"

The old commander sighed: "Alright, I'll stop looking at the report for now. You need to go and rest!"

Seeing Su Dingping's displeased expression, the old leader felt quite helpless.

"Alright, alright, give me a verbal report, but after you're done, you need to go back and rest, at least a month's vacation!"

"A month is really too long, this whole month..."

"Then half a month, no way? One week, no less!"

"Can your body handle doing this all the time?"

Su Dingping wanted to retort, but seeing the old leader's gaze, he could only nod helplessly.

"Tell me, what new ideas do you have this time?"

Since the old leader was chatting with him in a casual manner, Su Dingping simply sat down.

"Actually, my thoughts are not very complicated."

“Previously, our technology was relatively backward, and we could say that we were learning by analogy. But with the development of technology, we need to forge our own path.”

The old leader tapped his fingers lightly on the table.

“I know about this. I remember that many of the designs were completed independently by our own people, and we also referenced our own military industrial system. Haven’t we already developed our own path long ago?”

"Different."

Su Dingping shook his head slightly.

“Even if we have our own designs, in the end, we still have existing technical ideas that we can refer to.”

"But now, our technology is on par with, or even surpasses, that of the Eagle Tribe. We won't have the Eagle Tribe as a reference point for us to learn from in the future."

"We are the pioneers of technology now. We need to think about the future direction of technology."

"So, based on our existing technology, I have some different ideas."

Upon hearing Su Dingping's words, the old commander, though determined not to read the report for now, couldn't help but put on his reading glasses and open it.

Often, what brings down an industry is a devastating blow from another industry.

Just as the instant noodle market was drastically reduced in size by food delivery services, the mindset of naval warfare has also experienced a similar dimensional reduction.

In the early days, warships were simply a competition of who was bigger and who had more firepower.

This led to the emergence of behemoths such as battlecruisers and heavy warships.

Everyone originally thought that warships would continue to rush down the path of bigger being better and more being more beautiful.

However, with the development of aircraft technology, some people have discovered that compared with airplanes, warships, these bulky and heavy behemoths, have no advantages at all.

Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of ​​putting airplanes on warships!

Aircraft carriers have emerged!

No matter how large a warship is or how powerful its cannons are, how wide is its strike range? And how many anti-aircraft weapons does it have?
However, the combat radius of an aircraft carrier equipped with aircraft easily exceeds 500 kilometers.

With the improvement of aircraft performance and the advancement of technology, the combat radius of aircraft carriers can easily reach thousands of kilometers!

If others can easily destroy your warships from thousands of kilometers away, what will you use to fight them?
Unfortunately, very few countries in the world can operate aircraft carriers effectively.

Even now, Longxia's aircraft carrier production capacity is very limited.

Moreover, the daily maintenance and other expenses of an aircraft carrier are enormous.

Given Longxia's current military spending, it is destined that it will be unable to add many more aircraft carriers in the short term.

However, at present, Longxia's aircraft carrier technology is advanced enough, so having a smaller number of carriers is not a major problem.

However, with the emergence of Longxia's hypersonic missile, another problem arises.

Hypersonic missiles are undoubtedly the best anti-carrier weapons. Not only do they easily reach ranges of thousands of kilometers, but their unique trajectory and extremely high speed make countering hypersonic missiles a major headache for aircraft carriers. Just like the air defense weapons of the Eagle Tribe, theoretically, destroying a hypersonic missile shouldn't be a problem.

But what if the attack comes from a swarm of hypersonic missiles?
Given the reaction speed of that type of air defense weapon, let alone a cluster of hypersonic missiles, even a few more would likely cause heavy damage.

Currently, Longxia does not need to worry about defending against hypersonic missiles, but who knows if the Eagle Tribe will equip its warships and even aircraft carriers with hypersonic missiles in the future.

As the saying goes, "one should be prepared for danger even in times of peace," Su Dingping had no choice but to begin considering the issue of guarding against hypersonic missiles in advance.

Railguns are a good solution, with advantages such as fast response speed. As long as research and development are carried out in this direction, air defense weapons with high reliability can be developed quickly.

But a single railgun is not enough; we also need more reliable, faster-responding, and more convenient weapons.

Thus, directed energy weapons came into Su Dingping's view.

Directed energy weapons, also known as "beam weapons," essentially utilize a certain method to generate extremely high energy density on the surface of an object, thereby producing tremendous destructive power.

To put it simply, it's an energy weapon commonly found in science fiction works.

Depending on the carrier through which it is launched, these energy weapons can be categorized into several types, such as laser weapons, microwave weapons, and particle beam weapons.

In fact, this type of weapon is not far removed from real life.

At least Su Dingping knew that in later military parades, directed energy weapons that could be officially used in war had already appeared.

However, the directed energy weapons that appeared in later generations were somewhat different from those that Su Dingping wanted to develop.

Later directed-energy weapons, more precisely, were laser weapons.

Those weapons were primarily developed to counter the increasing number of drones appearing on the battlefield.

Those laser weapons have a great advantage in dealing with low, slow, and small targets, especially in countering the threat of swarm drones.

Su Dingping could now handcraft a low-end version of the laser weapon used in later generations.

However, the current battlefield has not yet developed to the point where large-scale swarm drones have appeared, so Su Dingping does not need to develop in this direction for the time being.

Besides, Su Dingping does not intend to continue interfering in the development of fifth-generation fighter jets; he plans to go straight to the sixth-generation fighter jets.

Su Dingping also plans to delegate authority over technologies such as wind tunnels and will no longer interfere.

After such a long period of training and research, Longxia has gradually cultivated a group of reliable cutting-edge scientific research talents.

Many top-notch projects could have progressed smoothly even without Su Dingping; the only difference was the time it would have taken.

For Longxia, which has the advantage of being a latecomer, reaching or even surpassing the level of the Eagle Tribe is not what Su Dingping is pursuing.

Su Dingping's ultimate goal is to completely widen the generational gap with the Eagle Tribe, to create a gap that is enough to make people despair, and even to maintain this advantage!

"Sixth-generation fighter jet..."

The old leader took off his reading glasses.

"You really dare to dream!"

In an era where even fifth-generation fighter jets represent cutting-edge technology, even for the Eagle Tribe, sixth-generation fighter jets are merely conceptual aircraft existing only in their imagination.

"In your vision, what unparalleled advantages do sixth-generation fighters have compared to fifth-generation fighters?"

"As we all know, the most outstanding features of fifth-generation fighters are stealth and supersonic cruise, which make them unmatched in most situations."

"In addition, high maneuverability and several advanced avionics systems are also prominent features of fifth-generation fighters."

"We all know that speed is absolutely the most important attribute of a fighter jet, so I believe that a sixth-generation fighter jet must at least have hypersonic capabilities!"

"Secondly, omnidirectional stealth and multi-mission operations are also essential components. Finally, and most importantly, is a high degree of intelligence!"

"Intelligentization?"

A glint of light flashed in the old commander's eyes!
"Are you talking about... artificial intelligence, like in science fiction?"

"That's right, it's artificial intelligence!"

Su Dingping said calmly.

"In my vision, the sixth-generation fighter jet will be equipped with a powerful artificial intelligence system, capable of autonomous speech, and able to perceive the battlefield situation in real time and make automatic decisions."

"Of course, these are not the reasons why I insisted on incorporating artificial intelligence."

"The main reason is that the weapons and equipment carried by sixth-generation fighters will be more intelligent and require more advanced automated systems to be used. Artificial intelligence systems are the only solution."

"Of course, we don't need to force artificial intelligence research in its early stages. The main bottleneck in this area, besides the limitation of computing power, is the need to collect a large amount of data."

"This makes it necessary for us to promote the system to the public as soon as possible."

The old leader was somewhat puzzled upon hearing this.

Does military technology require data collection from the civilian sector?

"That's true."

Su Dingping nodded.

First, military artificial intelligence needs to collect data from the civilian sector, mainly to make up for the lack of military data.

Purely military data has limitations in breadth, such as global coverage, as well as in detail, such as social and cultural information and update speed.

In the field of civilian data, especially open source data, several methods can effectively fill these gaps.
In fact, once the market is established, a mature technological ecosystem can be utilized.

For example, directly adopting or drawing on various advanced technologies that have been proven in the civilian sector.

Of course, many technologies have not yet fully entered the market, which requires strong promotion and research and development from the government or companies affiliated with the tribe.

For example, technologies such as 5G communication, cloud computing, and big data analytics.

These market-proven technologies are more reliable, and their promotion among the public can not only drive technological progress but also improve people's living standards.

Most importantly, delegating these technologies to the civilian sector can avoid redundant research and development in military systems, significantly reduce costs, and accelerate deployment!
Of course, this is not foolproof.

Data collected solely from the public may be unreliable in terms of quality and authenticity.

Especially on the internet, where information is a mix of true and false, powerful AI algorithms are needed for cleaning, verification, and cross-comparison.

Otherwise, the data obtained will be completely unusable.

However, disputes regarding data security and privacy may arise during the data collection process.

For example, the collection and use of civilian data, especially when it involves sensitive personal or corporate information, may lead to data misuse and leakage. This requires the Longxia Tribe to step in and resolve these risks.

This wasn't a particularly difficult issue for Long Xia.

However, for Western countries like the Eagle Tribe, which are dominated by corporations, company data is not something you can simply obtain at will.

Finally, there is the difficulty in integrating the technology.

Artificial intelligence used in the civilian sector tends to be biased towards various aspects.

For example, in daily life, or search engines, in text creation, or in navigation...

Integrating these civilian data of different standards and formats with dedicated military systems presents considerable technical challenges.

It may even be necessary to develop a unified data processing framework for this purpose.

In conclusion, the technical difficulties are significant, but they are not insurmountable. (End of Chapter)