Go back in time and be a chaebol

Chapter 2804 New Ideas, New Paths (Second Update, Please Subscribe)

Glass fiber reinforced plastic is a very common engineering plastic.

As for the engine.

It was also extremely inexpensive—a Limbach 550E engine made in West Germany.

This is a four-cylinder, horizontally opposed, two-stroke, air-cooled gasoline engine with a displacement of 548 cubic centimeters, a maximum power of approximately 37 kilowatts, and a weight of approximately 16 kilograms.

Primarily used for powered paragliding.

It is inexpensive, costing only about 1 marks.

The material cost of an aircraft piston engine typically accounts for 40-60% of the total cost.

……

After the overall cost was calculated, everyone fell silent.

"So, even if we make it by hand, the price won't exceed 25000 yuan, right?"

Even Zhao Zhanpeng, the designer, can't believe that his price is so low.

"This is just theory. After all, we still need to conduct wind tests on its aerodynamic design, and we also need to perform other tests..."

These are indeed unavoidable expenses, but it is certain that they are also very limited.

"Overall, 20 yuan is enough."

Develop an airplane with 20 yuan?
Even if it's just a drone, nobody would believe it if you told them, but Zhao Zhanpeng and his team took 20 yuan to develop a suicide drone.

While refining the aircraft's aerodynamic design, they also studied its guidance system. Zhao Zhanpeng had already planned to use a combination of inertial navigation system and civilian GPS for pre-programmed navigation. The advantages were low cost and mature technology, but the accuracy was limited and it was easily affected by electronic interference.

But in any case, it can meet the "basic need"—that is, to carry out precision strikes remotely.

While Zhao Zhanpeng and his team were developing a "suicide drone," in a conference room at the Ministry of Defense...

Air Force Colonel Sun Linze faced the company representatives in front of him, who were all looking through the tender documents they had just received.

"Whether in Syria or in Thang Long, although we won the war, in fact, for us, this war was extremely awkward to fight."

When he mentioned the awkwardness, Sun Linze frowned. Over the past year, the military had been in an extremely awkward state.

"Although laser-guided bombs are very accurate, they cost more than 10 yuan each, and they are prone to 'going blind' when encountering clouds, fog, or sandstorms."

This is precisely the root cause of the military's discomfort—the heavy reliance on laser-guided weapons.

As the inventor of laser-guided bombs, the SEA military has applied laser-guided weapons to various fields.

In the war, laser-guided weapons did not disappoint their expectations.

"In the past year, we have consumed 90% of the laser-guided bombs in our arsenal..."

Looking at everyone present, Sun Linze revealed this extremely sensitive number.

"Of the bombs dropped during the war, 90% were still unguided 'iron bombs,' which had a circular error probability of up to 60 meters after being dropped from an altitude of nearly 10,000 meters."

Even more problematic is that, in order to avoid dense anti-aircraft fire, fighter jets have to fly at an altitude of over 4500 meters, at which "iron bombs" dropped can only hit by luck.

If it weren't for the fact that we used drones to destroy the airfields and air defense facilities of the Thanglong side at the very beginning of the war,

In the process of dropping bombs, we are very likely to lose a large number of aircraft.

Of course, he didn't point out one thing here—that dropping iron bombs was part of the military's plan to blast Rising Dragon back to the Stone Age.

In fact, the military achieved its objective.

150 million tons of bombs were dropped on 33 square kilometers of land, which is basically equivalent to... nearly 5 tons of bombs added per square kilometer.

From this, one can imagine what the Rising Dragon would look like after the war ended.
Although the objective was achieved, the military also recognized its own shortcomings.

“Data shows that 10% of laser-guided bombs destroyed 90% of their targets, so the military’s requirements are now very simple.”

Sun Linze looked at the business representatives below the stage and said:

"The experience of war has made us realize that we must have a cheap, all-weather, and quick-to-run precision-guided bomb."

That's precisely why I've called you all here today.

As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Fusheng, the representative of Nanyang Aviation Industry Company, immediately asked:

"I noticed that the military's tender specifications state $5, which is equivalent to 50% of the price of a laser-guided bomb, is that right?"

"This is the initial purchase price. I need to clarify here that we will not calculate your costs."

The military has assured that the first order will not be less than 10 rounds, as the military urgently needs to replenish its ammunition depot.

As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Fusheng and everyone else became uneasy.

The first batch of orders will be no less than 10 pieces!

And they don't calculate costs!

This means that the military will spend 50 billion yuan to purchase 10 precision-guided bombs!

As long as they can meet the military's bidding requirements, the military will not only award the contract to them, but more importantly, they will make a profit.

If they can reduce costs while meeting the military's bidding requirements, then the profits will naturally be unprecedented.

If they can solve the problem with 1 yuan, then they will have a profit of 4 yuan.

Faced with such profit margins, who could remain calm?

Of course, this is on the premise that the company can reduce costs.

"It's very difficult."

On his way back to the company, while flipping through the tender document, Yan Fusheng couldn't help but mutter to himself:
"It's almost impossible to cut costs in half all at once."

He said this because laser-guided bombs have always been very expensive.

Initially, its price even exceeded 20 yuan, but it gradually decreased until it dropped to around 8 yuan in recent years. Now, the military is asking for a reduction to 5 yuan.

is it possible?

"it's out of the question."

In the company's conference room, facing the tender documents brought by Yan Fusheng, engineer Pan Qingquan spoke frankly.

"We can reduce the price of laser-guided bombs to around 6 yuan by improving the process, which is about 20% lower than the current price."

However, reducing it to 5 yuan—that's absolutely impossible.

Then Pan Qingquan explained:
"After all, the cost of laser-guided bomb kits is what it is, and it's simply impossible to reduce the cost that much all at once."

In fact, the 8 yuan for a laser-guided bomb refers to the laser guidance kit.

The SEA produced very few aerial bombs. In addition to a large number of aerial bombs left over from World War II, its arsenal also contained hundreds of thousands of tons of MK80 series aerial bombs provided by the United States.

That is, a low-drag iron bomb.

Those iron bombs were provided by the United States over the past few decades under the Joint Partnership Defense Program.

Sometimes, there are things you can't refuse. It's not like you'll get whatever you want.

Things given to you by others are often brought together in a package. After all, when people are making purchases, they need to consider a balance. You should know that there is more than one Smith specialist.

Therefore, SEA's laser-guided bombs all use modification kits.

However, this is not always the case. For example, exported laser-guided bombs often use domestically produced aerial bomb bodies.

This also involves the detailed clause that US-aided weapons cannot be provided to third countries without US permission.

However, regardless of the circumstances, the SEA is definitely the place outside of the United States with the largest stockpile of American-made aerial bombs.

This also involves an old grudge—when Nixon announced the withdrawal of troops from Saigon, in response to accusations from the SEA, he provided the SEA with a large amount of ammunition stored in the Philippines as aid, citing the need to enhance the SEA's defense capabilities.

The vast majority of them were iron bombs.

During those two years, relations between the two countries were extremely strained. The so-called aid was actually mostly symbolic and of little value.

Even though those iron bombs can be modified into laser-guided bombs using kits, their numbers are still enormous.

This is Nixon's way of purely irritating SEA—providing aid as agreed, but the weapons provided are not only worthless, but also take up a lot of storage space.

Therefore, in order to consume these iron bombs, engineers came up with a new solution when designing laser-guided bombs—to build the bomb itself and only modify the tail.

They mounted guidance kits on unguided bombs, and by using maneuverable control surfaces—such as tail fins and canards—the mountains of ordinary bombs in the warehouse were transformed into laser-guided bombs.

"Is there any way to further reduce costs?"

Yan Fusheng stated bluntly:

"This is 10 sets of modification kits. If the company can secure this order, that's 50 billion yuan!"

An order worth a whopping 50 billion yuan!
For the company, this is the first time in a long time that it has received such a large order; even the order for the F-3 fighter jet was not this big.

Pan Qingquan shook his head and said:
"Well... anyway, it's impossible to reduce the price to this low in the short term if we use laser guidance."

"Then we won't need laser guidance,"

Yan Fusheng said bluntly:
"I'm not an engineer, and I don't know what methods you use to improve the bomb's accuracy. But as long as it meets the military's requirements, I think any method is acceptable."

Regardless of the method used—Pan Qingquan remained silent, his brow furrowed as he flipped through the tender document provided by the military.

He said while flipping through the pages:
"The old method still applies; we must use modification kits. After all, the military has so many old bombs. As for homing—use GPS."

Looking up at Yan Fusheng, Pan Qingquan said:
"Currently, the cheapest guidance system is GPS. The military has already applied it to Tomahawk cruise missiles and proven its accuracy."

Theoretically speaking, there's no problem using GPS (Global Positioning System) for bomb guidance. Hmm…

After thinking for a moment, Pan Qingquan drew a simple sketch on the paper and said:

"I do have a simple idea—to change only the tail without touching the bomb itself. That is, to remove the original tail fins of a regular bomb and replace them with a brand new guidance and control tail section unit."

The core of this guidance module is the GPS positioning system, which allows the bomb to know its location at any time. Once its location is known, the rest is easy.

After a brief pause, he continued:

"It also integrates an inertial navigation (INS) system and a mission computer. The four large control surfaces mounted at the tail are responsible for adjusting the direction. In order to provide stability in flight, its working principle is also very simple - before the pilot drops the bomb, the aircraft inputs the target coordinates into the bomb."

Once the bomb leaves the aircraft, the onboard mission computer automatically calculates and controls the tail control surfaces to deflect based on the real-time location information provided by GPS/INS, allowing it to fly towards the coordinate point like a precise glider.

Theoretically, it's even more cost-effective than laser-guided bombs because it achieves "fire-and-forget," allowing the aircraft to immediately detach after bombing. It should be an all-weather, low-cost precision-guided weapon.

Upon hearing his idea, Yan Fusheng said directly:

"Since we have a solution, let's give it a try."

However, Yan Fusheng paused slightly, as if he had thought of something, and pointed to the drawing he had made on the paper:
"Like a precision glider... So, what if we added gliding wings to it?"

SEA weapons experts are no strangers to gliding wings. When they modified the "Grand Slam Bomb" into a TV-guided bomb, they added gliding wings to it. By using TV guidance and radio control, they adjusted the bomb's descent path to hit the target, increasing its drop distance to about 20 kilometers.

"Glide wing..."

Pan Qingquan nodded:
"This is also a good suggestion. We don't use gliders on laser-guided bombs because laser guidance is too far away and is easily affected by various factors. But GPS is different. It is not affected by weather and environment, and it does not need to consider guidance distance... In fact, it can be turned into a standoff weapon."

"Standoff weapons?"

"Yes, it's a standoff launch. With glide guidance, it can be launched from tens or even hundreds of kilometers away... Because satellite positioning and navigation systems have a wide service coverage, and with the help of inertial navigation, glide-guided bombs can maintain high accuracy even after flying hundreds of kilometers."

This solves a series of problems previously associated with this type of bomb, such as its short range and the high risk to operators.

Pan Qingquan became more and more excited as he spoke, constantly revising his ideas on the drawing board. Soon, a new type of bomb appeared before his eyes.

"The key to this munition is the glide range extender added to ordinary aerial bombs. Through the development of these components and kits, large stockpiles of ordinary bombs can be transformed into precision-strike munitions. Yes…" Pan Qingquan exclaimed excitedly, clapping his hands vigorously.

"That's it, that's exactly what the military needs—standoff bombs..."

(End of this chapter)