Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1282 We can't listen to Gao Zhendong about this (4k)

There's another big advantage? Sure enough, the technology that Comrade Zhendong sees is quite different from what we have.

Gao Zhendong continued, "...That is because liquid fuel has a high specific impulse, and the engine has adjustable thrust, which allows the missile to accelerate to the target speed with high thrust and then maintain speed with low thrust for a long time, which is beneficial to the range. This is also why I want to modify the engine to have adjustable thrust."

Sure enough, every improvement was targeted, with absolutely no unnecessary changes. The missile's improvements had a makeshift feel to them, but upon closer inspection, they were just right.

"This... seems quite interesting. It can provide a powerful air strike capability in the shortest possible time. Moreover, it's relatively reliable, technically feasible, and its penetration capability is also guaranteed."

"Based on this calculation, the weight of the bullet reaches about 2.5 tons. Even the Sixth Master couldn't carry many of them."

"Why carry so many? If you want to carry a lot, just carry the improved Jeep Chance-62K, right? The best is to carry heavy ones that can severely damage a 2-ton warship with a single shot. In my opinion, carrying two is enough."

What our comrades don't know is that, in the original trajectory, missiles like the one suggested by Gao Zhendong were our earliest reliable air-to-ship attack weapons, and we didn't acquire this capability until the mid-80s. Back then, our comrades in the air force and navy didn't have the luxury of being picky.

Now, we had the Zhengxian-62K first, and then Gao Zhendong proposed modifying this thing. While this greatly reduced the sense of urgency, it also made the comrades not care much about the other performance aspects of this missile, focusing only on its long range and high power.

"Yes, the biggest advantage of this missile is that it can achieve maximum power and maximum range in the shortest time, and it is cheap. It is indeed of great significance to us."

"You know what, based on the current technological level of the Zhengxian-1 missile, its sea-skimming flight capability is excellent, posing a great threat to enemy ships."

The comrades thought about it more and more and found it ingenious. You have to know that compared to its original historical counterpart, the Zhengxian-1 had already greatly reduced its flight altitude.

If this missile had been modified according to Gao Zhendong's requirements, it might have been technically inferior in the 80s. It had a large radar cross-section, a significantly higher cruising altitude than the Zhengxian-62K, and lacked terminal penetration capabilities...

But in today's world, in the 60s, none of these problems were issues; in fact, they were quite useful. Whether technology is outdated depends on the era.

The Navy, Air Force, and National Defense Industry Commission, who were eager to implement certain tasks and couldn't wait to do so, were delighted with the "makeshift" missile. They even felt that Gao Zhendong's suggestion was too hasty and couldn't tolerate it if it wasn't improved.
"Comrade Zhendong, um... why don't we put our latest gyroscope on top?" the chief engineer of the National Defense Industry Committee said.

He was referring to the laser gyroscope. The War Drum III ballistic missile with a fusion warhead launched not long ago shows that this thing is really useful. It has upgraded the War Drum III's strike accuracy from targeting cities to targeting command centers, which is a huge improvement. Moreover, it is much smaller in weight and size, and it starts up very quickly.

People, once they have something good, they want to use it everywhere, like right now.

Gao Zhendong was taken aback. "You're really generous," he said. "No need, no need. The accuracy of this missile mainly relies on the carrier radar and the missile's onboard radar. Inertial navigation only needs to be roughly accurate. As long as the missile flies within a certain range, the onboard radar can acquire the target. The latest gyroscope you mentioned is really expensive, and it's unnecessary."

He made a lot of sense, and the chief engineer nodded with a hint of regret, it seemed that he wouldn't need to use it.

However, a considerable number of comrades found it strange that this person seemed to know so much about this new type of gyroscope. Most of the comrades present had only just learned that such a gyroscope existed, and knew absolutely nothing about any of its details.

"What about new types of explosives?"

No, DNTFs aren't used like that anymore. And aren't hundreds of kilograms of black mixed 60 enough? You have to understand that the warhead of the Zhengxian-1 is a shaped charge warhead, unlike the semi-armor-piercing warhead of the Zhengxian-62. The shell isn't that heavy at all. Of the 500kg warhead weight, more than half is made up of explosives.

"Too expensive, and unnecessary, right?" The power can indeed be increased a little, but the price goes up in an instant.

The soldiers, however, sensed something different in their tone.

"So, the power can indeed be increased?" They didn't insist on replacing the gyroscope with a new one because it didn't seem necessary, so they let it go. But the matter of loading explosives seemed a bit different.

Gao Zhendong nodded honestly: "That can indeed increase it."

The chief engineer of the National Defense Industry Committee leaned over and asked in a low voice, "How much more? Write it down for me to see."

Gao Zhendong lightly wrote "Energy increased by 20% compared to Black Hybrid 60" on a piece of paper, tore it off, and handed it to the chief engineer of the National Defense Industry Committee.

The chief engineer of the National Defense Industry Committee gasped when he saw it. He knew that DNTF was an ultra-high-energy explosive, but he did not expect it to be "ultra-" so powerful. The 60-ton charge of the black mixed explosive that Gao Zhendong made did not mean that RDX accounted for 60%. More than 90% of it was RDX, which was an ultra-high-energy explosive.

This thing is so much taller than the RDX!
He passed the note to the leader of the National Defense Commission, who looked like he had a toothache after reading it. He then handed it to a comrade in the army for a glance before putting it away.

The soldiers' eyes lit up when they saw it: "Change! Change! We want this one, we want this one, even if it's a bit more expensive."

The leaders of the National Defense Industry Committee nodded repeatedly: "Yes, I also think it's good to change it."

We can't listen to Gao Zhendong about this; the more powerful, the better! It may be expensive, but if we're just using it ourselves, we probably won't be equipping too many units, so we can afford it.

Otherwise, if a missile is designed to maximize range and power, but ultimately fails to reach its full potential, it feels like a huge loss.

"That's right, that's right. Comrade Zhendong is good in every way, but he's a bit too frugal. That's not good, that's not good." The only military leader who saw Gao Zhendong's note chuckled as he "criticized" Gao Zhendong.

"Yes, yes, I accept the criticism." Gao Zhendong smiled even more broadly than they did. You think I don't want to use DNTF? It's just because it's expensive! Fine, since you're willing, what objection can I possibly have?
Looking at the unborn air-launched anti-ship missile on the paper, the comrades in the unit were overjoyed. If it could be realized, it would mean that the last weakness in maritime strike capabilities had been filled. And the best part was that it seemed that the missile could really be realized. At least the carrier aircraft only needed to be modified with a radar. In fact, the carrier aircraft could be continuously produced before the radar was improved, just waiting to be equipped with the radar. Once the radar was improved, there would definitely be enough time.

After all, the pulse PD radar is already very well-established, and it can be installed on aircraft with minimal modifications. Furthermore, radar production is much faster than aircraft production, making it easy to acquire a significant number of heavy missile carriers. As for the extended-range version of the Junxian-62K used to attack escort ships, the Attack-5, a modified version of the Il-28, will suffice. Since replacing the Il-28's unfortunate LYP-5 centrifugal jet engine with the more powerful, higher thrust-to-weight ratio, and smaller diameter LYP-6, and changing the bomb bay to a fuel tank with external weapons, while also eliminating the tail turret and accompanying gunner, the Attack-5, with its improved armor and increased payload, can achieve a combat radius approaching 1000 kilometers, even for low-altitude penetration missions. The combination of these two features would be more than enough to give any enemy a run for their money.

The comrades drew a line along the coastline in their minds and thought, "Hmm, this is good, this is good."

As the meeting was adjourning, the leaders of the National Defense Industry Committee said to Gao Zhendong, "Zhendong, I know you are anxious, but don't worry. We are also anxious, but we can't rush things. In short, the situation is better than originally expected, so don't worry."

Gao Zhendong was completely bewildered by his leader's alternating words of "urgent" and "not urgent," and could only nod repeatedly: "Yes, no, no, no rush."
-
It was already April, and the winds and waves in the southern seas were getting stronger.

At the Jiuxing Island pier in the West Key Islands, the soldiers on guard watched with excitement as several "large" ships slowly entered the harbor.

"Wow, this is a huge thing. I've never seen such a big warship before."

Perhaps they had seen similar ships, such as transport ships. After all, this "large warship" was only about 1000 to 2000 tons, which was not considered large compared to some transport ships.

However, in the soldiers' simple minds, a warship wasn't defined by the presence of numerous guns and cannons.

Well, things have improved somewhat now. Having a barrage of guns and cannons isn't impressive; having lots of crates and pipes on top is what's impressive. In short, a transport ship still doesn't count!
"Look at that one in front of us. It looks like a larger version of our missile patrol boats, with bigger cannons and all. Is it a frigate?"

This is a flawed theory and argument, but it leads to a correct conclusion: the ship he was pointing to was indeed a frigate, a converted frigate, named "Qianyang".

"Yes, yes, that should be it. It doesn't look like there are many cannons."

They had never seen what the Qianyang warship looked like before, but they had certainly seen gunboats. Our gunboats had no other distinguishing features, except for one: a lot of guns.

So it seems that this frigate doesn't have many guns.

"You don't understand. Didn't you see the escort boats in our harbor? They need to have lots of missiles on them to be powerful," another soldier said enviously.

He knew that although the escort boats did not have as many cannons as the gunboats, the guided-missile escort boats were much more powerful than the gunboats.

After saying that, he pointed to the Qianyang ship and said, "Do you see that? The missile pointing into the air right in front of the bridge is much longer and thicker than the missiles pointing into the air on our guided missile frigates in the port."

His observation skills were very sharp. After this batch of first-generation frigates were refitted, the main gun at position B was removed and replaced with an 8-cell Haijingqi-62—an infrared short-range air defense missile modified from the Leidian-3 infrared air-to-air missile. Although it was short-range, it was still much larger than the infrared portable air defense missiles on the guided-missile frigates.

“Look, look, isn’t that part in the middle of this frigate similar to the missiles on the stern of our guided missile frigate? The only difference is that the guided missile frigate has 6 boxes, while this ship has 8.” Another soldier had sharp eyes.

"Hey, now that you mention it, it really does seem like it... Eight anti-ship missiles, this frigate is something else. It has two cannons and can still hold eight missiles. Impressive!"

When these frigates were refitted, the single 100mm guns in positions A and C were still retained; the main parts removed were the gun position B and the torpedo tubes amidships.

No wonder the young soldiers were happy. After this modification, the basic technical level of this ship is actually slightly higher than that of the Rafael-class frigate that the province of Danggui bought from France in the 90s, which Gao Zhendong had seen in his previous life.

After all, they couldn't get good weapons for their ship, and their air defense was limited to manned small oak trees, which were also modified from short-range infrared air-to-air missiles, and they didn't even have the head-on attack capability of the Raiden-3.

The soldiers were excitedly discussing our new equipment, but what they didn't see was that behind the Qianyang ship, there was an even larger ship slowly approaching. The larger ship was obscured by the Qianyang ship because of the near-large and far-small appearance.

On this larger ship, several comrades looked at Jiuxing Island in front of them with excitement.

"It's already gone this far after the modification is finished. It seems this ship is quite reliable, haha." One comrade said to another comrade next to him who was observing Jiuxing Island with binoculars.

Although Jiuxing Island is not far from the mainland, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a long trip for the navy at this time.

"You guys just finished your modifications and you've already gone this far. The Qianyang ship next to you, on the other hand, has already gone around several times since its modifications."

"This Jiuxing Island pier is alright; it can accommodate both of our boats."

"How novel! The core of the island's major renovations in recent years has been an airport and a pier. If this doesn't work, it'll be a disaster! We're here to inspect the pier."

"Don't be ridiculous. The dock has already been inspected by experts. We're here to train for long-distance voyages and island resupply. What are you pretending to be so important about? Inspection? Hahaha~~~"

That being said, what that comrade just said wasn't entirely wrong. Airports and docks have indeed been the main focus of construction on Jiuxing Island in recent years, and they are now basically completed, providing good support for the missions of these large naval vessels.

Now that the navy's existing core new warships—the refitted destroyers and frigates—can berth smoothly, it proves that the construction of this pier was a success.

Right next to them on the beach, several island reef supply landing craft were using their advantages. Instead of competing with them for the harbor and dock, they went straight ashore. Once the gangplank was down, several work vehicles converted from agricultural machinery were unloading things from the landing craft, which looked like ammunition boxes of various sizes.

(End of this chapter)