Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1295 Let's Give Them Some Entertainment (5k)

"I think their idea is very good, and it is basically consistent with my views on the next step."

"Yeah, I think so too. Bad ideas can come in all shapes and sizes, but good ideas are always pretty much the same, hahaha." This made everyone laugh heartily, as if it really made sense.

"However, I think we should add a clause for them: let them take the electronic reconnaissance ship far away. It might have a surprise effect," said the commander of the forward command post.

Electronic reconnaissance ships are like magicians among warships. If you don't know them very well, you'll never know what tricks they can pull off, nor can you predict what unexpected roles they can play in special circumstances.

Not to mention that the use of this new equipment is completely unfamiliar to them. Taking it with them to see more of the world will also help them find more uses for it.

Moreover, this thing doesn't play a significant role for the expedition team, so leaving it for later would be a waste.

"Yes, that's a very thoughtful consideration. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!"

At sea, in the combat command center of ship 203, the fleet commander received a reply from the forward command post in Cape City.

"Great! The forward command has approved our next action plan and even provided us with some details to fill in any gaps." He said happily to the deputy commander while reading the reply from his superior.

"Let me see... Well, then we'll have to part ways for now. I hope when we meet again, it will be with good news for you," the deputy commander said with his blessing. According to this action plan, the deputy commander would have to leave the four destroyers and frigates and go to one of the guided-missile patrol boats to take charge of the expedition team's work. After all, if the operations are split up, both sides need to have a leader.

"Yes, don't worry, it will definitely be good news. But your mission is more important and significant, so it has to be good news for you too."

"The inspection here is a bit tedious and complicated, but if we're talking about the heavy responsibility and great significance, we still have to rely on you. Otherwise, no matter how well we do, it won't be of any use."

They both laughed. Wasn't it a bit inappropriate to flatter each other like this?

Half an hour later, the 203 ship sounded a long blast of its horn and left the formation with three other destroyers and frigates, heading east. Behind them, a street hustle followed quietly.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, people come and go at several airports in Tianya Island and eastern Guangdong. A total of twelve J-6s are deployed at these airports, their long fuselages gleaming silver, looking majestic and imposing.

Under each bomber's wings, three milky-white JX-62K missiles were mounted on either side. Their red radar domes were quite conspicuous, and against the backdrop of the JX-3's massive fuselage, these missiles looked rather small.

At Cape Town Airport, a batch of attack-ready 5 bombers are also being prepared.

"Hey, this loadout is interesting. Except for the fuel tanks, it's all loaded with Munitions-3. Is it going to be used as a fighter jet?" A ground crew member said with a cheerful laugh as he loaded missiles under the wings of the Attack-5.

"That means this aircraft is good; it can both bomb and strike. But it's not all of them that are loaded like that. Those four over there are carrying laser, television, and motherboards in combination, with some light and some heavy weapons. They're clearly designed for ground attack."

Although they are all abbreviations, you can tell what they mean just by listening to them.

"Sigh, I really envy those who fly planes. I wish I could fly one too. Back in the day, I failed my physical exam because of a scar on my butt from when I was a kid, from being cut by a bamboo shaving. Otherwise, I could be flying a plane now." The ground crew member said regretfully, but deep in his eyes, there was a hint of pride.

"Wow, you've really lost out. Your butt got seen and you didn't even get to take off the plane, hahaha." Probably having heard him say this so many times, the other comrade just blurted out the joke without any hesitation.

"Get lost! At least I'm at the stage of looking at butts. If you can't even open your mouth without having brushed your teeth, then don't spout nonsense."

Come on, let's hurt each other! We all came here with a passion for aviation; we're all monks from the same temple, pretty much the same.

The comrades worked and laughed, having a great time.

"Joking aside, we can't joke about missions. Comrades, let's work harder and get the plane ready as soon as possible. Even if we haven't gone on missions yet, we can't waste time on our hands!" the team leader next to him laughed.

"it is good!"
-
Sailing at sea can be busy, tedious, and even unpleasant. The southern seas are never calm and peaceful, especially when you're chasing a typhoon that hasn't completely dissipated, making the waves even bigger.

"Hang in there, comrades! We're about to reach the edge of our survey area. There are no more islands or reefs ahead, so the navigation conditions will be better." Similar messages came over the public address systems of several ships.

Although they were in the navy, they didn't experience such a long distance and such high sea conditions much. Many comrades even vomited bile in the wind and waves, but they still stuck to their posts.

At this point, the role of the larger ship became apparent. Although it wasn't huge, it was far superior to the guided-missile patrol boat. Because they were now very close to the typhoon, the wind and waves were no longer something the patrol boat could withstand.

Whether or not there are islands or reefs doesn't really make the shipping lanes that complicated; however, the wind and wave conditions aren't much better. In fact, without the shelter of islands and reefs, the waves are even bigger.

However, the comrades were still very happy, which meant that they had extrapolated the possible impact of the investigation to a more ideal position, and the task was already half completed.

Although it was tough, I felt invigorated.

"Let's move forward a little further and try to push them as far away as possible!" The fleet commander on ship 203 wiped his face and gave the order.

At this time, less than 100 kilometers to their east, eight US Navy warships, accompanied by a fleet of transport ships, also arrived in this area.

"About 85 kilometers west-northwest of you, an Eastern maritime formation has been discovered!"

Their radios crackled with the sounds of the air. With naval forces mobilized, the US air force was naturally not going to stand idly by; a seaplane patrolled the area.

Not only sea patrol aircraft, but also their fighter jets followed, 24 of them densely covering the sky. Having reached the estimated contact area, the Americans naturally committed all available resources.

Fighting is out of the question, but what if we scare the Easterners away?

The fleet commander was about to answer when a piercing scream came from the radio, startling him back to his own words.

"Holy shit!! WTF!!! What did I just see? Airplanes, all airplanes!!!"

"What did you see?" The squadron commander quickly grabbed the microphone.

"There are many aircraft on the other side, at least 10 large targets and at least 20 small targets!!!"

Patrol aircraft have larger radars, which can see more clearly. Even at a distance of 80 kilometers, they can still see targets in the air.

"How many???" Not to mention the naval formation, even the 24 Citizen fighter jets in the air were stunned by this number.

What surprised them was not the 10 large targets, but the 20 small targets, which were undoubtedly fighter jets.

Actually, their idea wasn't entirely correct. Among those 20-plus small targets, some were attack-5 bombers, not fighter jets.

Regardless of what it is, they are well aware that these "small" targets are the biggest threat to them.

However, in the eyes of the naval formation, those 10 "large targets" were the real threat.

Without a doubt, these are 10 bombers!

The Easterners actually sent more than 10 bombers at once! The US fleet commander even suspected that the other side had concentrated all of their medium bombers here.

The matter was serious, and he had to be careful.

As a "first-class citizen" in the US military, the fleet commander had the highest command authority for this operation, and he immediately grabbed the microphone to give the order.

"Fighter formation, do not advance rashly. If the enemy does not make any move, remain behind the fleet's front line." At a distance of 80 kilometers, there is no need to continue closing in before anything happens.

"Are they still moving forward?" he asked the patrol aircraft again.

"The aerial portion is circling in the air, showing no intention of advancing, but the naval formation is still moving forward. There are a total of 5 ships, and according to signal feedback, their displacement is at least the same as DE's." Our 5 ships are not small, and the patrol aircraft can roughly see them.

DE, escort destroyer, can be roughly considered as a US frigate.

This answer relieved the fleet commander; it seemed the other side had no intention of launching a full-scale attack.

"The naval formation should be brought together as much as possible." He issued an order that seemed unfavorable for combat. However, in his mind, this order was beneficial to the operation, at least for these eight Citizen ships. As for the other ships, who cared?

Now that our main air force has arrived, it is naturally not ignorant of the situation on the other side. In fact, thanks to the radar performance of the Tu-4, we have a more detailed understanding of the situation on the other side.

Facing an opponent 80 kilometers away, we remained unmoved and carried out the plan step by step.

"Deploy corner reflectors!"

Four destroyers and frigates launched four inflatable boats at sea, each equipped with an automatically deploying corner reflector.

This action added four bright spots to the radar screen of the patrol aircraft opposite.

"Their naval formation now has four more targets!"

This sudden change threw the Citizens' formation command into disarray.

"Four more targets? Does that mean their ships can self-replicate?"

"I'm not sure, but of the original signals, four have started to retreat," the patrol aircraft reported.

This change pleased the Citizens' squadron commander: "Are they trying to retreat? And then they've set up four decoys at sea to mislead us and put pressure on us?"

His deputy, standing nearby, also looked pleased: "Perhaps they realized they don't have the upper hand in naval power and wanted to put more pressure on us through decoys. They've lost their nerve!"

"Continue forward!" the USS fleet commander ordered smugly over the radio, as the somewhat disorganized formation continued its advance. The sailors on the USS ships were well-trained, but the sailors on other ships might not be so; in such a close formation, disarray was to be expected.

At this point, the distance between the two sides was less than 50 kilometers, but this distance was basically no longer changing. While the fleet led by the US Navy was moving forward, our four destroyers and frigates were retreating, and the electronic reconnaissance ship was originally at the rear of the formation.

Although the electronic reconnaissance ship was at the rear, its ears were the most sensitive. It could hear all the conversations in the air and sea between the two sides, only some of which it could not understand.

The inability to understand wasn't due to a language barrier; after all, this mission was specifically for English speakers, and the crew members who were fluent in English had brought along some.

It means that the other party's radio station is encrypted, and what we receive sounds like static.

However, just because it's noise for a while doesn't mean it will always be noise.

In the war room of the electronic reconnaissance ship, two comrades were guarding a machine when they suddenly clapped their hands: "It's out! It's decrypted!!"

These days, radio stations almost always use analog encryption methods because digital encryption and decryption speeds are too slow without digital signal processors.

Simulated encryption, whether it manipulates the time domain, the frequency domain, or even both, has a fatal flaw—extremely poor security.

This range is relative to digital encryption.

Regardless of the method used for analog encryption in radio stations, the underlying principles are generally based on two encryption principles that are among the least secure in cryptography.

— Randomized encryption and offset algorithms.

While these encryption methods were indeed effective in the analog era, their effectiveness is very limited against adversaries with high-performance spectrum analysis equipment.

Coincidentally, the electronic reconnaissance ship has spectrum analysis equipment with digital signal processor arrays as its core.

The electronic reconnaissance ship had a decryption time far exceeding everyone's imagination. In fact, the huge antenna on their heads had long since picked up the electromagnetic waves in the air and entered decryption mode.

And now, the decryption work is complete!
The electronic warfare team leader's eyes lit up, and he and some of his comrades turned around: "Quick, quick, play it out!!!"

"Don't panic, don't panic, let's save the results first, hahaha." The comrade in charge of decrypting enemy communications happily saved the results—this was a treasure!

Immediately afterwards, the comrades felt a "birdsong and fragrant flowers".

Let alone those who don't understand English, even those who do understand English are a bit confused. Due to a mix of factors such as signal quality, local accents, grammatical differences, colloquialisms, and slang, our comrades were completely bewildered.

However, you can tell that it has indeed been decrypted; the difference between the spoken language and the gibberish noise is still quite significant.

"Did you understand?" one comrade asked the comrade next to him who was concentrating and trying hard to understand.

"Not yet, soon..." This comrade was one of the English majors brought on this mission. Every ship has them; what if we capture English-speaking prisoners? It's better to be prepared and not need it than to need it and not be prepared.

"I understand. The Citibank people told the other boats to separate a bit, as the distance was a bit dangerous. But the other side didn't understand and kept asking questions and arguing. That's roughly the situation." Professionals are professionals; they figured it out in a short while.

The comrades burst into laughter; such a Western trick was quite rare.

The comrade guarding the decryption equipment joked, "Want me to help you out and plug it into their communication channel? You can explain things to the Citibank guys." The equipment in front of him was indeed capable of doing so.

The comrade who spoke English immediately lit up; opportunities to command the enemy were rare indeed.

If I actually did that, what would the other side feel and what would their expression be? Just thinking about it makes me happy!
"But..." He was only halfway through his sentence when the electronic warfare team leader interrupted him.

"No! That would expose the fact that we already have the technical means to crack their real-time radio communications, which would be such a waste!" The team leader said firmly and sternly.

Mastering encryption and decryption methods isn't scary; mastering the means to crack those methods is truly terrifying.

The former is the fish, the latter is the fishing; it goes without saying which is more important.

The fact that "the method of cracking the code" is itself an extremely important piece of intelligence. In this day and age, it must be kept tightly under wraps, and it is best to keep the enemy in the dark forever.

If someone were to deliberately leak information from their own people just for a moment of pleasure, that would be utterly ridiculous.

The comrades present immediately realized, damn it, they had gotten carried away! They almost made a big mistake!

Comrades, I can guarantee that if the Citibank knew we had the technology to reliably crack their radio encryption, they would do everything in their power to come up with a new technology in the shortest amount of time and replace all their radios.

After all, they know that we have it, maybe, possibly. Jiaozhi has it, Polar Bear has it, Oil Bay has it, and the Economic Assistance Association countries all have it. Even if we don't, the probability of us being able to use it is still very high.

"This... I made a mistake, team leader, please punish me!" The comrade guarding the decryption equipment stood up; if you're wrong, you have to admit it.

"Next time, be more careful. This is new equipment and new capabilities; it's normal that you haven't considered everything thoroughly. However, while you may not be able to command them, you can certainly provide them with entertainment." The gloating glint in the electronic warfare team leader's eyes was even brighter than that of the comrades before!

"Entertainment activities?" The other comrades were a little confused.

"Yes! Did they use frequency hopping?" the team leader asked.

"Frequency hopping is one of their encryption methods. However, we have control over all the frequency bands they use." Frequency hopping encryption isn't unlimited; that's impossible. Since it's finite, we can control it.

"Great! Play music at maximum power on the frequency band they're using!" The electronic warfare team leader laughed heartily.

Upon hearing this, the comrades burst into laughter.

Is this bullying?!
This method is purely about overwhelming force; great power can produce miracles. It relies on power and energy to suppress the opponent.

As a dedicated electronic warfare vessel, its electromagnetic equipment has greater power, stronger antenna gain, and better beam directivity...

Faced with these muscular electromagnetic terrorists, not to mention the small radios on the small transport ships, even the large radios on the destroyers and frigates might not be able to withstand them.

(End of this chapter)