Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 439 06.0438: "Wolf Dog"

"The source of the radiation signal is passing directly in front of our ship."

"Drive into the gas cloud nearby, and start preheating the torpedoes. Torpedoes No. 1 and No. 2 are equipped with thermal-seeking guidance heads." Horatio walked onto the observation bridge, raised his telescope and looked into the still calm void.

I thought that my first battle with the Epic would be to use wolf pack tactics to destroy a Tau Empire cargo ship, but I didn't expect to encounter a Tau convoy raider in an escort battle.

The ferocious and bloodthirsty wolf has no chance to show its terrible claws and fangs, but instead has to play the role of a sheepdog escorting the flock.

It's really ridiculous, but this is the embarrassing dilemma of the Imperial Navy in the 41st Millennium - even if you are an attack ship, you have to take on the escort mission of a few transport ships before you leave.

"The alien ship has activated its active detector!"

"Stop the ship and reverse! Hide in the gas cloud and shut down the engine!" Horatio sent an order to the power department.

Although he subconsciously wanted to use communications to coordinate combat positions, he still resisted the urge to have the Epic send a communication signal to the other attack ships as he had not yet been exposed and the enemy was right in front of him.

Diddoo!

With a silent scanning wave coming from an unknown alien warship, the entire Imperial escort fleet was instantly exposed on the display screen of the Tau Empire's anti-ship ship.

Thanks to the performance of the shadow field, only the E47 attack ship among the six attack ships was successfully detected by the enemy because it was too close to the enemy.

The other attack ships all avoided the detection waves. Unlike the transport ships next to them that were detected and located, the technology due to unknown principles caused them to be ignored by the detection waves.

Horatio's Epic was closer to the enemy ship than the E47 attack ship, but because it hid in the gas cloud after activating the shadow field, and its speed was less than 5 void knots, it was within the optimal concealment threshold of the shadow field and thus avoided this wave of detection.

"1/3 power, drive slowly forward, don't rush." ​​Horatio stared ahead and gave the power unit the order to move forward.

Soon, the two small red balls on the war bird divination instrument revealed their true identity under the observation of Horatio on the observation platform.

After comparing them with the Tau warship manual, he determined that these were two "Castle Lord" class frigates.

The Escort of the Tau Empire and the Frigate of the Imperium of Man are two completely different types of ships.

The former are similar to frigates smaller than destroyers during World War I and World War II. They have poor firepower and are much smaller than the smallest class ship of the Empire. They need to rely on larger capital ships for combat, or are only responsible for raids and sabotage.

而人类帝国的护航舰‘Frigate’一词起源于风帆时代，是指那些火力与体积小于三级战列舰（64-80炮）的六级（20-28炮）到四级（50炮）的定级巡航舰。

Therefore, the human empire's escort ship, also known as a cruiser, is a ship that is larger than a destroyer but smaller than a battleship. (A light cruiser is also a battleship)
The smallest escort ship is 1.6 kilometers long, and the largest, such as the Voss Scimitar-class, is nearly 2.2 kilometers long, half the size of a Dreadnought-class light cruiser. It can fight independently or participate in fleet battles, and is a more powerful all-rounder than the Tau frigate.

Two Castle Lord-class frigates sailed side by side, less than 20 kilometers apart, and appeared stealthily in front of the Epic.

Their active detectors filtered out the knife-bow attack ship, which had already sailed out of the gas cloud but had a very small frontal projection, as debris.

This is a commonly used screening setting, which is used to filter out meteorites and space debris floating in the void from the battle situation map. Otherwise, the battle situation map will be densely packed with red dots, and commanders will not be able to tell which ones are enemy ships.

The Tau Empire had not received any intelligence that the Empire possessed this new type of warship without an Aquila bow, so it did not adjust its search wavelength.

"Captain, the enemy ship has opened the torpedo silo!" The observant Louise noticed the movement on the two Castle Lord-class ships.

"Open the torpedo silos No. 7001 and No. 7002!" Horatio held his telescope, held his breath, and whispered, "Begin calculating the launch lead for targets and ."

"Open torpedo silos No. 7001 and No. 7002! Start calculating the launch lead time for targets and ." Louise loudly conveyed the captain's order to the operations department and weapons department.

"Yes, targets 7001 and 7002 start calculating the launch lead time. Torpedo silo No. 7001 locks onto target 7002, and torpedo silo No. locks onto target !" Fideo, the torpedo officer, commanded his team to use the torpedo launch calculator (TDC) to quickly perform ranging calculations.

This is a purely mechanical calculator that uses trigonometric functions to calculate lead time. It does not have any electronic components, but it is still reliable, accurate and easy to use.

The officers first determined the enemy ship's class, size, length, and speed by looking at the detailed parameters of the Tau Empire ships stolen by human empire spies from the battleship manual.

Then, the time taken by the enemy ship to pass one mark is calculated by the scale in the telescope. The enemy ship's Phobos speed is calculated from this, which is the value of the average orbital speed of Phobos from 1 in 900 quarter of an hour (0 seconds).

Next, calculate the attack angle between the enemy ship and the Epic.

Finally, by inputting the parameters into the mechanical torpedo calculator, you can get the precise advance amount.

The two Castle Lord-class escort ships continued to approach the Human Empire transport fleet in a covert manner.

The escort ships in the fleet have begun their alert patrol, protecting the transport ships in the middle.

The Astartes' strike cruisers also sent out Thunderhawk gunboats to stand guard along with the Fury interceptors released by the Imperial Navy's attack ships, but they too failed to detect the enemy in front of the Epic.

But Horatio did not want to disrupt the silent sailing and alert the enemy, so he decided to deal with these two imminent threats himself.

The two Castle Lord-class ships were still sailing forward at a constant speed.

"Torpedo salvo!"

Whoosh!
The first Helios nuclear detonation torpedo, equipped with a heat-seeking seeker, was fired from the Epic's dark torpedo well.

This weapon was designed to destroy a Merchant-class cargo ship in one strike. Since it could destroy a light cruiser-class warship, it would be no problem for it to destroy a Tau frigate in one strike.

As the Imperial torpedoes were fired, the Tau warships fired their heavy Seeker missile salvos.

Seen from a distance, the heavy missiles emitting a faint ion blue light trail formed a beautiful two-color right angle with the torpedoes emitting golden flames.

"Kan#bong! (Captain in Tau language) Hostile torpedoes!"

"Where are they coming from?! Turn immediately." A captain of the Air caste was originally observing the missiles fired at the Imperial transport fleet. When he heard the torpedoes approaching, he hurriedly looked to the side.

The two Castle Lord-class frigates immediately accelerated, their ion flames becoming extremely dazzling under the afterburner, and were instantly spotted by the Imperial warships that had turned on their active augury radars.

Two Space Marine Gladius-class escort ships immediately gave chase.

Of course, such a dazzling tail flame is also the only template they want to pursue in the dark in the eyes of the wetware of the thermal energy seeking guidance head.

The torpedo immediately began to turn at a speed of 2° per second and chased straight after it.

"Hostile torpedo divert!"

By the time the Air Caste observers looking behind discovered that the torpedoes chasing them had turned and caught up like the heavy Seeker missiles, it was already too late.

As two streaks of blazing flames flashed before everyone's eyes, followed by a dazzling ray of light, the Castle Lord-class frigate was torn into countless pieces of dust in an expanding fireball.

Nuclear detonation torpedoes pierced their fragile hulls, and the nuclear reactors in the warheads initiated fusion reactions under the preset control of the Thinker. The power of the star instantly tore the entire hull apart from the inside.

"They have another mothership! Activate the towed Diviner detector! At the same time, use the 'Emperor's Secret Language' to send encrypted signals to the surrounding warships! Find her!"

The 'Emperor's Secret Language' code machine is the result of Lina's practical research based on Yin Shuyao's mechanical assisted encryption code book during the previous Abyss Port incident.

The code was further refined as a result of research efforts devoted to it by the Military Intelligence Command, and a typewriter-like code encryption device was also developed.

Every time a mechanical key is pressed, the mechanically linked imitation Luban lock will rotate once, performing mechanical assisted encryption according to the established logic.

What is finally sent out will be a set of completely incomprehensible telegrams after mechanically assisted encryption.

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(End of this chapter)