Courtyard House: A Major Power's Heavy Industry, Hand-Crafted Nuclear Fusion

504 Base, Command Center.

The atmosphere was as heavy as a volcano about to erupt.

On the huge radar screen on the wall, a glaring red dot is moving at an alarming speed.

"Altitude 28000 meters, speed Mach 3.2!"

"Heading southeast, we are approaching our core testing area!"

The radar operator's voice even changed.

This isn't the first time. This is the third time this month.

That ghost from the north, relying on its ability to fly high and run fast, shamelessly defecates and urinates above our heads.

General Zhang slammed the enamel mug onto the table, splashing tea all over the floor.

"This is outrageous! Absolutely outrageous!"

"Order the air defense missile battalion to fire!"

"Commander..." The chief of staff beside him said with a bitter expression, "We can't reach it. Our HQ-1 (a copy of the SAM-2) has a maximum firing altitude of only 20 kilometers. They fly at 28 kilometers, and we can't even catch a whiff of their ass."

"Then let's ram them with J-6s!"

"They can't catch up... The J-6's maximum speed is only Mach 1.3, while theirs is Mach 3.2. It's like trying to catch a sports car on a bicycle."

A deathly silence.

This is the price of falling behind.

Just then, the door to the command room was pushed open.

Su Zheng walked in. He was wearing a work uniform stained with oil and carrying a simple toolbox.

"Old Zhang, don't get angry."

Su Zheng walked to the radar screen, glanced at the arrogant dot of light, and a cold smile appeared on his lips.

"No matter how fast it flies, it can't outrun the speed of light."

"The speed of light?" General Zhang was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"It means we don't need to chase it," Su Zheng pointed to his head, "we can anticipate it."

He turned around and looked at Ye Xinyi behind him.

"Xinyi, is 'Red Star One' ready?"

"Ready." Ye Xinyi's eyes gleamed with excitement. "All radar data has been connected to the computer. The calculation task for the implosion model has just finished, and its computing power is currently available."

"it is good."

Su Zheng waved his hand and said, "Feed all the flight trajectory data of that 'ghost' to 'Red Star One'. I want it to calculate where this fly will appear next."

……

The computing center is located on the third basement level.

That tiny black lump, no bigger than a lunchbox—the "Red Star No. 1" transistor computer—was running at full power once again.

The red LED lights were flashing wildly.

It is consuming the massive amounts of data transmitted back by the radar.

In traditional air defense operations, radar can only see where the target is "now". By the time the missile is launched and reaches that location, the target has long since disappeared.

Especially for high-speed targets like Mach 3, the traditional "three-point method" guidance is completely ineffective.

There must be "advance planning".

An extremely complex interception curve must be calculated so that the missile and the target "collide" at some point in the future.

This requires solving an extremely complex system of differential equations.

Using an abacus? You wouldn't be able to figure it out even by next year.

But this is a piece of cake compared to "Red Star One".

"Beep—"

The green light comes on.

A set of coordinate data appears on the oscilloscope.

"It's calculated!" Ye Xinyi shouted, "This is its predicted position three minutes from now! The error is no more than 50 meters!"

Su Zheng stared at the coordinates, his eyes filled with murderous intent.

"Send these coordinates to the Second Battalion."

"Tell the second battalion commander that there is no need to lock onto the target or activate radar guidance. Set the missile's fuse to 'command detonation'."

"Fire the missile at these coordinates, and then...blow it up at that spot!"

"Explode?" General Zhang was dumbfounded. "Su Zheng, you're... firing blindly? Is this going to work?"

This is called "waiting for a rabbit to run into a tree stump".

Su Zheng smiled coldly, "Or... plant a landmine on the fly's inevitable path."

……

Deep in the Gobi Desert, the position of the 2nd Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion.

Three HQ-1 missiles have been raised, pointing straight to the sky.

"Azimuth 120, Elevation 75, Distance 28000!"

"Preset detonation time: 180 seconds later!"

The second battalion commander's palms were sweaty. He had fought his whole life, but he had never fought such a "mysterious" battle. Firing at an empty sky without looking at the radar or the target?

Isn't this just a case of blind cat catching a dead mouse?

But an order is an order.

"emission!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Three fire dragons rose from the ground, piercing the sky.

Instead of chasing their usual target, they flew off in a completely inexplicable direction like three drunken men.

At an altitude of 20,000 meters.

The silver-white drone (Tu-123 prototype) is still flying arrogantly.

Its cameras are frantically filming the ground. In its logic, no weapon on this land can threaten it.

It's like a rich kid speeding through a deserted area.

until……

In front of it, in the previously empty void, three small suns suddenly lit up.

"boom--!!!"

The three missiles detonated simultaneously with an error margin of milliseconds.

Although it did not directly hit the target, the massive explosion created a terrifying "wall of shrapnel" in the thin stratosphere.

Tens of thousands of pre-fabricated fragments, like a deadly net, instantly enveloped the drone hurtling towards them at high speed.

"Bang bang bang bang——"

Even though it is made of expensive titanium alloy, and even though its structure is incredibly robust.

However, at a relative speed of Mach 3, the impact of hitting a fragment the size of a mung bean is no less powerful than being bombarded by a heavy artillery shell.

The drone's left air intake was instantly destroyed.

The engine stopped.

Out of control of posture.

The arrogant ghost began to tumble in the air, billowing black smoke, like a vulture whose wings had been shot off by a shotgun, screaming as it plummeted to the ground.

……

In the command center.

The red dot on the radar screen disappeared instantly.

"Got it! Got it!"

The radar operator jumped up excitedly, his headset flying off.

General Zhang opened his mouth wide and couldn't close it for a long time.

"Amazing... Absolutely amazing..."

He looked at Su Zheng standing to the side with the eyes of someone looking at a monster, "You kid... you can even predict the future of missiles?"

Su calmly put away his toolbox.

"It's not that I can tell fortunes, it's that math doesn't lie."

"Also," Su Zheng pointed to the crash site displayed on the radar, "quickly send people to retrieve the debris. That thing's engine has high-temperature resistant ceramic blades. And its skin is top-grade titanium alloy."

"Those are the materials we desperately need to make 'firecracker' detonators."

"If you go too late, the villagers will take you back and use you as a hoe."

……

three days later.

The materials workshop of Base 504.

That "foreign land" that fell from the sky has been completely demolished, leaving not a trace.

Su Zheng held a ceramic fragment extracted from the wreckage of a drone in his hand.

[The Eye of Truth: Analysis.]

[Ingredients: Zirconia-toughened alumina ceramic.]

【Features: Temperature resistance up to 3000 degrees Celsius, hardness 9.5, excellent insulation properties.】

"This is good stuff."

Su Zheng praised, "Big Brother is so generous, he gives you whatever you need."

With this ceramic material, the problems of insulation and heat-resistant outer shell for high-precision detonators are solved.

In addition, high-purity gold wire removed from the U-2 was used as the lead wire.

A problem that had plagued China's military industry for several years was miraculously solved through a method that was almost like "picking up scraps".

"Dean Su."

Ye Xinyi walked in, holding a data report that had just been printed out.

That was the simulation data of the entire implosion process that "Red Star-1" had just completed.

"The results are in."

Ye Xinyi's voice trembled slightly, "The theoretical model...is perfectly closed."

"In other words, as long as we follow these blueprints, manufacture those explosive blocks, and install the detonators..."

"It can make a sound."

Su Zheng took the report.

To him, the densely packed data on it was a most beautiful symphony.

From hand-made machine tools to hand-made computers, and then to shooting down drones to seize materials.

Every step of this journey has felt like dancing on a knife's edge.

But finally, they reached the end.