Traveling Back to the 1960s: The Entire Internet Teaches Me How to Build Missiles

With Professor Hou's "secret" guidance in the live broadcast room, Zhou Yunxiao wrote out a series of extremely complex dynamic scattering equations on the blackboard with great flair.

He also bluntly pointed out the flaws in the other party's "marking the boat to find the sword" approach.

Li Difeng clicked his tongue in amazement, and a look of self-doubt, just like Shen Weidong's, appeared on his face. He stood in front of the blackboard, deep in thought.

At this moment, Technician Shen, who had finally recovered his senses, said coldly:

"Comrade, the radio proximity fuse of the Red Pawn No. 1 has limited performance. Why not simply abandon fuse detection and choose the 'crude aiming' method commonly used by the Surinames, and amplify the damage range of the warhead to compensate for the lack of accuracy?"

"Or, as Engineer Li said, if we take the near-detonation fuse into account, then the missile's detonation aiming point should be the geometric center of the aircraft... As for the delay of tens of milliseconds you mentioned, I don't think it's a very significant variable!"

Zhou Yunxiao shook his head. "Comrade Shen, you seem to be a little too optimistic."

"What do you mean by that?"

Technician Shen, who was always the center of attention, blushed and felt hot-faced as a young man repeatedly questioned him.

Zhou Yunxiao said, "A speed of tens of milliseconds, on top of the Red Chess No. 1's Mach 3.5 speed, becomes an extremely considerable variable. Add to that the relative speed of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, and you really dare to completely ignore it?"

Shen Weidong was speechless for a moment. After pondering for a while, he changed his tune and went down the donkey path.

"Alright, even if this variable is worth considering, I can just add it back. Anyway, it's not a very complicated algorithm. I admit I didn't think it through before."

Zhou Yunxiao shook his head again and said, "Not enough..."

"What's not enough? What else do you want?"

Shen Weidong stared at him intently, feeling that this kid wasn't there to help, but rather to sabotage him.

Zhou Yunxiao stood with his hands behind his back for a while, then looked at Shen Weidong and Li Difeng, picked up the chalk, and drew a new ballistic intersection diagram on the blackboard.

"Neither Comrade Shen's nor Engineer Li's proposals are perfect just because they address the flaws."

"I have a third approach... This approach still focuses on the proximity fuse of the Red Chess No. 1, but the truly optimal aiming point is neither on the edge of the aircraft nor at its geometric center, but in a virtual spatial coordinate that is invisible to the naked eye but exists in front of the aircraft!"

Boom!

The chalk stub was heavily poked into the blank space in front of the ballistic intersection diagram.

The onlookers erupted in a flurry of surprised and uncertain discussions.

"Why detonate the missile at this location?"

"Could high-explosive fragments hit an aircraft? The blast cone's range is unlikely to cover the plane..."

"Does this kid even know what a surface-to-air missile is? He's so naive!"

Faced with the crowd's discussion, Zhou Yunxiao calmly said:

"My method only requires calculating the signal accumulation time and detonation delay time of the proximity fuse, the initial velocity at the moment of warhead detonation and the initial velocity of static fragmentation, and then listing the time lead and spatial advance."

"Next, we can reverse engineer the design. Based on vulnerable parts of the aircraft, such as the cockpit and fuel tanks, and combined with the dynamic dispersion cone of the fragments, we can deduce a virtual spatial coordinate system. This is theoretically feasible."

"In this way, the Hongqi-1 missile does not need to be aimed at the aircraft itself at the end of its flight. It only needs to be aimed at a blank coordinate point below or to the side of the aircraft to trigger the fuse."

"After a delay of several tens of seconds, the missile arrived just in time to strike the aircraft's kill zone, and the resulting fragmentation cone easily covered the entire plane!"

Seeing how confident he spoke, some comrades began to unconsciously believe him.

However, Engineer Li and Technician Shen seemed unable to accept this bold assumption, believing that the original plan was more reliable.

Seeing that the debate between the two leaders was about to escalate into a three-way battle, instructor Tian Fulin finally stepped forward. He and Xu Haifeng separated the three and smoothed things over, saying:

"Uh...hehe, Engineer Li, Technician Shen, and Comrade Zhou from the first division had a very interesting debate just now. I benefited a lot from it too!"

"I believe that regardless of right or wrong, a well-debated argument will clarify the truth! As for your respective proposals... Dr. Xu, which one do you think is better?"

Xu Haifeng from the fourth division looked at the three people, his lips moved slightly, but he couldn't say anything coherent.

He dared not claim to have much insight into the Red Chess No. 1 surface-to-air missile; being a newcomer, he decided to conduct further research before drawing conclusions.

Xu Haifeng shook his head.

Coach Tian gave an awkward smile, and seeing this, he had no choice but to make a decision himself. Then he slapped his forehead and said:

"Alright, since all three of you experts have unique insights, let's divide into groups for discussion!"

"Each of you continue to refine your own plan, and we'll have a horse race. After a while, we'll conduct target drone tests. While truth becomes clearer through debate, the battlefield is where the real test comes in. Then, it will be immediately clear which method is right and which is wrong, won't it?"

Coach Tian proposed the idea of ​​horse racing, advancing on all three fronts simultaneously, and Zhou Yunxiao had no objections.

After a moment's thought, Engineer Li and Technician Shen agreed.

So Tian Fulin waved his hand, and the grand internal marathon began.

Zhou Yunxiao was assigned to an office that was pitifully small and staffed only by two young men who looked rather clumsy and were probably just transferred from university.

Zhou Yunxiao didn't care. Anyway, he didn't lack assistants. Two million cyber workers in the live broadcast room were all ready to help!

However, there are too few calculators.

Keep in mind that this was in the 60s. If Zhou Yunxiao had simply asked the viewers in the live stream to help him calculate the answer, and had only provided a clean missile blueprint and core data without supporting calculations on dozens of pages of draft paper, he might have been arrested by the security department as an enemy agent.

In order not to violate basic scientific research principles, he decided to call two more calculators.

However, the people in the third division were basically all occupied by Li Difeng, and no one volunteered to come to Zhou Yunxiao's side.

It's not good for outsiders to chant sutras, so he borrowed Xiao Su and Li Baoqiang from the First Division to come and help.

Xiao Su is the head of the data processing group, and Baoqiang is a top student who graduated from the mathematics department of Tsinghua or Peking University.

So the small team in the office was temporarily expanded to five people!

Zhou Yunxiao was responsible for the overall design, proposing theories, establishing physical models, determining final parameters, and reviewing all results.

Xiao Su was in charge of all data processing, Bao Qiang was in charge of ballistic calculations, mathematical calculations and warhead calculations, and the other two college students were responsible for drawing blueprints and compiling technical reports, respectively.

The derivation process of the "No. 3 aiming scheme" for the Hongqi-1 missile was long and tedious.

Although it felt great to be in the limelight, Zhou Yunxiao found it quite challenging to break down those brief summaries into detailed blueprints and ensure they were flawless.

Fortunately, he had a think tank.

Professor Hou gave instructions and guidance on his next steps during the live broadcast:

[Comrade Zhou, stay calm and don't panic, we're here. First, go to the blackboard and build a relative kinematic model. Have that college student named Baoqiang write down the relative position vectors of Red Chess No. 1 and the target aircraft, and substitute the velocity of the RB-57 reconnaissance aircraft into the initial integral...]

[Then, I instructed Xiao Su to create a dynamic dispersion cone for the fragments. I told her that, assuming the static dispersion angle of the fragments is α and the missile velocity is v, the final dynamic dispersion angle θ needs to satisfy the following formula... I had her create a table and calculate it angle by angle!]

As for the other two college students, don't let them sit idle either. Have them draw the radiation pattern of the fuse antenna, tell them to take the preset value for the beam center downtilt angle, and use polar coordinates to trace the envelope of the radiation lobes bit by bit!

With Professor Hou's guidance, Zhou Yunxiao confidently assigned tasks.

At the same time, they are actively absorbing knowledge about surface-to-air missiles.

Every day, Zhou Yunxiao would move a chair to his desk and sit down, then immerse himself in the comments section of the live stream, often staying there for half a day at a time.

Aside from occasionally getting up to stretch his muscles and check on progress, he almost never interacts with people.

While viewers in the live stream were still confused, he always managed to pinpoint the most crucial questions.

Therefore, Zhou Yunxiao's extensive knowledge, excellent memory, and eagerness to learn left a good impression on Professor Hou.

Professor Hou praised him generously, saying he was a talented person who would eventually become a leading figure in the field of missiles, even without relying on the power of the live broadcast room!