Chapter 215 Naval Advantage

From the perspective of preparation, the attack on Australia was definitely the most complete one in the two years before the war.

As mentioned earlier, Mu Haoyang prepared a large army of six million, with more than two million ground troops alone, and the main force was the elite Marine Corps.

In fact, some details of preparations can better reflect Mu Haoyang's attention to this offensive operation.

In early 2054, China began to produce improved ground warfare platforms, mainly replacing the original battery system with second-generation fuel cells and improving the corresponding equipment. Although the new ground warfare platform was mainly sent to the mainland battlefield, Mu Haoyang solved this problem for the Marine Corps. The solution was to purchase modification kits separately to improve the existing ground warfare platforms of the Marine Corps.

Of course, the Army is doing so.

However, with Mu Haoyang's efforts, the Army only obtained a newly produced ground warfare platform, and the modification kits were all provided to the Marine Corps.

The result is that during this year, the Marines modified all ground war platforms.

Interestingly, by the end of the year, the Army had new ground warfare platforms, which accounted for only about 40%, and the total amount was less than those modified by the Marine Corps.

In terms of combat performance, the modified ground war platform is no different from the newly produced ones.

Of course, there is another advantage of modification, that is, the replaced battery system can be stored so that it can be replaced in time for damaged platforms. The Army's battle on the mainland battlefield shows that it is almost impossible to replenish the ground war platforms of frontline combat troops in many cases. The most effective way is to directly replace the battery modules. The Marines learned the lesson and stored all the removed battery modules. In the subsequent battle against the Australian continent, these stored battery modules played a very critical role. Of course, the Marines finally dealt with all the first generation of ground war platforms, and basically provided free assistance to the Allies.

In the navy, Mu Haoyang was also well prepared.

After the Battle of the Solomon Islands, Mu Haoyang asked the aircraft carrier battle groups of the First Fleet to retreat in turn to rest, and only maintained four to five aircraft carrier battle groups on the front line. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the seven "Tarzan"-class aircraft carriers underwent the first full maintenance after service before the end of 2054, and replaced and added some equipment, such as replacing electromagnetic catapults with a service life of more than 3,000 times.

The most important improvement is on the large comprehensive warship of the "Heilongjiang" class.

By the end of 2054, all fourteen large-scale comprehensive warships of "Heilongjiang" class underwent the first upgrade and transformation, and the main improvement project was to replace them with new large-diameter coil electromagnetic guns.

As early as the Second Naval Battle of Digo Garcia, the Navy discovered that the large-caliber coil electromagnetic gun had a problem of too close range and insufficient power. Often dozens of shells could not sink a 20,000-ton warship, and the possibility of sinking a super aircraft carrier with shells was almost zero.

In fact, in the previous naval battles, no aircraft carrier was directly sunk by large-caliber electromagnetic cannon shells.

Initially, the Navy initially solved the problem of insufficient range by developing extended range bombs, but made the problem of low power of the shell more prominent.

The Battle of the Solomon Islands has proved that the new range-extended bomb is not even enough to hit the US military's cruisers.

To cure this problem, the only way is to develop a brand new large-caliber electromagnetic gun.

Within one year, the Southwest Electronics and Electromagnetic Equipment Research Institute, which is responsible for the development of large-diameter coil electromagnetic guns, completed the work that took five years or even ten years to complete in the past, and developed the second-generation large-diameter coil electromagnetic gun with a maximum muzzle diameter of 300 mm.

In addition to being able to develop in such a short time, in addition to strong technical accumulation, it is mainly to simplify the development process.

To put it simply, the 300 mm electromagnetic gun is obtained by amplification based on the original 200 mm electromagnetic gun.

Of course, this is definitely not simply scaled up.

In terms of muzzle energy, that is, the kinetic energy of the shell when it flies out of the muzzle, the 300 mm electromagnetic gun is five times that of the 200 mm electromagnetic gun, rather than one-five times the linear ratio. The muzzle energy of the electromagnetic gun directly determines the basic performance indicators of related equipment, such as the electrical energy reserve system, the power supply system, the cooling system, and the coil acceleration system, so these systems need to be redesigned.

It can be said that if it is done in normal times, it will definitely not be able to do it without five years.

By increasing the diameter of the gun, the performance of the new large-diameter coil electromagnetic gun has achieved a leap.

Strictly speaking, the diameter of the muzzle of a coil electromagnetic gun is not the basis for determining the diameter of the shell, because the diameter of the shell of the coil electromagnetic gun is definitely slightly smaller than the diameter of the muzzle. In addition, shells with much smaller diameter can be used by installing adapters and adjusting the firing energy. For example, a 300 mm electromagnetic gun can use a 200 mm electromagnetic gun. All you need to do is install a ring adapter for the shell and reduce the firing energy to the level of a 200 mm electromagnetic gun, but shells that exceed the diameter of the muzzle must not be used.

For the Navy, this is definitely a good thing.

You should know that the Navy's arsenal has produced hundreds of millions of 200 mm electromagnetic cannon shells, 8% of which are still stored in the warehouse at the same time. If the 200 mm electromagnetic cannon is directly eliminated and the 200 mm shells cannot be used, it is equivalent to wasting hundreds of billions of procurement funds.

In fact, the 200-mm electromagnetic cannon shell is enough to cope with more than 80% of combat operations.

Of course, to exert the power of the new electromagnetic gun, you have to use 300 mm shells.

Compared with the 200 mm shell, the 300 mm shell's weight increased by 600 kilograms, the end speed of the ballistic increased by 50%, reaching Mach 30, the kinetic energy of the shell increased by 7 times, and the lateral cross-sectional area of ​​the projectile only doubled. Therefore, when the projectile material is the same, the armor-piercing ability of the projectile was almost three times, enough to penetrate several layers of the aircraft carrier's deck. According to the Navy's test, the 300 mm shell can penetrate the seven-layer deck of the "Taishan" class aircraft carrier, while the 200 mm shell can only penetrate the five layers of the deck at most, and most of the shells will penetrate the third

Another benefit of explosion after deck. Increased projectile mass is that the charge volume increases, reaching 50 kilograms, which is basically twice that of a 200 mm shell, so the blasting power is also doubled. If it explodes in the ship, the damage ability of the shell is equivalent to seven times. The most obvious advantage is that the range is greatly increased. Without the method of extended range, the maximum range can reach 1,200 kilometers, and the range of extended range bullets is expected to exceed 2,000 kilometers. More importantly, even if the range is increased to 2,000 kilometers, the power is not worse than that of ordinary 200 mm shells.

With the new electromagnetic gun, warships are naturally needed to be equipped with new electromagnetic guns.

As early as 2053, the Navy approved the construction plan for the second large-scale comprehensive warship, and clearly required the 300 mm electromagnetic gun.

However, this large-scale comprehensive warship developed on the basis of the "Heilongjiang" class was not started in early 2054 and would not be put into service until the second half of 2055 at the earliest. The result was that when the 300 mm electromagnetic gun was completed in the second half of 2054, there was no suitable platform for carrying it.

You should know that the system of large-caliber electromagnetic guns weighs thousands of tons and is only installed on large integrated warships.

At that time, the Chinese Navy equipped anti-submarine warships with large-caliber electromagnetic guns, and made comprehensive system simplifications, such as reducing the reserve amount by half, reducing the continuous firing rate, simplifying the maintenance system, etc., which reduced the quality of the entire system to 2,000 tons, barely being able to be installed.

As for the 300 mm electromagnetic gun, it is obviously not allowed to be installed on an anti-submarine warship with a displacement of 10,000 tons.

Fortunately, the "Heilongjiang" class left room for improvement when designing, such as the modular weapon configuration method that can easily replace the weapon system. In this way, the easiest way to install a 300 mm electromagnetic gun for the "Heilongjiang" class is to create a new ground strike module.

However, there is a fixedly installed large-caliber electromagnetic gun on the "Heilongjiang" class.

The problem arises is that if this electromagnetic gun is not improved, then this warship must be equipped with two electromagnetic guns of different calibers, which requires two sets of fire control systems. There are more problems during combat, such as the different ballistic trajectories of the two shells, which makes the shelling more complicated.

After the Battle of the Solomon Islands, Mu Haoyang decided to carry out a comprehensive transformation of the fourteen active "Heilongjiang" class.

As for the sixteen ships under construction, they will be transformed before being delivered to the Navy.

As a result, by the beginning of 2055, the combat effectiveness of the Navy's large comprehensive warships had been comprehensively improved, and the extended-range bomb developed for the 300 mm electromagnetic gun was also delivered to the Navy at this time. After the acceptance was completed at the end of January, it will be officially provided to the combat troops.

The maximum range of this extended range bomb reaches 2,000 kilometers.

Because its power is comparable to that of 200 mm ordinary shells and can destroy all large warships, including super aircraft carriers, this is definitely a qualitative leap for the Chinese Navy. This means that there is no longer a need to let the artillery formation with large integrated warships as the core forward. It only needs to fight with the aircraft carrier battle group, and large integrated warships can use electromagnetic cannons to bombard enemy ships within the aviation combat distance. Tactical, this means that large integrated warships will always be active in the aircraft carrier battle group, obtain air defense cover provided by carrier-based aviation, and when attacked, they provide direct air defense cover for the aircraft carrier, so that the fleet's combat capabilities can be fully utilized.

To put it simply, unless the combat radius of carrier-based fighter jets is greatly increased, there will be no situation like the Battle of Solomon and the Battle of Solomon Islands.

Of course, China and the United States are trying to increase the combat radius of carrier-based fighters. In addition to the sixth-generation fighter jets represented by the F-51 and J-40 series, the combat radius of the fifth-generation fighter jets represented by the F-42 and J-33 has also been greatly improved.

However, these fighter jets will not be put into service until the end of 2055 at the earliest.

Obviously, in the upcoming Australian War, the Chinese Navy has an absolute advantage.

Chapter 215 Naval Advantage
Chapter completed!