Become a super arms dealer with the workshop system

Chapter 122 Storm Shadow Cruise Missile
At the same time, in Gaul, President François has also launched an investigation, because members of the National Defense Secretariat misled the President in some "specific circumstances" and asked the Air Force to formulate a wrong bombing plan, This led to the arrest of the pilot.

In this way, the verbal confrontation between you and me is just a superficial confrontation. Behind this, both sides are ready for the next round of cards.

Echo has spread the news about the storage control module step by step, and set up 7 false targets at a distance from each other, and Echo himself will not disclose the road in the next few days. From the side, it is confirmed that he "is trying to find a way to obtain the confidential information in the module".

Before Echo left, he called 7 mid-level officers in the army and told them to go to such and such a place to find him if they were in a hurry. It was a kind of blunt way to "hint" himself and the storage control module. location.

So everything was ready, only to launch an attack after Gaul received the information.

At midnight two days later, on the Atlantic Ocean near the west coast of the Afrikaans, the Gallic Navy's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier formation was slowly heading southeast.

Ten minutes ago, the fleet suddenly received an order from the mainland asking them to launch an attack on a coordinate located in central Africa.The Naval Staff Department did not give the specific reason for the attack, but only stated that this mission was very important, involving the confidential information of the Gaul army and even the entire treaty organization.

The original plan was to let the MQ9 unmanned aerial vehicle deployed to Chad a few days ago carry out this mission, but due to the weather in N'Djamena, the unmanned aerial vehicle could not take off in a short period of time, so the mission had to be dispatched to the Navy Aviation.

On the deck of the aircraft carrier, a group of crew members wearing various vests are carrying out bombing operations in an orderly manner around a Rafale M fighter jet parked at the end of the take-off area. The pilot, Captain Emily Dennis, is sitting in the cockpit. While listening to the mission briefing, he checked the mission route sent from the fleet command room.

This carrier-based aircraft, which has been on standby and ready to take off at any time, was originally designed to deal with possible emergency air situations, so it only carried two radar-type and two infrared-type Mika air-to-air missiles, and now it needs to be replaced with anti-aircraft missiles. Only ground weapons can carry out bombing missions.

As the No.1 female carrier-based aircraft pilot of the Gallic Navy, Emily has never carried out such a mission to strike deep into the hinterland of an uncontrolled area before, and in recent days, such a rumor has been pervasive among the pilots on the Charles de Gaulle - The Mirage 2000D that the Air Force lost a few days ago was not due to a mechanical failure, but was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile or something.

Although the commander of the aviation wing publicly denied such rumors in a previous meeting, this kind of operation of 300 taels of silver here seems to make this statement even more true.

"call--"

Emily exhaled a dirty breath, told herself not to think wildly, and then looked back at the preparations of the plane.

The canards of the Rafale M fighter somewhat blocked the view, but Emily still saw an ammunition trailer parked next to the wings, on which was a huge GBU24 laser-guided bomb, a 2000-pound ground-to-ground bomb The weapon can basically ensure the destruction of most ground targets with one blow. The only disadvantage is that the launch distance is very short, and the aircraft must maintain laser irradiation on the target until it hits. This is not so easy for a single-seat fighter. Task, And it's more dangerous.

To Emily's surprise, when she looked back a few minutes later, she found that the bomb had still not been attached to the wing.

"Is there something wrong with the pavement road? I saw that the maintenance has not carried out the bombing operation." Emily asked by radio.

"The regiment leader is having a meeting at the headquarters. It seems that some other situation has arisen. Please wait a moment." The answer came from the radio that made Emily a little worried. Compared with the risk of the combat mission itself, she was more worried. What's more, the captain didn't trust her enough, so he chose to replace her with a male pilot to participate in the battle.

In fact, Emily has regarded Joan of Arc as her idol since she was very young. Later, she joined the army and became a carrier-based aircraft pilot. Even so, when they actually entered the combat force, the thinking of the commanders was still not so easy to be reversed.

At the same time, in the conference room on the Charles de Gaulle, the staff of the aircraft carrier formation was conducting an emergency meeting.

However, the content of their discussion has nothing to do with Emily's gender, but whether the Navy should let its aircraft go deep into CAF airspace to take risks after the Air Force has lost an aircraft and two pilots.

Using a one-ton laser-guided bomb to solve the problem is of course the safest solution. The pilot can directly control the bomb and watch the target be destroyed. If any unexpected situation occurs in the middle, it can be dealt with in time. Said, he is not willing to take such a risk.

Although the Rafale is a far younger and superior aircraft than the Mirage 2000, four have crashed in the past six years, all of the Navy type.

"Actually, we still have a more secure weapon." The captain finally chose to take a step back, and he adjusted the PPT on the big screen to the interface introducing the mission target: "The target of this air strike is a building that is not well-known in the local area. It is a common two-story concrete building, and this place is far away from the dense forest, with a wide field of vision around it, and there are not many obstacles. It is a relatively easy target for image matching guidance, so it can be considered not to enter CAF airspace and launch in Gabon A storm shadow, much safer that way."

There were some murmurs in the conference room, but ultimately no one objected.

In fact, this is what the fleet commander wants most, but he still hopes to bring up the matter of launching an expensive cruise missile to bomb a dilapidated house through someone else's mouth.

So after a while, Emily, who was already a little impatient, found through the rearview mirror inside the cockpit that the GBU24 had been towed away again by the maintenance, and the Damocles pod under the air intake on her right had also been taken away. down.

It can be said that she is afraid of what comes, and all this seems to indicate that she is getting farther and farther away from this mission.

"I saw that the bombs and day and night targeting pods were taken away. What happened?" Emily asked worriedly, afraid that she would hear an answer like mission termination.

"The captain ordered to change the attack method. The new mission route has been sent to you, and the ammunition will be in place soon." The answer from the flight control room finally relieved Emily's hanging heart.

"Shadow of the Storm?" Emily looked at the mission information on the multi-function display in front of her in surprise. During her several years of service, she hadn't even launched a cruise missile of this kind. She didn't expect to use it for the first time. It's actual combat.

"That's right, so you can fire your weapon within Gabon's airspace and then return home."

Gabon is still a loyal ally of Gaul, and its airspace is basically completely open, so it is naturally much safer.

"Okay, that's fine." Emily's worries about mission risks also disappeared, but as a weapon that is fired and left alone, Storm Shadow has almost no requirements for pilots, and everything is set in advance. You only need to fly to the predetermined position and shoot the missile out.

After completing all preparations, Emily took a deep breath and slowly pushed the throttle valve to the afterburner position. Following the flight control room's release instructions, she felt a violent thrust from behind her. The 20-ton weight The aircraft is accelerated forward by being dragged by the ejection slider.

Emily tensed her neck muscles almost subconsciously to resist the violent shock of the steam catapult's initial stroke. This is a part of female pilot's inherent weakness, but she has always done well.

After taking off, the Rafale M quickly followed the scheduled route, turned to the direction of 75, and climbed to a height of 1.2 meters. The paper range of the storm shadow is more than 500 kilometers, but this can only be achieved under the condition of a high ballistic trajectory. Fortunately, The shape of this weapon has a certain stealth capability, CAF, and even the entire southern Saran area does not have an air defense weapon that can intercept it.

Compared with the two unlucky ghosts of the Air Force, Emily's flight mission was so dull that it was almost boring. When she reached the weapon launch position and pulled the trigger of the weapon, she looked back at the cruise missile under the left wing leaving the hanger. The frame slowly fell, and after about half a second, it started the engine and began to accelerate forward, and soon disappeared from sight.

"The missile has been launched, Kingfisher 03 is ready to return." Emily reported in a dull tone.

At the moment she said these words, she had a premonition that the result of this mission might not be as smooth as expected.

As a top student, Emily is very familiar with the performance of every weapon of the Rafale. The flying speed of the Storm Shadow is only about 0.8 times the speed of sound, and it takes about 30 minutes to complete the flight. Since no one is in the loop function, once it is launched, There is no way to control it. If the target is transferred during this process, it will be blown up. From this perspective, it is not a weapon suitable for striking time-sensitive targets.

"Congratulations on completing your first combat mission, rookie." The captain's voice came over the radio: "We will prepare a small ceremony for you to celebrate when you come back."

"Thank you, I feel good too." The captain's words made Emily put the slightest worry behind her. She felt that she might be a little unfounded. After all, the goal is a house that will not move, even if there is something important inside. Characters are also unlikely to leave suddenly in the middle of the night.

(End of this chapter)