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Chapter 1207: The Wind at Wanhu Corner (Third update, please subscribe)
Wanhu Cape has a unique beauty in the evening. The gentle breeze blows from the sea, and the sea, beach, coconut grove and sunset together form a beautiful picture.

In this picture, the most eye-catching thing is the huge launch tower, which is just one of them. With the development of the aerospace industry, Wanhujiao now has four launch sites. Four launch pads of different sizes are lined up along the coastline, which is spectacular.

On the coastal highway leading to the launch site, there is an electric transport vehicle parked - this type of electric vehicle using sealed lead-acid batteries is very common in Southeast Asia. Although its range is limited, it is very suitable for use as an on-site transport vehicle.

Zhang Yuanpeng, who was sitting in the shuttle bus, first handed a cigarette to his friend, and then just sat there, smoking silently. Occasionally, he would cast his eyes towards the No. 5 launch pad in the distance, where a Wanhu- rocket stood. In a few hours, it would send three artificial satellites into space.

Following the United States and the Soviet Union, Southeast Asia will be the third country to achieve the "multiple satellites with one rocket" technology.

However, when looking at the rocket, Zhang Yuanpeng was thinking about the "Peacekeeper" intercontinental missile, which was the intercontinental missile that Nanyang had just successfully developed. Its range was 12000 kilometers. When developing this missile, in order to improve its accuracy, he used high-performance computers - computers composed of multiple integrated circuits. Its response time and system performance have been qualitatively improved, far superior to the intercontinental missile systems of the United States and the Soviet Union at that time.

As an engineer involved in the development of this missile, Zhang Yuanpeng stared at the rocket in the distance and said to himself:
"It's a shame not to use this kind of technology on missiles!"

"what?"

Wang Pingan, who was sitting next to him, asked in confusion:

"What technology?"

"Multiple stars with one arrow."

Pointing at the rocket in the distance, Zhang Pengyuan said:
“Although our Peacekeeper has a range of only 12000 kilometers, you know, because of the equator, its payload is more than one ton. It is a pity that such a missile can only launch one nuclear warhead.

The miniaturization of nuclear bombs is going very smoothly now. If we use the technology of launching multiple satellites with one rocket, we can launch at least four nuclear bombs to the enemy country. Attack four or even ten targets at the same time!"

For all the engineers involved in the Peacekeeper, although they are very aware that the performance of the Peacekeeper is very advanced, if its performance can be further improved, naturally no one will refuse it.

"By then, one of our missiles will be equivalent to several missiles, and only a limited number of intercontinental missiles will be needed to destroy a country."

When mentioning "destroying a country", Zhang Pengyuan's tone seemed very calm, as if he was mentioning one thing at a time.

It is the characteristic of the nuclear war era that war is no longer aimed at winning or losing the war, but at destroying the enemy country and using destruction as a means.

It is under the deterrence of nuclear weapons that the world has truly entered an era of peace. After all, before this, the purpose of war was based on victory.
Now, in the age of nuclear weapons, the purpose of war has changed. It has become destruction, with destruction as the ultimate goal of war.

Therefore, for Zhang Pengyuan, the question he needs to think about is how to maximize the power of the "Peacekeeper" intercontinental missile so that he can more easily complete his designed mission - to wipe out the enemy country from the earth.

"Your idea is normal. We have been studying this since the Americans used the upper stage of the Thor-Able rocket to send three satellites into low-Earth orbit last year. The Americans publicized this for this reason, to tell the Soviets that they can launch several nuclear bombs at once."

This is the truest side of the Cold War. The so-called "space exploration" is actually serving the purpose of war, but everyone is wearing the cloak of "for peace" and "for all mankind". To put it bluntly, it is just to sound good, but deep down they all want to destroy them!
Of course, nice things always need to be said, but they are said to outsiders.

Wang Pingan said.

"But don't forget, accuracy. To put it simply, 'one rocket, multiple satellites' is the technology of clustered multiple warheads. All you have to do is scatter the warheads over the target area like sprinkling salt, but the question is, what about accuracy?"

Turning his head to look at Zhang Pengyuan, Wang Pingan said:
“Don’t forget, when we were developing the Peacekeeper, we discovered that doubling the missile’s strike accuracy means that to destroy the same target, the warhead equivalent needed can be reduced to 1/4 of the original amount.

If the accuracy of the hit remains unchanged, the destructive capability will increase by about 1 times if the power of the warhead increases by 0.6 time. If the power of the warhead remains unchanged and the accuracy of the hit increases by 1 time, the destructive capability will increase by about 3 times.

In short, improving the accuracy of the strike is much more effective than increasing the power of the warhead. That is why we spend so much energy to solve its accuracy problem. "

As soon as Wang Ping'an finished speaking, Zhang Pengyuan asked back.

“How is the accuracy problem solved?”

"Computers! Improving strike accuracy depends largely on the performance of the onboard computer and gyroscope."

"Yes, it's the computer. In fact, without a powerful onboard computer, it would be impossible to implement multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles."

Zhang Pengyuan said as he explained:

"At present, our computers and guidance systems cannot meet the needs of MIRVs. The main reason is that their performance cannot meet the requirements of fast trajectory calculation. By the time the CPU calculates the trajectory, the warhead has already missed the window."

"That's why they have to complete the calculations on the ground and then release the satellites one by one. Satellites can be launched this way, but missiles can't. When we were developing the Peacekeeper, one of the technical indicators was that the guidance system did not rely on any information outside the missile. Only in this way can we implement a real nuclear counterattack under the conditions of a nuclear war."

In fact, the Wanhu-5 rocket has never been a qualified strategic missile because it relies not only on observations of stars or land positions, but also on radio or radar signals, which means that if the command center or tracking and control ship is destroyed, it will become blind.

However, the Peacekeeper's inertial guidance system does not rely on such external information, thus achieving a truly fire-and-forget approach. "That is to say, without a powerful computer, a single arrow with multiple missiles is actually just a cluster bomb. Once it reaches the target and releases the warhead, the effect is not much different from one."

Listening to Wang Ping'an's analysis, Zhang Pengyuan pursed his lips and said:

"Then let's develop a more powerful computer. As long as we solve this problem, the rest of the problems will not be a problem!"

When Zhang Pengyuan said this, his eyes were fixed on the Wanhu-5 rocket. His eyes were filled with a certain desire. All he was thinking about was one question - how to protect the safety of Nanyang as much as possible!

An hour later, facing the afterglow of the setting sun, the Wanhu-5 rocket was successfully launched again, and once again successfully sent a satellite into space.

Although Nanyang has launched the fewest rockets in the past few years, and even did not launch its first lunar probe until the end of last year, Nanyang has been steadily advancing its rocket program step by step, and is moving towards a long-term goal bit by bit.

Moon!

There is a photo of the moon hanging in Qian Fukang's office. It was a photo of the moon taken by "Yutu-1". This photo represents a certain vision - landing on the moon.

However, in Qian Fukang’s current work, developing moon landing rockets is not the most important thing. The most important thing is missiles.

"Solid rocket engine!"

Pointing to the drawing on the drawing board, Qian Fukang said:

"The military's requirements are very simple. They require that submarine-launched missiles must use solid fuel engines."

In fact, in Nanyang, no one knows more about submarine-launched missiles than Qian Fukang. The plan for Nanyang's first generation of submarine-borne ballistic missiles was to slightly modify the "Wanhu IV" medium-range missiles that used liquid propellant on land and equip them on ships to form a ship-borne weapon system.

Qian Fukang, who had just arrived in Nanyang, was in charge of compromising the "Wanhu IV" missile, changing its original length of 29 meters and diameter of 2.41 meters to 17.7 meters and diameter of 2.67 meters. However, it had the same problem as the "Wanhu IV", that is, deploying a liquid propellant missile as a strategic missile system, which had many problems and difficulties in logistics, safety, launch and combat.

In addition, the ship-borne "Wan Hu IV" missile can only be temporarily refilled with liquid propellant before launch, which is time-consuming and complicated; when the missile is launched from a submarine, the missile takes off at a low acceleration, which may cause serious problems and consequences. Therefore, the modified missile cannot meet the Navy's expectations of simplicity, reliability, and rapid and timely launch.

However, even so, the Navy's technical department still conducted a large number of experiments with it and finally successfully achieved underwater launch, but this did not solve the problem of its complex launch.

Therefore, the development of new submarine-launched missiles has become a top priority, especially since the Navy has included ballistic missile nuclear submarines in its plan.

"But if we use solid-state engines, the range may not be able to meet the Navy's requirements. Solid-state engines have low thrust. Even the US Polaris has a launch weight of only 12 tons and a range of only more than 2000 kilometers."

As the most authoritative rocket engineer in Nanyang, Eugene Gesan is very clear about the performance advantages and disadvantages of liquid rocket engines and solid rocket engines. The former can be easily made bigger and stronger, but the latter is impossible.

"Let's do it step by step. According to the Navy's requirements, the missile length cannot exceed 10 meters. This means that if we want to increase the range, we can only make changes to the missile diameter and missile body material. The first is to reduce the weight of the missile body as much as possible. I already have a plan for this. The shell of the second-stage rocket is made of fiberglass. The second is to increase the missile width appropriately..."

After introducing his ideas one by one, Qian Fukang turned his gaze to Eugene and said:
"But the most critical thing is the solid rocket engine,"

Facing Qian Fukang's gaze, Eugene thought for a while and replied.

"We are currently developing a 15-ton solid rocket. We have basically solved the technical problems. If everything goes well, we can probably produce a sample by the middle of the year."

Eugene's answer made Qian Fukang fall into deep thought. He silently took out a cigarette and smoked for a while, then said:

"15 tons is still a little too small. The range is only 3000 km at most, which is still a long way from the Navy's requirements. Can you think of another way? Even a few hundred kilograms would be good. After all, for a missile, even a hundred or two hundred kilometers away is very important."

In response to this request, Eugene shrugged helplessly and said:
"There is really no other way. At least until high-performance propellants are developed, there is no other way. For now, you can only work on the missiles."

What kind of fuss should be made about missiles?
Of course, it is to further optimize the missile body design, and also to use new materials. Of course, it is also possible to design a lighter self-guided system.

Although there are many ways, none of them is easy to solve. Therefore, for Qian Fukang, there are many problems that need to be solved next.

"The best way is to increase the length of the missile..."

Although he said this, Qian Fukang knew that this was impossible. After all, ballistic missile nuclear submarines were currently being manufactured, and the size of the missile was limited by the size of the submarine.

“It’s really a pity…”

(End of this chapter)