Great Country Academician

The National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Energy Technology moved quickly.

Under the arrangement of the two Academicians Wang, the relevant preparations were completed quickly.

In the open outdoor test site, after several staff members completed the preliminary preparations, the huge electromagnetic railgun was slowly pushed out of the laboratory through the rails.

Such powerful weapons and equipment naturally cannot be tested through manual control. All the work is handed over to the fully automated intelligent control system.

After a series of adjustments were completed, the remaining debugging personnel also quickly evacuated the scene.

"Report! The preliminary preparations for the Thor electromagnetic railgun have been completed!"

In the observation laboratory of the test site, a uniformed staff member trotted over, saluted, and reported in a loud voice.

Academician Wang Yong nodded and smiled and said, "Let's start! Let Academician Xu see our results."

"Yes!"

The young staff saluted and trotted out.

In the observation room, monitoring equipment on all sides clearly displayed real-time images from all angles on different monitors.

Soon, through the large screen composed of more than ten screens, Xu Chuan saw that the electromagnetic railgun began to automatically adjust the angle and height of the barrel.

In the test site hundreds of meters away, targets of different materials were erected at different distances.

Some were stone walls made of stones, some were concrete walls, some were walls made of several layers of ordinary carbon steel plates, and some were walls made of special metals.

Although the materials of these test targets were different, without exception, each test body was quite thick.

The largest stone wall could not even be called a wall. It was not an exaggeration to say that it was a hill made of stones.

Through the picture transmitted by the monitoring, the thickest stone wall was visually estimated to be at least five meters thick.

"It's started."

Standing next to Xu Chuan, after staring at the monitoring screen for a while, Academician Wang Yong said softly.

Hearing this, Xu Chuan fixed his eyes on the monitoring screen. In the picture, the most eye-catching thing was the light red indicator light on the side of the tail of the electromagnetic railgun barrel.

That is the indicator light representing that the magnetic field strength of the room-temperature superconducting magnetic track of the battery rail gun has reached the launch standard.

When the strong magnetic field formed by the superconducting magnetic track reaches the set minimum launch standard, the indicator light will gradually change from light red to light green.

When the strong magnetic field reaches the peak strength, it will further change to dark green.

"Charging is complete, the magnetic field strength of the Thor is stable, and the first round of testing is about to begin."

Accompanied by an intelligent report in the laboratory, the light red indicator light at the tail of the electromagnetic rail gun flashed, and quickly jumped to light green like a revolving lantern.

Then, at the muzzle of the electromagnetic rail gun, a flame that looked similar to the muzzle flame of traditional artillery appeared in Xu Chuan's eyes.

Almost at the same time, the earth and stone wall composed of stones and a small amount of soil 500 meters away, like the earth hit by a meteorite, instantly collapsed and cracked, and smoke and dust flew up like the sun.

The stone wall, which was like a small hill, was directly hollowed out, and the scattered rubble flew around at a very high speed. The thrilling sound of the collision was transmitted back through the monitoring detection equipment and echoed in the observation room.

"Hiss~"

Looking at the earth and stone wall hit by the shell fired by the electromagnetic railgun in the monitoring screen, Xu Chuan took a breath of cold air.

The stone wall, which was at least five meters thick and dozens of meters wide, had been hit by a huge hole at this moment.

With the slowly scattered dust and foam appearing in front of everyone, the hole caused by this shell was also fully revealed.

The huge hole is estimated to be more than five meters so far, and the inside continues very deep. Some light can still be seen faintly, as if the whole hole has been penetrated, and the surface of the wall made of surrounding rocks and soil has shown a large number of cracks.

The damage caused by this shell, to some extent, is not weaker than the crater and power caused by a meteorite of the same size hitting the earth.

Of course, in general, meteorites with a diameter of less than one meter are almost impossible to hit the surface of the earth. Most of the time, they are burned up in the atmosphere.

However, the pure metal shells fired by the electromagnetic railgun will not have this problem.

Even if the muzzle velocity reaches 5,000 meters per second, the metal shells will not melt in the air.

In addition, the special shape of the shells, the shock wave formed on the surface at high speed will protect the shells themselves to a certain extent, which means that it can fully convert kinetic energy into damage to the greatest extent.

It is absolutely no problem to say that it causes more damage than meteorites of the same volume, even if the speed of this shell does not reach the normal speed of meteorites.

Just as Xu Chuan was shocked by the powerful destructive power formed by the electromagnetic railgun, various sensors throughout the playground also transmitted data to the control room.

The first thing that caught the eyes of everyone in the control room was the number transmitted from the speed sensor set not far from the muzzle of the "electromagnetic railgun".

"42s."

With an initial velocity of up to 4,300 meters per second, it can be said that no conventional shell in the world can achieve this level.

Even among hypersonic missiles, only a very small number of them can achieve a super-high-speed shell of Mach 12.5.

And more importantly, this is not a shell fired by this electromagnetic rail gun at full power. It has just reached the firing standard, and its power is already terrifying.

In the observation room, Zheng Hai, who came with him, stared at the experiment of the electromagnetic rail gun for a long time, with a look of shock in his eyes.

Suddenly, he seemed to remember something, turned to look at Xu Chuan, and asked curiously: "Professor, I remember that the advantage of electromagnetic rail gun technology is that it has excellent concealment, right?"

After recovering from the shock, Xu Chuan nodded and said, "Well, what's wrong? Is there any problem?"

Zheng Hai: "I noticed that when the Thor was firing, the muzzle seemed to have the same muzzle flash as a conventional artillery?"

Hearing this question, Xu Chuan smiled, and just as he was about to explain, Academician Wang Yong on the side smiled and interrupted: "Let me explain this question."

After a slight pause, he stared at the monitoring screen and said, "First of all, you should have noticed that the inner cross-section of the barrel of the electromagnetic railgun we are studying is not circular like traditional artillery, but rectangular."

"But artillery shells have to fly at high speeds in the air. In order to achieve air resistance, drag-reducing shapes are usually adopted, such as streamlined shapes, date pit shapes, etc. The Thor's projectiles adopt a conical shape."

"But a projectile of this shape is placed between two rails, and the contact area with the rails is small. It will produce a large resistance when launched, causing energy loss."

"So in order to reduce unnecessary energy loss, we added a bullet holder to the projectile, and designed the bullet holder into a rectangular shape to greatly increase the contact surface between the two rails."

"After the shell is fired from the muzzle, the sabot and the projectile separate. This process is similar to the sub-caliber tail-stabilized sabot-piercing sabot fired by a tank gun."

"The electromagnetic railgun requires a huge amount of electrical energy to launch, with the current intensity exceeding one million amps. The arc generated when the projectile comes out of the barrel creates a very high instantaneous temperature, which will vaporize part of the surface of the bullet holder with a lower melting point. And a ball of flame-like high-temperature plasma is formed at the muzzle."

"This is the so-called flame you see. It is two completely different things from traditional artillery."

"As for concealment~"

After a pause, he looked at Zheng Hai and said with a smile, "You don't have to worry about this at all."

"The muzzle flames can be weakened in some ways, and the sound. When the Thor happened just now, did you hear any obvious sounds?"

Hearing this question, Zheng Hai was stunned and quickly recalled it in his mind.

It seems that when the Thor was launched, he did not hear any obvious sound?

Rounds of destructive experiments are also ongoing, and various detection equipment and sensors installed on the test site transmit back different indicator data.

[Exit speed: 42s. 】

[Hit speed: 42s. 】

[Rock target damage level: 7.26]

[Concrete target damage degree: 6.98]

[Degree of damage to carbon steel target:.]

【.】

[500-meter shooting accuracy index: 99.9999]

[1,000-meter shooting accuracy index:.]

【.】

【Beyond Shooting Index.】

Different pieces of data are reported by various sensors or manually, and are presented to everyone in the control room.

These indicators and data are self-determined by domestic weapons experts through consultation. They are internal exchange data and can more accurately reflect the power and data of the electromagnetic railgun. (I made up random data)

As a new 'electromagnetic weapon', its judgment standards are definitely different from conventional artillery shells.

Of course, the testing method of 'electromagnetic weapons' is definitely different from the testing process of ordinary guns.

The usual inspections such as endurance test, anti-fouling test, harsh environment test, etc. will definitely not be done for the time being.

However, some basic data such as the initial velocity of the projectile, destructive power, and shooting accuracy can still be collected immediately.

In addition, electromagnetic interference tests that are not performed on ordinary artillery shells and missiles, or are rarely performed, are the focus of testing on electromagnetic railguns.

Looking at the data transmitted back in real time, Xu Chuan's eyes were full of interest.

The electromagnetic railgun jointly researched by the National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Energy Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences was even better than he expected.

Although he didn't know much about weapons, the experimental data generated by the test was enough to help him understand the power of this weapon from another aspect.

Standing behind Xu Chuan, Zheng Hai, who came with him, stared at the images fed back in real time on the monitoring screen with deep shock in his eyes.

As a soldier who came from that place, I am afraid no one will have more exposure to cutting-edge equipment than him.

It is no exaggeration to say that as long as domestic weapons and equipment or other military equipment are purchased by the military, they are basically the first batch of personnel to test and use them.

However, even though he had seen countless weapons and equipment, he was still shocked by the huge lethality of the electromagnetic rail gun in front of him.

At a distance of 500 meters, a conventional carbon steel plate of more than 70 centimeters, which is what is described in military terms as 700mm, is like paper in front of it, and is easily penetrated by pure metal shells.

Its power is so terrifying that it is simply unimaginable.

Perhaps many people may think that this data does not seem to be very good. A 50-centimeter-thick steel plate is a given for a super killer like an electromagnetic railgun.

Moreover, this level of armor destruction can be easily achieved by many missiles.

For example, the "Javelin" anti-tank missile produced by Lockheed Martin, the early model's armor penetration capability can reach 750 mm of homogeneous armor, and the later model's penetration capability has reached more than 1100 mm.

There is also the domestically produced heavy vehicle-mounted anti-tank missile Hongjian No. 10, which is also my country's fourth-generation anti-tank missile with a maximum armor penetration capability of up to 1600 mm.

And the latest improved version at last year's Armament Air Show, which claims to reach 1800 mm and can penetrate the frontal armor of various main battle tanks in the world, the Hongjian 10 series of anti-tank missiles, etc.

Compared to the 500-mm armor penetration of the electromagnetic railgun, the lethality of these anti-tank missiles is much better.

But the excellent evaluation of a weapon is not simply based on armor penetration.

In addition to lethality, the most important point is its price!

The "Javelin" anti-tank missile produced by Lockheed Martin is sold at a price of about 300,000 RMB per missile, excluding the launch device.

The price of the Hongjian 10 series anti-tank missile at the Arms and Air Show is also as high as nearly 4 million.

Although anti-tank/anti-armor is one of the most important tasks of the army and air force of various countries in modern warfare, such expensive anti-tank missiles are not affordable for every country.

And even if the price is put aside, the cost of anti-tank missiles is usually not cheap.

The cost of the "Javelin" anti-tank missile produced by Lockheed Martin has exceeded 100,000 RMB, and the cost of the Hongjian 10 series anti-tank missile is as high as 1.6 million RMB.

Although it is absolutely cost-effective to use this kind of anti-tank missile to exchange for a tank costing millions of RMB, or a more expensive military helicopter.

But in contrast, the shells of the electromagnetic railgun are so cheap that it is unimaginable.

A pure metal shell, even if it is made of the more expensive tungsten-chromium alloy material, and with a special shape, its price is only a few hundred yuan at most.

And it is extremely simple to manufacture, even ordinary small and medium-sized steel plants, or even if you have a family workshop, you can make it by hand.

If you put aside the turret of the electromagnetic railgun, this is more than just a blast on the head of a traditional armor-piercing missile.

Of course, the electromagnetic railgun itself is extremely difficult to manufacture, and the technical content and cost are also extremely high, which cannot be ignored.

In addition, there is also the defect that pure metal shells cannot be accurately guided like traditional missiles.

This problem is not a small problem in today's modern cross-visual-range war.

But compared with its advantages, these can be compensated.

The extremely low cost of pure metal shells means that it can be industrially mass-produced through assembly lines.

The ultra-high flight speed means that it is almost impossible to intercept, and it also means extremely terrifying destructive power and lethality.

And the weapon system controlled by intelligent AI means that its reaction speed can be extremely fast, and it can effectively annihilate enemies in any direction in medium and short-range combat.

More importantly, as long as sufficient energy is provided, the electromagnetic railgun can complete the charging and firing process in just over ten seconds.

This means that it has an extremely high firing rate that traditional artillery cannot match, and it also means that it can fire multiple shells in a short period of time, with very powerful strike capability and rapid response capabilities.

These are advantages that traditional artillery cannot match.

In contrast, those shortcomings are also acceptable enough.