Will the out-of-control servitor meet the cosmic cat?

He turned his head, and his gaze coincided with that of the commander-in-chief next to the star map. It seemed that the other party was also aware of this.

"Report sir, if you speed up all the way, it is expected to enter our range in 40 minutes."

The adjutant replied quickly.

"What about the missiles?"

"The interstellar missile group will also enter range after 35 minutes, and the anti-ship missile group will enter range after 55 minutes."

"Okay, let's simulate now. Under the premise that the trajectory of the interstellar missile remains unchanged, and the loss of the final penetration speed of the anti-ship missile does not exceed 25%, is it possible to allow the enemy ship missile to enter together with the fleet after 40 minutes?" Range change orbit plan?"

"Yes, sir!"

After receiving the order, the technical soldiers below began to calculate nervously.

Although the time is tight, fortunately this task is not complicated and there are all the necessary parameters, so they came to the result very quickly.

"Have."

Sure enough, as they expected, this track does exist.

The final penetration speed lost 18%, and the estimated arrival time is XX:XX.

"Excuse me, sir, what do you think?"

A young officer who didn't know what happened asked cautiously.

"According to our guess, Tie Xin launched the missiles in the missile base ahead of time because we discovered the plan in advance and was worried that we would strike first, so its arrival time did not overlap with the ship-borne missiles."

"That's why they chose to make the fleet and ship-borne missiles accelerate urgently, so that the three can enter the range at the same time in a relatively close time period, so as to avoid being destroyed by us one by one."

"It is said that this is a very common tactic over there - we humans rarely use missiles in fleet battles, so we didn't think about it at first."

The deputy commander explained.

On the red side, this kind of missile that enters the field with the fleet as the first wave of attack is called the first field suppression. Its main purpose is to quickly damage the surface modules of the enemy's fleet before it, and clear the way for the subsequent entry of the main fleet and the main attack missiles. obstacle.

There are also people in the league who call it Opening Thunder, which means the same thing.

"Well, then why is it limited to 35 minutes?" The young officer was a little puzzled, "Anyway, it only needs to be about the same time as the fleet."

"No, not the same."

An officer who also has a certain understanding of the same race explained: "According to their research, missiles cannot enter the field earlier than the fleet at the forefront. The battleship must first enter the range to start the firefight, and then the missiles can enter."

"The point of this tactic is to force the opponent to choose between intercepting missiles and attacking ships, so as to reduce the pressure on warships and increase the probability of penetration. If we exchange fire with the following warships, this wave of missiles will be in vain.”

"Therefore, it can be said that this tactic has two key points. One is that the missile cannot arrive earlier than the battleship, and the other is that the missiles from different launching ends must arrive at the same time—otherwise, it will not work."

"However, the trajectory of the interstellar missile is definite, so Tie Xin can only choose to let the battleship and the missile accelerate to chase, so as to ensure that the attack waves arrive at the same time, understand?"

Several other people also nodded slightly, expressing their agreement with this point of view.

"Understood sir."

The young officer saluted, as if he understood.

After all, this "tactic" is actually very simple and easy to understand. If it weren't for the fact that human beings don't use missiles very much, which caused their thinking to be unexpected for a while, they should have understood it as early as the moment the opponent started to accelerate. What's going on, don't waste these few minutes in vain.

Sure enough, not 2 minutes later, the opponent's anti-ship missile also began to accelerate—unbiased, its chosen time point and estimated trajectory were almost exactly the same as the results they deduced before, which can be said to have completely confirmed their theory. guess.

It's just that there are not many old-type missiles in several old bases. Is it really worth the iron heart to make such a big move to cooperate?

There was a little doubt in the heart of the young officer.

After all, these missiles were not picked up for nothing, and Tie Xin also paid the price of 18% of the missile penetration speed and at least 20% of the extra DV consumption for starting.

Is it really worth it just for hundreds of old interstellar missiles?

He doesn't know, after all, he is not iron-hearted, and he doesn't know how to balance the weight between the two in the other party's algorithm—anyway, normally speaking, if the omnic thinks it's a good deal, then it must be a real deal.

Besides, the enemy's new trajectory has confirmed their conjecture, so what else is there to worry about?

Thinking of this, he no longer paid attention to the inexplicable uneasiness in his heart, and continued with the work at hand instead.

"Enemy fleet will be within range in 5 minutes."

"All warships, unfold the cooling panels and prepare to meet the enemy!"

With one order, the battleships uniformly threw away the disposable armor that originally covered the surface of the heat dissipation module to block tiny debris, and the giant heat dissipation plate tens of meters or even hundreds of meters long was mechanically affected Slowly unfolding, like a swan slowly spreading its wings.

"Enemy fleet will be within range in 3 minutes."

According to the observation of the telescope, the enemy has also begun to prepare for the battle in an orderly manner-but the difference is that before the heat sink, the opponent has an additional action.

Discard external propellant tanks.

This kind of behavior is actually easy to understand. It can basically be equivalent to the abandonment of auxiliary fuel tanks by atmospheric aircraft. However, for space battleships, abandoning external propellant tanks not only reduces mass and increases mobility, but also increases heat dissipation area and speeds up cooling. effect.

Of course, this is at the cost of sacrificing a lot of DV and strategic maneuverability-and this is in exchange for the ultimate combat effectiveness in a single battle.

Fight to the last stand, leaving no way out.

"Enemy fleet will come into range in 30 seconds."

The main control AI's cold announcement echoed in the corridor of the fortress, and by the porthole of the corridor, a middle-aged man with a full beard was gently adjusting the optical instrument in his hand, appearing very focused.

"very good."

He nodded in satisfaction and moved his eyes to the eyepiece.

In fact, at this moment, even with the naked eye, you can easily see the dense light spots in the distance—for an ordinary human being without the help of a machine, more than 1 kilometers is so far away that it is almost a lifetime. unreachable distance.

But for the vast and endless universe, more than 1 kilometers is too close, so close that the reflected starlight on the battleship can be clearly seen.

If you use a reliable astronomical telescope, you can even easily see various details on the hull of the battleship—but, for him, a reporter, this is not what he wants.

High-definition images of enemy ships and detailed data parameters are all fortress observation arrays, which are things that scientists and intelligence scientists have to take care of. For him, there is only one thing he needs to take care of.

That is to take better photos.

"Crack."

In the photo, the tail of the battleship printed with the logo of Pan-Asian Cooperation is shining with blue light, pointing to the deep and dark space like a sharp sword, and the dazzling starlight shines on the silver-white cooling plates spread around, shining brightly.

On the other side, a defense platform with the flag of the Republic of Mars is slowly adjusting its orbit, and the interceptor nuclear bomb launcher with the logo of the Jupiter military-industrial complex has opened its insurance, pointing to the dark star together with the battleship. area.

Similarly, if you look carefully in the picture, you can also find the rather unique symbols of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States of Saturn - and even those United Nations logos that can only be found on retired and antique warships.

The logos are very different, and the weapons are also different in shape. The only thing they have in common is that their muzzles are all facing the flickering light spots in the distance.

This is not a posing, nor is it a deliberate publicity need-at such a critical moment in the fortress, no one has the leisure, or no one has the leisure to make these gorgeous whistle things.

This is only because behind them is the solar system.

"A sharp increase in the infrared signal of the enemy ship has been detected!"

Almost at the same second as the commander-in-chief was about to give the order, the voice of the adjutant's report reached his ears.

"Fire!"

Volume Two: The War Against Extinction: Chapter 120 Five You Are Too Happy

For laser weapons, or for all space weapons, "range" is not a very rigid and absolute data indicator.

This is different from the ground. For a live ammunition weapon on the surface, it can only hit as much as its range. A gun with a limit range of 400 kilometers is almost impossible to hit an enemy 500 kilometers away.

But in space, the situation is very different.

After all, when the extreme case of being captured by a black hole is not considered, whether it is a photon emitted by a laser, a shell fired by an electromagnetic gun, or a missile that is sprayed with working fluid and is gliding freely, its theoretical "range" is nearly infinite.

As long as their speed exceeds the escape velocity of the current gravity-dominated celestial body, and they don't collide with anything, they can keep going through the vastness of the universe without stopping.

But obviously, this does not mean that warships can effectively output firepower at an infinite distance.

On the one hand, the power of certain weapons will decrease sharply due to the increase in distance; Some ghost weapons eat both DEBUFFs at the same time, such as the envisaged non-relativistic particle cannon.

Therefore, it can be said that there is no absolute "range" in space warfare.

But on the other hand, it is impossible for commanders and combat AI to need a reference indicator to formulate tactics, so the "staged range" that is now widely used in various textbooks was born.

Among them, there are two core indicators, one is the optimal combat distance, and the other is the heat storage balance distance.

Taking the free electron lasers currently equipped by humans as an example, their optimal combat distance is 6000 kilometers.

At this distance, the focusing lens can ensure that the spot is compressed to a perfect distance. The power of the laser is basically only affected by scattering and coherence, and the loss is extremely small and basically constant. It can maximize the upper limit of the firepower in its design.

But this does not mean that the warships of both sides will choose to charge headlong to this distance before engaging in a firefight. Otherwise, your side will charge headlong, and the other side will use full firepower on the other side. Eight.

Therefore, in addition to the optimal combat distance, there is also a heat pool balance distance—that is, the "maximum range" from a tactical perspective, and it is also the "misalignment distance" that many people understand.

Here, the thermal pool does not refer to the fixed temperature in thermodynamics, the ideal heat source that will not change the temperature due to the increase or decrease of heat, but refers to the upper limit of the heat dissipation capacity of space vehicles such as warships.

When a battleship fires, it is not purely unilateral output. Restricted by the second law of heat, any action of the battleship will bear a large amount of waste heat at the same time. This part of the heat must be discharged out of the ship in a timely manner, otherwise it will lead to a sharp drop in power output. If the weight is reduced, the key components will be burned to make it withdraw from the battle sequence.

When not using high-power-consuming equipment, the small heat sink that the battleship always has is enough to keep the temperature of the battleship normal. Huge heat sink for combat.

It is difficult to cover heavy armor with things like heat sinks. Therefore, in combat, once these components are directly hit by high-power main guns, there is basically no possibility of survival—that is to say, space battleships need to bear the burden of fire. Risk of loss of cooling capacity.

In addition, for modern warships whose waste heat can reach the gigawatt level, the rate of fire that can be supported purely by heat sinks is relatively limited. Therefore, in order to increase combat efficiency, even warships that have not activated the overload loading state usually need to discard a small amount of thermal mass to help dissipate heat.

That is to say, the laser can't be launched infinitely, and it has a "ammunition number" similar to a live ammunition weapon. If it is used up, it can only rely on the cooling plate for slow shooting every few minutes.

Therefore, in order to balance the contradiction between "short-term efficiency" and "overall efficiency" in combat, the concept of heat storage balance distance was born.

Within this distance, the damage caused by the firing of the warship will be higher than the heat storage consumption and loss risk caused by the firing from the mathematical expectation.On the contrary, if the fire is fired beyond the equilibrium distance of the heat store, the benefits of the fire may not be as high as the benefits of shrinking the cooling plate and moving forward.

In other words, it was just a pure coincidence that both sides fired at the same time—whether it is a laser weapon of a human being or an extinct unit, the heat reservoir balance distance of the main laser cannon is about 11000 to 12000 kilometers, and the average distance between the two sides is now 13500 kilometers. The distance of one kilometer is already much more than the "balance distance of heat storage".

"why?"

"Why did Tie Xin take this risk?"

Regarding this, everyone in the headquarters was full of doubts.

You must know that the reason why humans choose to fire in advance is because they are on the "defensive side" from a tactical point of view and have a relatively strong heat and mass supply ability, so they can "exchange consumption for damage" to a certain extent. Second, because, They want to gamble.

Mathematical expectations are mathematical expectations after all, and probability is not absolute after all. They have to bet when they are at a disadvantage in quantity and there is almost no chance of winning in a head-to-head battle.

It's better to bet on their luck if the effect of the damage falls on this end of the probability range.

But Iron Heart doesn't need to take this risk. With their number, as long as they continue to use the most classic tactics and fight steadily, they can guarantee the most stable advantage.

Now that this is the case, the situation has suddenly changed—both sides choose to fire at the same time, and both sides bear the same risk, but human beings can get more extra benefits because of the supply relationship, which is tantamount to saying that they took advantage of it out of thin air.

They knew that there must be joints that they couldn't figure out—after all, there was a real strong artificial intelligence over there, and even they could figure it out, how could the omnic not figure it out.

But in any case, the attack order has been issued.

The battle has begun.

The giant accelerator running through the entire ship began to operate, and a large number of high-energy electrons used to "charge" the laser were produced in batches with the support of the surging power of the fusion reactor, and clustered into many sizes through a series of operations Very small bunches.

Under the action of the magnetic field, these bunches will move along a sinusoidal curve, and spontaneously emit electromagnetic waves in the forward direction-at the same time, because the size of these bunches is small enough to cause coherence, whenever the "ammunition" also That is, when the light pulse responsible for being "charged" passes by, these electron bunches will all have an effect, and part of their kinetic energy will be converted into the energy of the light field.

This link will occur countless times in the cavity, and the core light pulse is like a gluttonous giant beast, constantly devouring the kinetic energy of those electrons and converting it into its own energy.

The amplitude of the light field was getting bigger and bigger, and the intensity was getting higher and higher—finally, when the light intensity reached almost saturation, the battleship opened the muzzle baffle.

A super-powerful laser that cannot be seen by the naked eye streaked across the starry sky, and precisely landed on the most leading battleship in the enemy fleet.

More precisely, dozens of lasers.

"Chong!"

In the field of view of the telescope, this is just a spot of light that suddenly increases in brightness and then quickly fades. For an ordinary person on the ground, this is like the "blinking" of stars that can be seen in a small number of areas. nothing special.

But for a war correspondent who was born and raised in space and is still engaged in related industries, he is very clear about what this flash of light means.

"Enemy ship DW-26, slightly damaged!"

The shipboard computer quickly submitted the damage situation taken by the optical telescope—it has to be said that the power of the laser at this distance is too weak, and it is impossible to penetrate the face of the enemy ship that is several meters thick.

No way, the optimal distance of the laser focusing mirror is only about 6000 kilometers, and the spot beyond this distance will start to expand rapidly. When the thermal storage equilibrium distance of 12000 kilometers is reached, its power will no longer exist.

Not to mention shooting at an extreme distance of 13500 kilometers-the spread of the spot is not linear.

And you must know that for space battleships, minor damage is not "slight injury", but refers to damage that obviously affects the combat performance of the enemy ship.

Then since the armor was not even penetrated, why is it said that the enemy ship was slightly damaged?

In this regard, the captain, in the spirit of scientific dialectics, combined with the simple emotions of the general public, delivered the following speech.

"Bull b."

Looking at the enemy ship flying directly to the small part of the main radiator on the port side on the screen, he concluded in this way.