Chapter 244 Equipment and Beating
After the artillery battle ended.
More than five hours passed.
The Indian army was in mourning and the area around the twenty-one pits was in ruins.
Inside the valley base.
Leilong No. 1 has quietly returned to the base's submarine port, and a large number of technicians are inspecting the hull and gun barrel of Leilong No. 1.
Gu Li looked at the reconnaissance report in his hand. He was not too surprised by the results of Thunder Dragon No. 1, but he still reminded:
"The movement speed of Thunder Dragon No. 1 is still too slow. Once the enemy understands its situation, they will definitely use saturation strikes."
Alexi, the designer of Thunder Dragon No. 1, smiled and said, "Don't worry, General Guli. This is only the first version. I will upgrade Thunder Dragon No. 1 next."
"Upgrade and modification? The flying speed of the ground effect ship has almost reached its limit, right?" Gu Li asked curiously.
"Yes, even if our engine is powerful enough, the speed of Thunder Dragon 1 has reached its limit. 480 kilometers per hour is its maximum speed."
"How do we increase the speed?"
"It's not about increasing the speed, but reducing the size. We will build a batch of 150mm caliber self-propelled artillery ground effect ships. With our material advantages, the weight can be compressed to about 80 tons, the flight altitude can be maintained at about 15 meters, and the flight speed can reach 650 kilometers per hour."
Haha, why do you Russians have such wild imaginations, Guli complained secretly.
Alexi continued, "The improved version of the Thunder Dragon ground effect ship can be used as a ground strike cluster and can be hidden underwater. Even if the enemy has artillery radar, it will take several minutes to launch rockets and missiles to encircle and suppress them after locking on them."
"Moreover, the modified Thunder Dragon ground effect ship can fire a shot and quickly fly away from its original location. At a speed of 650 kilometers per hour, it can move more than ten kilometers in two or three minutes. In addition, it cannot be locked by ultra-low-altitude radars, so the battlefield survival rate will increase sharply."
Gu Li thought to himself, fortunately, the production costs of many materials of the Sapiens Company are very low, otherwise, according to the crazy designs of you big guys, ordinary forces would have gone bankrupt long ago.
Gunboats like the Leilong 1 have various stealth designs and can even be covered with an optical camouflage layer, making them invisible to satellites.
After adopting extended-range projectiles, even 150mm caliber artillery shells can have a range of 60 to 70 kilometers.
Of course, the Leilong ground effect vessel can not only be used as a self-propelled artillery, but can also be transformed into a carrier platform for rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns, and missiles.
The reason why missile vehicles are not used is mainly because the vehicle speed is too slow. In the face of modern artillery radars and early warning aircraft, the battlefield survival rate is too low.
Moreover, there are only a few roads in the area controlled by the Assam branch, which makes the target too obvious and the road conditions are very poor.
Therefore, some people in the previous bases of the Assam branch were thinking about how to solve this problem.
Alexei, who came from Lucia, had worked at the Caspian Shipyard before. He had seen large ground effect ships like the Caspian Monster, so he proposed a ground effect ship plan.
Thunder Dragon No. 1 is one of his experimental subjects.
Thanks to the strong technical reserves of the Sapiens company, Alexi's Thunder Dragon ground effect ship went very smoothly.
For example, the problems of low-altitude flight control, ground obstacle avoidance, mountainous terrain, high engine energy consumption, and hull have all been solved one by one.
This thing is a powerful weapon for the Assam branch, which has no intention of living on the ground, has relatively complex terrain, and has poor road infrastructure.
After all, this new type of ground effect ship does not require roads, and the requirements for berthing sites are not too high. It can be moored on water surfaces, swamps, grasslands, and farmlands.
It can also serve as a platform for carrying a variety of weapons. It moves faster than an armed helicopter and can fly at ultra-low altitudes.
Unless the Indians use early warning aircraft to circle around 24 hours a day, they really have no way to deal with the Thunder Dragon ground effect ship.
Gu Li even considered customizing a batch of Thunder Dragon ground effect vessels as transport ships that could quickly move field troops.
A question suddenly occurred to him: "Engineer Alexey, what is the range of the Thunder Dragon ground effect ship?"
Alexey thought for a moment and said, "The range of the Thunder Dragon 1 is about 5,000 kilometers, and the improved version of the Thunder Dragon ground effect ship is about 2,000 kilometers."
"2000 kilometers? That's enough. If it's converted into a troop transport ship, it can carry about 30 people!"
Alexey raised his eyebrows. "A troop transport? If the heavy equipment is removed and a 30mm cannon is used instead, it can indeed carry 30 fully armed soldiers."
"What if we use Thunder Dragon 1 as a basis?"
"Leilong 1? That can transport 200 fully armed soldiers."
Gu Li stroked his stubble and asked, "Can we let the ground effect ship launch an attack while flying?"
"Huh? General Guli has the same idea as me. My next step is to improve this problem." Alexei said happily.
The reason why the self-propelled artillery of a ground effect ship has to stop to fire is because of the recoil; for rocket launchers and missiles, it is because of the sudden reduction in weight that can easily cause loss of control in flight.
In fact, with the biochips and intelligent technology of Sapiens, it is still possible to improve this problem.
The two talked for more than half an hour, and finally Gu Li agreed to help Alexei apply for special resources for the Thunder Dragon ground effect ship project.
Gu Li has planned to apply to the branch to manufacture 200 to 300 small Leilong ground effect ships and 50 large Leilong ground effect ships.
As for the manufacturing base, it certainly cannot be placed in the Siliguri Corridor, and even the Darjeeling area is not suitable.
Only the more isolated areas of India and Manipur are suitable to become the manufacturing bases of ground effect vessels.
After watching the performance battle of Thunder Dragon No. 1.
Guli bid farewell to the base commander Mang Feilong and engineer Alexi, and secretly went to the Darjeeling base with his subordinates.
In the past few days, the situation between the Assam branch and India has not been calm, but has been maintaining fighting, especially in air combat, where they fight almost every day.
However, in air combat, the Assam branch basically had the upper hand.
It is mainly due to the advantages of magnetic field radar and the harassment of drone swarms.
Even a Mirage fighter would not gain any advantage when facing hundreds of drones.
It was in the late night after the artillery battle ended.
The Indian Air Force’s revenge came.
Three Mirage fighters, plus five MiG-25s pulled out from a sealed warehouse, rapidly approached the Siliguri Corridor.
At the moment these planes take off.
The magnetic field radar at the Darjeeling base immediately locked onto the locations of these aircraft.
Then three small airports hidden in the mountains quickly opened their gates, and 60 fixed-wing drones equipped with rocket engines took off quickly.
It's more like a cruise missile than an airplane.
The drone flying close to the ground was not detected by the Indian Air Force's radar at all.
The moment , the drone revealed its ferocious face.
The rocket engine burst into full force instantly, and the speed soared to Mach 2.5.
A Mirage fighter jet had no time to react before it was attacked from the front, back and below by three drones.
"Damn it!" The pilot pressed the machine gun button in horror, and the machine gun fired fiercely at the drone rushing towards the front.
But he was too naive.
The drone exploded on its own, and a large number of steel needles sprayed in all directions like flowers scattered from heaven.
The desperate pilot could only pull the ejection seat.
However, his body was pierced by several steel needles. The severe pain made him faint and then fall to the ground.
The other planes quickly pulled up, and during this time two MiG-25s were destroyed by a dozen drones.
The two sides fought for more than ten minutes, and in the end only two MiG-25s and two Mirage fighters retreated safely.
Faced with this kind of drone raid, the Indian Air Force performed very powerlessly, mainly because drones are not afraid of death at all. When low-cost drones fight against expensive fighter jets, even if it is 10 for 1, the fighter jet side will lose money.
