Chapter 653 Balloons floating in the sky

"The 052B does not have the ability to detect stealth aircraft. Therefore, even if this kind of warship has excellent ability to deal with ultra-low-altitude targets, it is not what our navy needs." Wu Shengli said: "It seems that we must unswervingly support the 052C in the future. It’s built!”

The 052B takes a low-cost route and reduces costs by using a single-sided phased array radar. But now it seems that it is impossible without a meter-wave radar. In the future battlefield, if the stealth aircraft cannot be detected early, it means An absolute disadvantage.

"Yes, thanks to us being able to discover the stealth aircraft. However, we only discovered it. We can only lock the attack at a distance of thirty kilometers. If the opponent throws long-range weapons, we still have no power to fight back." The captain of 052C was also very worried. It's emotion.

"This requires new technology." Qin Tao said: "The accuracy of our single radar is not high enough, so we need to use multiple radars to network. I believe that after this test, the experts from the Radar Institute will definitely Continue to study networking technology to improve the accuracy of our meter-wave radar by one or two orders of magnitude, and then use the large warhead of our Hongqi-9 to achieve the ability to intercept and kill stealth aircraft."

 Meter-wave radar networking is a plan originally proposed by Qin Tao. However, the research and development of this kind of project will definitely take a long time, which will be the focus of future work. After this test, the Navy will definitely regard this project as a key project.

“That’s right, when we build more 052Cs in the future, we must have this kind of networking capability.” Wu Shengli nodded.

“Also, this test also revealed another weakness of our destroyer.” Qin Tao continued.

 “What other weaknesses are there?”

“There is only one type of anti-aircraft missile, which is not enough to deal with various targets. If the anti-aircraft missile cannot stop it, the next step is to approach the long-range defense system. We still lack a short-range interception missile.” Qin Tao said.

 At present, what the Navy lacks is regional air defense capabilities. Therefore, the construction of 052C must be continued. However, only the Red Flag 9 missile is not enough.

In many materials, it is said that the minimum firing height of Hongqi-9 is 500 meters, so this missile does not have the ability to intercept ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming targets. This statement is obviously incorrect. It is impossible for the 052C to intercept ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming targets. The missile turned a blind eye!

Later, during the exercise, the Navy used Red Flag Nine to intercept sea-skimming missiles, which made the talk of shooting at a height of 500 meters collapse. The outside world was also shocked to find that the seeker of Hongqi-9 can filter sea surface clutter and can dive to a height of ten meters above the sea surface.

 As for the distance below ten meters, of course it can be solved by the 180kg warhead!

“Yes, so in the future, after our launcher is improved, in addition to the Hongqi-9, we can also insert the Hongqi-16.” Zhao Ling, who had been watching silently here, said.

The current vertical hair is dedicated, and it will be more advanced in the future and can be mixed. Hongqi-9 is used for long-range, and Hongqi-16 is used for medium-range.

Qin Tao shook his head: "No, the Hongqi-16 is too big. The larger the missile, the greater the inertia, and the maneuverability cannot be too high. To intercept ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming missiles, the higher the maneuverability of the missile, the better."

 Hongqi-16 is too big?

Zhao Ling thought of something: "Is it Hai Hongqi Qi?"

In the 1980s, when relations with the West were good, the West exported a lot of weapons, especially France. The Sea Sidewinder missile was exported to the East at that time. After that, it was installed on several warships and was copied domestically. Red flag seven.

This kind of point defense missile was once the only mature air defense missile in the Navy. However, now, with the maturity of other air defense missiles, the status of Haihongqi 7 has become very embarrassing. After all, frigates can be equipped with Hongqi-16 and destroyers can be equipped with Hongqi. 9. No matter how you look at it, there is no need to equip Haihongqi 7. Only small warships of one to two thousand tons will be equipped with such missiles.

 Now, Qin Tao said that if he wants a highly mobile missile, it can only be this Haihongqi Qi.

Qin Tao shook his head: "The performance of Haihongqi Seven is not advanced. Its guidance system and missile body are already outdated. We still need a brand new short-range air defense missile in China. The missile body of this missile does not need to be too long." It is large and has a range of ten kilometers. In this way, more than twenty missiles can be stuffed into a launch box. It does not need to be launched vertically. Close-range missiles are most suitable for inclined launch. Its guidance system also needs to be more For example, it adopts radar and infrared imaging dual-mode guidance methods, coupled with aerodynamic rudder surface combined with rolling body control, it is specially used to deal with ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming anti-ship missiles approaching at close range."

What Qin Tao is talking about is, of course, the Red Flag Ten. This kind of missile has been widely equipped in later generations. Almost all warships have to squat one or two in their own suitable positions. Even the Navy's aircraft carriers use it as the only anti-aircraft missile. COSCO All distances are intercepted by escorting warships, and what they have to deal with are those fish that slip through the net.

At this time, after hearing what Qin Tao said, Zhao Ling pondered: "Brother Tao, what you mentioned is quite technically difficult, especially the infrared imaging guidance device. We don't have the relevant technical reserves."

"Sooner or later, we have to have it." Qin Tao said: "In the future, our short-range air-to-air missiles must use infrared imaging guidance devices, otherwise they will suffer in air battles. Our domestic microelectronics technology has developed very fast. As long as If you work hard to tackle the problem, you will definitely get results.”

“Report, a suspicious target was found.” At this moment, the radar soldier shouted.

 Suspicious target?

 The test is over, and it’s time to go back and summarize. At this time, why do suspicious targets suddenly appear?

 “What is the goal?”

“It’s strange, the target is very big, the movement speed is very slow, and the echo is not obvious.”

“Is it a balloon?” Qin Tao frowned: “Leader Wu, I think we should send a plane over immediately to take a look.”

 In formal workplaces, especially now, it is more appropriate to be called leader.

Wu Shengli nodded: "Call the wild dog immediately and let him go over and take a look."

At this time, the J-31A has also completed its mission and is preparing to return. It happens to be nearby, so it is most appropriate to let this aircraft fly over and take a look.

"The fleet is calling wild dogs. The fleet is calling wild dogs. If you find a new suspicious target, please go to investigate immediately. The general direction of the target has been transmitted through the data link."

“Wild Dog received it.” Delano’s excited voice came from the radio.

In fact, his duties as an instructor have become less and less. As the Eastern Navy's first batch of carrier-based aircraft pilots mature, these pilots will be able to fly the second batch of pilots. Delano's special skills have also been recognized. These people have learned almost enough.

Therefore, Delano had more time. When the J-31A began to conduct test flights of carrier-based aircraft, Delano became obsessed with this aircraft. Now, he has eight aircraft on this aircraft. He has more than a hundred hours of flying experience, and has also taken off and landed on an aircraft carrier.

As an experienced man, he has always felt regretful: this stealth aircraft did not appear in the exercise and did not allow him to show off his skills. This time, the opportunity finally came!

The plane piloted by Delano successfully flew near the warship, but the warship did not respond until he dropped the bomb. He felt extremely refreshed. This plane was more suitable for him. What secret mission would he have in the future? You can do it all with this plane!

Just after he completed the mission and returned home with satisfaction, a new mission came!

"Roger!" Delano looked at the target data displayed on the HUD and began to adjust his course.

There is no trace of that tall single-sided touch screen display. His aircraft uses the same layout of one level and three bottoms as other third-generation aircraft. Of course, you don’t need to look at the display below, just stare at the head-up display.

The diffraction HUD with green light looked very good. Delano looked at the jumping characters, which showed that he was getting closer to the target.

 He turned on the radar on the nose of the plane, but there was nothing on the radar screen.

“Dingo report, my radar is unable to detect the target.”

“Wild Dog, the radar is adjusted to single pulse mode.” A voice came from the radio.

The most commonly used airborne radar is the pulse Doppler mode. This mode can easily filter ground clutter and allow fighter aircraft to have the ability to look down and shoot down. However, at the same time, the filtering mode of this radar also causes it to filter out slow-speed radars. Targets are also filtered out.

 So, you have to switch modes.

"Copy that." Delano felt that the voice was very familiar, somewhat like Mr. Qin's, but he was on a mission now and couldn't chat on the radio. He switched to radar mode. This time, a blur finally appeared on the screen. The shadow is very blurry and cannot be transferred to the locked state at all.

“Wild dog report, unable to lock target.”

This is basically common sense. If the target cannot be locked, it means that it cannot fire!

what to do?

 “Wild Dog, keep going, switch to cannon mode!”

 "Wild Dog received." At this moment, Delano felt excited. How long had it been since he had used a machine gun?

Tomcat fighter pilots have to undergo cannon training. This training is very dangerous because the target of the cannon is a target towed by the lead aircraft. If the control is not good, it is easy to hit the lead aircraft with shells. On the body.

Even if there is a special machine gun hotline, no one can guarantee that they will not make mistakes if it changes rapidly in the air.

Back then, Delano loved to drag targets. When the cannon shells flew past his plane with tracers, he felt like the rain of bullets in the air combat during World War II. He was very lucky and had never been hit. Hit.

Now, I finally have to experience machine gun shooting again.

 When he switched the weapons, he realized that this was necessary. For this test, he had a simulated bomb hung in the belly bomb bay, and no other air-to-air missiles were mounted at all.

Only fighters performing combat readiness duties will mount missiles, because the missiles need to undergo various inspections before being mounted, and the procedures are cumbersome. When they come back, if they are useless, they have to be taken off and re-inspected. Therefore, normal training aircraft He won't mount it at all. He is performing a simulation test mission this time. He will not encounter enemy aircraft, so of course he will not mount the missile.

　　However, the cannon is different. As long as the cannonball is inserted and the safety is turned off, the cannonball is safe inside. Therefore, the cannon is usually equipped with some cannonballs in case of unexpected events.

 “Report, Wild Dog only has machine guns.”

 Hearing this report, the people on the bridge had mixed emotions.

 Whether fighter aircraft need cannons was once a headache for aircraft engineers.

When it came to the second-generation aircraft, engineers once thought that missiles would be enough for future air combat, and the cannon was useless, so the F-4 Phantom canceled the cannon. As a result, it was dumbfounded in the air combat and was forced to mount the cannon. shelf.

 Later-production aircraft were all equipped with cannons. Even in third- and fourth-generation aircraft, cannons still exist.

The famous F-22 has a cannon, and the F-35A also has one, but it is said that it has problems and cannot be used. As for the domestic J-20, it has been questioned for a long time that it does not have a cannon, but it has always been questioned. I have never seen it. I can say that there may not be any, but it may be hidden under a certain skin, and there are still some. Another Su-57 also has a machine gun.

 In general, this thing can be used, but it cannot be left out. When you run out of missiles and encounter an opponent, the cannon is the last weapon. You can't hit it, right?

 The current J-31A is of course equipped with a machine gun, and it still uses the ancestral 23-3 machine gun.

Domestic cannons can be traced back to the J-5 and J-6 era. Domestic imitations of Lao Maozi’s NR-23 cannon and NR-30 cannon were called the 23-1 cannon and the 30-1 cannon respectively. However, these are single-barreled cannons with insufficient fire rate, range, and poor accuracy. Therefore, a variety of cannons were introduced later, especially the GSh-23 double-barreled cannon of the MiG-21, which was imitated and improved. The ultimate version is the 23-3 cannon.

Although it is not a rotary cannon, it can already achieve a rate of fire of more than 3,000 rounds per minute, which is not much different from the M61 Gatling cannon's rate of fire of 4,000 rounds per minute. It does not need to rotate, and the maximum fire rate is Rate of fire.

When it comes to the J-10, this aircraft gun is still installed. Of course, the J-31A also has to use this aircraft gun. Its biggest feature is its small size and high reliability, especially its small weight, which is similar to the M61 aircraft gun. Compared with the weight of more than 100 kilograms, the total weight of this double-barreled 23mm aerial cannon is only 50 kilograms.

After the introduction of the Su-27, the Gsh-301mm cannon was also introduced. This 30mm cannon is more powerful and lighter, only 46 kilograms. However, it is a single-barreled gun. The speed is less than two thousand rounds per minute.

 Hence, considering various factors, domestically produced aircraft cannons were still used.

 At this point, we can only rely on machine guns!

While everyone was sighing, another voice came from the radio: "I found it, it's a balloon!"

 “Knock it down!” Wu Shengli immediately gave the order.

As Qin Tao guessed, this is a balloon. What is the use of this balloon? Did the sounding balloon drift away?

I don’t know if it is, but in the current situation, if it suddenly appears near the sea area where our side is testing, it may have an ulterior purpose. Let’s shoot it down first!

“Dingo received!” Delano put down his goggles and looked at the reflective object in the distance. The angle was perfect at this time. The surface of the balloon just reflected the sunlight, so he could see the target clearly.

 A sounding balloon, its origin is unknown, we will find out after it is shot down!

Watching the thing getting closer, Delano's hand grasped the operating lever and turned on the cannon safety.

 A cover plate opened above the left wing, revealing two round holes.

The cannon hotline appeared on the HUD. He adjusted the posture of his fighter and watched the funnel on the HUD change continuously.

 That's right, the cannon hotline at this time is no longer a line, but in the shape of a funnel.

The early machine gun hotline was just a dynamic curve calculated by computer to connect the trajectory of each shell. There was a movable ring in front of the curve, and the center of the ring was called a hot spot. As long as the ring was kept pressed against the enemy during flight, On board, you can hit the target with continuous cannon fire.

The emergence of the hotline is a revolution in close combat air combat. However, the cannon hotline still has problems with insufficient fire control accuracy and reaction speed. The unlucky pilot still missed the target even though his aim was accurate.

As a result, the improved enhanced envelope gun sighting method was developed. It is no longer a line, but a dynamic funnel. These two lines represent the target width at different distances, with a small aiming point or cross in the middle. It is the pointing reference point of the cannon; when shooting, there is no need to put any movable ring around the target. As long as the width of the target occupies the width that fills this hole, you can fire.

The target was rapidly approaching, growing in size, and soon occupied Draenor's entire field of vision, and the funnel was blocked.

Delano pulled the trigger.

　　嗵嗵嗵!

The cannonballs flew past, and the first cannonball accurately hit the balloon. After all, the thing was so big that it could be hit even with visual aiming.

The balloon was broken at once, so the air flow flew out from the broken hole, and the balloon received a reaction force and flew forward suddenly.

However, after a while, the cannonballs had penetrated to the opposite side, and more cannonballs were fired in. The balloon was completely broken, and fell down like a big stone.

 Delano pulled the lever and climbed upwards, passing the wreckage of the balloon. Then he circled and flew down again.

“Wild Dog, we are running out of fuel, please return.” A voice came from the earphones.

 “No, I want to determine the landing point of the balloon.”

The radar reflection ability of the balloon is not large to begin with. After the balloon is punctured, it becomes even smaller. In this case, it may not be captured by the radar of the warship.

 So, Delano wanted to swoop down, observe the landing point, determine the specific position, and prepare for salvage.

“No need, our warships are rushing to the scene. Note that the fighter plane you are driving is not yours, it is the property of the Mingzhou Group. If it crashes because it burns out of fuel, you will have to work for the Mingzhou Group for free for the rest of your life!”

“Wild dog received it, Mr. Qin, don’t say it so scary.” Delano muttered: “I will return now.”

Two 022 missile boats were the first to arrive at the scene. They had a high speed of more than fifty knots. When they moved nearby, the balloon also fell to the sea with a pop and a large splash of water.

 If it were still a complete balloon, it would still be floating on the sea even if it was deflated, but now it has been torn into pieces by the cannon, so the remaining pod part fell directly into the sea water.

Fortunately, the average water depth here is only 18 meters, and the deepest point is less than 90 meters. The water depth that fell now is only 34 meters. No deep diving equipment is needed. As long as experienced divers go down, Can salvage what's underneath.

On the 052C destroyer, Wu Shengli had a serious expression on his face.

 At such an important time for our own side to conduct a test, a balloon suddenly floated from the sky. What does this mean?

"Fortunately, the balloon just floated over after we finished the test." Qin Tao said: "After all, it is not easy to control the balloon. You can only choose the right weather conditions. There are many uncertainties. Therefore, even if some people Even if you deliberately try to do something, you will not achieve your goal.”

This test is very important. No matter how secretive it is, the news will still leak out.

Some people should be anxious and are very interested in this test. However, the most they can do is dispatch an early warning aircraft to observe from a few hundred kilometers away. If they get close, they will definitely be expelled. After all, the sea area where it is being tested is , equivalent to the inland sea of ​​the motherland.

 So, they used sounding balloons?

 Balloons are not easily detected by radar, and even if they are detected, they are easy to fool.

"Yes, if it is equipped with radar equipment, it will definitely be detected by our early warning aircraft. If it has an ulterior motive, it is also equipped with ordinary reconnaissance photography equipment. It should not be able to capture anything valuable from such a long distance. After the distance is close, our test is over." Wu Shengli said.

“In the future, this kind of situation should happen frequently. We still need to pay more attention and take action when it’s time to take action.” Qin Tao said.

Before coming to this era, Qin Tao had heard of the Cold Star Project, which is a new generation of reconnaissance equipment developed by the Yankees.

Spy satellites flew too fast and flew away after sweeping over the target, and were easily monitored. The reconnaissance aircraft had a limited stay time and insufficient detection time. Therefore, the Americans paid attention to stratospheric balloons.

This kind of balloon is quite durable. After using advanced solar panels, it can even maintain energy supply for a long time. The pod below can accommodate various cameras, thermal imaging devices and other sensors.

And, more importantly, the balloon is equipped with advanced sensors that can control its flight based on wind shear at high altitudes. By changing altitude and windward surface, the balloon can stay within 12 miles of a designated target for many days. So much so that some people call it "a game-changing, powerful surveillance platform with long duration and long retention time."

 It can be used against others, but not against one's own side. If you dare to get close, shoot it down!

"This thing is a big problem when it is discovered." Wu Shengli was a little worried.

"Our phased array radar can adjust the parameters to better detect this thing." Qin Tao said: "Don't worry, no matter how powerful Monkey Sun is, he can't escape the Five Finger Mountain of Tathagata Buddha."

 (End of this chapter)