Chapter 653 The balloon floating in the sky

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

The 052B is taking the low-cost route, reducing costs by using single-sided phased array radar, but now it seems that it will not work without meter wave radar. In the future battlefield, if stealth aircraft cannot be detected early, it means Absolute disadvantage.

"Yeah, thanks to our discovery of the stealth aircraft, but we only discovered it. We can only lock on the attack at a distance of 30 kilometers. If the opponent throws a long-range weapon, we still have no power to fight back." The captain of 052C is also very It is 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 of the radar institute will definitely Continue to study networking technology to increase the accuracy of our meter wave radar by an order of magnitude or two, and then use the large warhead of our Red Flag IX to realize 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, and this will be the focus of future work. After this test, the Navy will definitely regard this project as a key project.

   "That's right, we will build more 052Cs in the future, and we must have this kind of networking capability." Wu Shengli nodded.

   "Also, this test revealed another weakness of our destroyer." Qin Tao continued.

   "Any other weaknesses?"

   "There is only one air defense missile, which is not enough to deal with various targets. If the air defense 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.

  Now, what the navy lacks is the regional air defense capability, so the construction of 052C must be continued continuously. However, it is not enough to only have one type of missile, Hongqi Jiu.

In a lot of information, it is said that the minimum shooting height of Hongqi-9 is 500 meters, so this kind of missile does not have the ability to intercept ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming targets. This statement is obviously incorrect. Missiles turn a blind eye!

   Later, during the exercise, the Navy used the Red Flag IX to intercept the sea-skimming missile, which made the talk of a 500-meter shooting height collapse. It also shocked the outside world to discover that the seeker of Hongqi-9 can filter sea clutter and can dive to a height of ten meters above the sea.

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

   "Yes, so in the future, after our launch device is improved, in addition to the Hongqi 9, we can also insert the Hongqi-16." Zhao Ling, who has been observing here silently, said.

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

  Qin Tao shook his head: "No, Hongqi-16 is too big. The bigger 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 Haihongqiqi?"

In the 1980s, when the relationship with the West was 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 imitated domestically. Seven red flags.

This kind of point defense missile used to be the only mature air defense missile in the navy, but now, with the maturity of other air defense missiles, the status of Haihongqi 7 has become very embarrassing. After all, frigates can install Hongqi-16, and destroyers can install Hongqi Nine, no matter how you look at it, there is no need for Haihongqi Qi to be equipped with such missiles. Only small warships of one or two thousand tons will be equipped with such missiles.

   Now, Qin Tao said that he wanted highly maneuverable missiles, and it could only be this kind of Haihongqiqi.

Qin Tao shook his head: "The performance of Haihongqi 7 is not advanced. Its guidance system and missile body are outdated. We also need a new short-range air defense missile in our country. The missile body of this missile does not need to be too large. Large, a range of ten kilometers is enough. In this way, more than 20 missiles can be stuffed into a launch box. It does not need to be launched vertically. It is most suitable to launch inclined missiles at close range. Its guidance system also needs to be more advanced. Advanced, such as the use of radar and infrared imaging dual-mode guidance, 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 said, of course, is the red flag ten. This kind of missile is widely equipped in later generations. Almost all warships have to squat one or two seats in their own suitable positions. Even the aircraft carrier of the navy uses it as the only air defense missile. COSCO The distance is intercepted by the escorting warships, and what it has to deal with are those fish that slip through the net.

   At this moment, upon hearing what Qin Tao said, Zhao Ling pondered: "Brother Tao, the technical difficulty you mentioned is not small, especially the infrared imaging guidance device. We don't have relevant technical reserves."

"Sooner or later." Qin Tao said: "In the future, our short-range air-to-air missiles must use infrared imaging guidance devices, otherwise we will suffer in air combat. Our domestic microelectronic technology has developed rapidly. As long as If you work hard, there will definitely be results.”

   "Report, found a suspicious target." At this moment, the radar soldier shouted.

  Suspicious target?

  The test is over, and it's time to go back and make a summary. At this time, how could a suspicious target suddenly appear?

   "What goal?"

   "It's very strange, the target is very large, the movement speed is very slow, and the echo is not obvious."

   "Could it be a balloon?" Qin Tao frowned: "Leader Wu, I think we should send a plane over there immediately."

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

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

  At this time, the J-31A has also completed its mission and is preparing to return, and it happens to be nearby, so it is most appropriate to let this plane fly over to have 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." Delano's excited voice came from the radio.

In fact, his mission as an instructor has become less and less. With the maturity of the first batch of carrier-based pilots in the Eastern Navy, these pilots will be able to lead the second batch of pilots. These guys have pretty much learned it.

Therefore, Delano has more time. When the J-31A began the test flight of the carrier-based aircraft, Delano became obsessed with this aircraft. Now, he has eight More than 100 hours of flying experience, and also took off and landed on an aircraft carrier.

  With rich experience, he has always felt regretful: this stealth aircraft has never appeared in the exercise, and he was not allowed to show his skills. This time, the opportunity finally came!

The plane driven by Delano successfully flew near the warship, but the warship did not respond until he dropped the bomb. He felt extremely refreshed. This plane is more suitable for him. If there is any secret mission in the future, You can do it all with this plane!

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

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

  The tall single-sided touch-screen display has no shadow yet. His plane uses the same layout as other third-generation aircraft. Of course, you don’t need to look at the monitor below, just stare at the head-up display.

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

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

   "Dingo report, my radar can't find the target."

   "Wild dog, adjust the radar to monopulse mode." A voice came from the radio.

The most commonly used airborne radar is the pulse Doppler mode. This mode can conveniently filter ground clutter, allowing fighters to have the ability to look down and shoot down. Targets are also filtered out.

  So, you have to switch modes.

"Received." Delano felt that the voice was very familiar, a bit like Mr. Qin's, but now he was on a mission, and he couldn't chat on the radio. He switched the radar mode, and this time, a blurred voice finally appeared on the screen. The shadow of it is very vague, and it cannot be transferred to the locked state at all.

   "The wild dog reported that the target could not be locked."

   This is basically common sense, if you can't lock the target, it means you can't fire!

what to do?

   "Wild dog, go ahead and switch to cannon mode!"

   "The wild dog received it." At this moment, Delano's heart surged with excitement. How long has it been since he used the cannon?

The pilots of the Tomcat fighter jets have to undergo machine gun training. This training is very dangerous, because the target hit by the machine gun is the target towed by the lead plane in front. If the control is not good, it is easy to hit the lead plane with shells. body.

  Even if there is a dedicated machine gun hotline, no one can guarantee that they will not make mistakes.

At that time, Delano liked to drag the target the most. When the cannon shells flew past his plane with tracers, he had the feeling of the hail of bullets in the air combat during World War II. He was very lucky and was never hit. Passed.

   Now, it's finally time to experience machine gun shooting again.

   When he switched the weapon over, he realized that it was necessary. In this test, he had a dummy bomb hung in the belly bomb bay, and the other air-to-air missiles were not mounted at all.

Only fighter planes performing combat readiness duty tasks will mount missiles, because missiles need to undergo various inspections before mounting, and the procedures are cumbersome. When they come back, if they are useless, they must be removed and re-inspected. Therefore, normal training aircraft He will not mount it at all. He is performing a simulated test mission this time. He will not encounter enemy planes, so of course he will not mount missiles.

  However, machine guns are different. As long as the shells are inserted and the safety is closed, the shells will be safe inside. Therefore, machine guns are generally equipped with some shells in case of emergencies.

   "Report, the wild dogs only have machine guns."

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

  Whether a fighter plane needs a cannon was once a headache for aircraft engineers.

During the second-generation aircraft, the engineers once thought that missiles would be enough for future air battles, and the cannons were useless, so the F-4 Phantom canceled the cannons, but was dumbfounded in the air battles and was forced to mount the cannons. shelf.

  The aircraft produced in the later period are all equipped with cannons. Even in the third and fourth generation aircraft, the cannons still exist.

The famous F-22 has a cannon, and the F-35A also has it, but it is said that there is a problem that it 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 is always questioned. I have never seen it. It can be said that there may not be any, but they may be hidden under a certain skin, and there are still some. Another Su-57 also has a cannon.

  In general, this thing can be used, but it cannot be without it. When the missiles are exhausted and you encounter an opponent, the machine gun is the last weapon. You can’t hit it, right?

  The current J-31A, of course, has a cannon, and it uses the ancestral 23-3 cannon.

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

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

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

  So, considering various factors, the domestic aircraft gun was still used.

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

   Just as the big guy was feeling emotional, another voice came from the radio: "I found it, it's a balloon!"

   "Shoot it down!" Wu Shengli immediately gave the order.

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

  Although I don't know if it is, but under the current situation, it suddenly appeared near the sea area where our own side is testing, so it may have an ulterior purpose, so let's shoot it down first!

   "Wild dog received!" Delano put down his goggles and looked at the reflective object in the distance. The angle at this time was the most suitable. The surface of the balloon just reflected the sunlight, so he could see the target clearly.

  A sounding balloon, the source is unknown, you will know when it is shot down!

   Watching the thing gradually approaching, Delano held the operating lever with his hand and opened the cannon safety.

   Above the left wing, a cover is opened, exposing two round holes.

  The cannon hotline appeared on the head-up display, and he adjusted his fighter posture, watching the funnel on the head-up display constantly changing.

  That's right, the machine gun hotline is no longer a line, but a funnel shape.

In the early days of machine gun hotlines, the trajectory of each shell was calculated by the computer to form a dynamic curve. There was a movable ring in front of the curve. 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, it can hit the target in the continuous firing of the machine gun.

  The emergence of the hotline is a revolution in close combat air combat. However, the machine gun hotline still has the problem of insufficient fire control accuracy and insufficient response speed. Unlucky pilots clearly aim accurately, but still miss.

As a result, an improved enhanced envelope gun aiming method was developed. It is no longer a line, but a dynamic funnel. These two lines represent target widths at different distances. There is a small aiming point or cross in the middle. It is the pointing reference point of the machine gun; when shooting, there is no need to enclose the target with any movable ring, as long as the width of the target occupies the width of the hole, the fire can be fired.

  The target is rapidly approaching and getting bigger. Soon, it occupies all of Draenor's field of vision, and the funnel is blocked.

   Delano pulled the trigger.

  Tom tom tom!

  The shell flew over, and the first shell hit the balloon accurately. After all, the thing was so big that it could hit it even with visual aiming.

  The balloon was broken all of a sudden, so the air flow flew out from the ruptured opening, and the balloon was subjected to a reaction force, and flew forward with a whoosh.

  However, after a while, the shells had penetrated to the opposite side, and more shells also shot in. The balloon was completely broken, and it fell down like a big rock.

   Delano pulled the lever and climbed up, brushing past the remains of the balloon. Then, he circled and flew down again.

   "Wild dog, the fuel is low, please return." A voice came from the earphone.

   "No, I want to find out where the balloon landed."

   The radar reflection ability of the balloon is not great, and after the balloon is punctured, it becomes even smaller. At this time, it may not be captured by the radar of the warship.

  So, Draenor wants to dive down, observe the landing point, determine the specific position, and prepare for salvage.

   "No need, our warship is rushing to the scene. Be careful, the fighter plane you are driving is not yours, it is the property of the Mingzhou Group. If it crashes because it ran out of fuel, you will have to work for the Mingzhou Group for free for the rest of your life!"

   "The wild dog received it, Mr. Qin, don't say it so scary." Delano muttered: "I'm going back now."

  Two 022 missile boats rushed to the scene first. They had a high speed of more than 50 knots. When they drove to the vicinity, the balloon also fell to the surface of the sea, splashing a large amount of water.

  If it is still a complete balloon, even if it is deflated, it can continue to float on the sea surface, but now it has been torn to pieces by the machine gun, so the remaining pod part fell directly into the sea water.

Fortunately, the average water depth here is only 18 meters, and the deepest part is less than 90 meters. The depth of the water that falls now is only 34 meters. No deep diving equipment is needed. As long as experienced divers go down, they can Can salvage things from below.

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

  When the test is so important for our side, a balloon suddenly floated in the sky. What does it mean?

"Fortunately, the balloon just floated over after our test was over." Qin Tao said: "After all, it is not easy to control the balloon. You can only choose the appropriate weather conditions, and there are many uncertainties. Therefore, even if some people I tried to do something on purpose, but it didn't work out."

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

Some people should be in a hurry and are very interested in this test, but at most they dispatched an early warning aircraft to observe hundreds of kilometers away. If they approached, they would definitely be expelled. After all, the sea area where the test is now , which is equivalent to the inland sea of ​​the motherland.

   So, they used sounding balloons?

   Balloons are not easy to be detected by radar, and even if they are found, 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 other purposes, it is also equipped with ordinary reconnaissance camera equipment, so there should be no valuable photos at such a long distance. After the distance is close, our test is over," Wu Shengli said.

   "In the future, this kind of situation should occur frequently. We still need to pay more attention and take action when it is time to do so." 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 Yankees.

  Spy satellites fly too fast, fly away after sweeping over the target, and are easy to be monitored. The stay time of reconnaissance planes is limited, and the reconnaissance time is insufficient. Therefore, the Americans noticed the 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 the flight according to the wind shear at high altitude. By changing the altitude and windward side, the balloon can stay within 12 miles of the designated target for many days. So much so that some people call it "a game-changing, long-duration, long-dwelling, powerful surveillance platform."

   You can deal with others, but you can't deal with your own side. If you dare to get close, you will shoot 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 Wuzhi Mountain of Tathagata Buddha."

  (end of this chapter)