Chapter 374 Hard Power

Chapter 374 Hard Power

Chapter 374 Hard Power

After testing the Sky Shield missile’s interception efficiency against intruding drones.

Immediately afterwards, we began testing the interception of high-speed aircraft and missiles.

The launch vehicle responsible for launching the simulated missile locked onto the location of the test base from hundreds of kilometers away and pressed the launch button.

More than a dozen simulated missiles of various models instantly took off into the air, dragging gray-white trails, and attacked the test base from three altitudes: high altitude, low altitude, and outer space.

Inside the control center of the base.

beep...

The shrill alarm began to echo in everyone's ears.

"Alert! Hypersonic flying object detected... speed... flight trajectory... predicted target..."

Wang Lifeng and others remained silent, watching the staff working in an orderly manner.

Soon, the base's launch vehicles also quickly launched various types of Sky Shield missiles.

The number of Sky Shield interceptor missiles launched from the base was consistent with the number of incoming simulated missiles, which shows that the base has full confidence in the Sky Shield interceptor missiles.

Of course, Wang Lifeng and others were also very clear that the test base had already activated the air defense network at this time. The air defense network densely covered the base, making it difficult for the simulated missiles that slipped through the net to directly hit the base.

The specifications of most of the facilities in this weapons testing base are similar to those of the fortress base on the border of the Asian Federation.

Even if the simulated missile can avoid the interception of the Sky Shield missile, it will most likely be blocked by the air defense network in the end.

Although there are some hollow areas in the air defense network, which are the entrances and exits for the base's drones and missiles, these hollow areas are not fixed. Instead, they can be adjusted through the base's system to prevent the enemy from figuring out the location of the hollow areas.

Even if the simulated missile was lucky enough to hit the hole in the air defense network, it would be difficult to cause a fatal blow to this fortress-type base.

For example, the underground command center where the observation group is located has its location, depth, and protective layer specially designed.

The location and depth in this type of fortress base are not fixed but randomly arranged.

Coupled with the specially designed protective layer, even if a hydrogen bomb directly hits the surface of the base, it is difficult to cause a total annihilation of the base.

After all, the power of hydrogen bombs is not as strong as imagined.

For example, the famous Big Ivan was detonated at an altitude of about 4200 meters above the ground during the test on Novaya Zemlya.

Despite its enormous power, the explosion was detonated at high altitude, so the crater formed on the ground was not its main form of damage. According to records, the explosion formed a crater on the ground with a diameter of about 390 meters and a maximum depth of about 100 meters.

If it is detonated directly on the ground, its destructive power on the ground can be greatly enhanced, but the increase is also very limited.

In fact, the main deterrent force of nuclear weapons is not direct explosion damage, but radioactive contamination.

Mainly after the development of Big Ivan, all parties around the world stopped increasing the explosive equivalent of single bombs and instead switched to developing medium-power, multiple-warhead types.

Taking this test base on the edge of the desert as an example, even if a hydrogen bomb with a yield of 1000 million tons exploded on the surface, it could only cut off part of the surface buildings and cause devastating damage to underground facilities within a radius of about 500 meters from the center of the explosion.

However, underground facilities beyond a 500-meter radius from the explosion center will at most face the risk of dislocation, cracking, or collapse, but will not be completely destroyed.

For example, this underground command center is located 2800 meters southwest of the center of the base and is about 200 meters deep. The desert has thick layers of quicksand, bedrock, and man-made structures. As long as it is not the core of the explosion, it is basically difficult to be destroyed at one time.

As for the problem of radioactive contamination after the detonation of nuclear weapons, this problem is actually not a fatal problem for the Asian Union at this stage.

Many previous studies were indeed based on the technological conditions at the time, which led to the conclusion that humans would not be able to survive in an environment after a large-scale nuclear explosion.

However, the think tank center of the Asian Union has re-conducted various simulations based on the current technical conditions.

The latest simulation results conclude that the Asian Commonwealth can survive an environment of large-scale radioactive contamination.

Moreover, in this analytical model, the size of the Asian Union's population that survives a nuclear war will continue to increase over time.

The reason for this conclusion.

The reason lies in the existence of indoor farms and water purification technology.

Radioactive contamination can easily transfer from the air and land to water bodies due to storms and precipitation.

That is to say, if a nuclear war really breaks out, the surface water will become very dangerous because the concentration of radioactive substances it contains will soar rapidly.

At the same time, all crops grown in the open air will be contaminated by radioactive substances and become inedible waste.

And this is not a fatal problem for the Asian Union.

After all, now within the Asian Union, open-air agriculture has been gradually replaced by indoor agriculture. Except for economic crops such as sugarcane, rubber grass, rubber pine, and fairy beans, and some food crops, other vegetables, fruits, horticultural flowers, botanical herbs, spice plants, etc., are rapidly transforming into indoor farm cultivation.

Surface water is easily polluted and currently poses no threat to water purification technology.

After all, the water purifier technology possessed by Minqin Group can even separate hydrogen isotopes, making it easy to obtain the purest fresh water.

Once these two worries are resolved, the threat of nuclear weapons will actually be of little concern.

In addition, the increasing number of interception systems, defense systems, and underground facilities in the Asian Union further weakens the threat of nuclear weapons.

If the Asian Union did not want to destroy the ecological environment on the earth's surface, it would not be afraid of a fight to the death with the North Atlantic Union.

In fact, since entering the Platinum Age, the Asian Federation has gradually taken the initiative.

This is also why, although the Asian Union has been strictly guarding against artificial intelligence internally, it has not openly interfered in the artificial intelligence research of the North Atlantic Union and the Southern Alliance.

The fundamental reason is that the Asian Union has the confidence to ensure the survival of the vast majority of the population even after destroying the ecological environment on the earth's surface.

If the North Atlantic Union fails in artificial intelligence and is defeated by artificial intelligence in the future, the Asian Union will not hesitate to launch the first phase of the Earth Cleansing Plan.

At present, the attitude of the Asian Union towards the development of other regions is mainly one of indifference and secret observation.

Many people like Wang Lifeng also have this attitude. They do not have the idea of ​​taking over the whole world. The main reason is that it is not cost-effective to do so, and a forced melon is not sweet.

For example, in the chaotic South Asian region, many people there want to join the Asian Union, but unfortunately the vast majority of people in the Union are opposed to it.

Even on the western border of Hongsavadi, a huge 50-meter-high wall was built at a cost of more than 5 billion yuan, and a large number of fortress bases were built, and a dense minefield with a width of about kilometers was arranged around the border.

Its main purpose is to prevent South Asians from sneaking in.

Although the war in South Asia has subsided, there are now more than a dozen forces within it, and large areas of radioactive and chemical contamination have been formed within it.

Local agricultural and industrial facilities were either destroyed or could not be opened due to lack of raw materials.

In just a few years, the local population was reduced to less than 9 million. This shows that South Asia has been in an extremely tragic internal friction in recent years, with nearly to million people disappearing directly.

What is the use of the Asian Union for such a region?

You can't keep the land but not the people, right?
It would be better to pretend you didn't see it and let them fend for themselves.

South Asia is not Australia, which has a vast land and a sparse population and can be assimilated through population. It is basically impossible for South Asia to be assimilated by the Asian Union. Therefore, annexing such a region is obviously a thankless task.

In fact, the area actually controlled by the Asian Union is not small.

The land includes East Asia, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania, Antarctica, and a small part of South Asia.

The sea areas include the entire South Pacific, the entire Southern Ocean, a quarter of the North Pacific, and most of the East Ceylon Ocean.

In terms of the area of ​​the ocean controlled zone, it is almost the largest in the world.

On land, it also occupies two continents.

Although Antarctica is nominally an international public area and has scientific research stations of other forces, the Asian Commonwealth still controls most of Antarctica by relying on its hard power.

After all, the Antarctic photovoltaic development project, plus the several floating island cities in the Southern Ocean and the city in the sky, are all hard power that other forces cannot resist.

Other forces are angry but dare not speak out against the Asian Union's bullying in Antarctica.

Because they now have to rely on the Asian Commonwealth to solve the large-scale melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, they can only turn a blind eye to the occupation of Antarctica by the Asian Commonwealth.

This is also part of international rules.

In other words, the law of the jungle has never changed since the birth of human civilization.

Therefore, the Asian Commonwealth is not too hesitant about the actual control of Antarctica. Once the strength is reached, these things will naturally come to them. If one day the strength of the Asian Commonwealth is no longer there, many things will inevitably be lost.

This is also why Wang Lifeng and others strongly support the research and development of various weapons and related technologies.

Their goal is to ensure that the Asian Federation can always be ahead of other regions in terms of hard power, and even be able to directly crush other regions.

Only by maintaining the advantage can you keep what you eat.

In the future, the Asian Commonwealth will also have to control the moon, Venus, Mars and other planets. If its hard power is not enough, the North Atlantic Commonwealth and the Southern Alliance will definitely not let the Asian Commonwealth get what it wants.

When one has the power to crush other regions, other regions can only swallow their anger.

This is the reality of the survival of the fittest.

...

Testing is ongoing.

No matter whether the dozen or so simulated missiles came from low altitude, high altitude or outer space, they still seemed very powerless in the face of the oncoming Sky Shield missiles.

On the magnetic field radar, everyone only saw the signal representing the simulated missile, which quickly turned into dozens of small signals after encountering the Sky Shield missile.

This shows that these simulated bombs were entangled in the nets or even cut into the body of the bombs in an instant, and then destroyed by the high explosives carried by the nets.

Looking at the big screen of the magnetic field radar, the simulated missile signals disappeared one by one.

Wang Lifeng turned his head and laughed softly: "It seems that none of the simulated missiles successfully penetrated!"

Zhang Jianhua nodded with narrowed eyes: "The effect is very good. Although it is a simulated missile, Lao Zhu should not tell Wei Hang the penetration path of the simulated missile in advance. It seems that the Sky Shield series can be equipped."

"What about your project over there?"

Zhang Jianhua grinned and said, "The progress is OK, but it requires the cooperation of high-power magnetic field radar on the ground."

"It seems that my progress is the slowest." Wang Lifeng smiled bitterly helplessly.

"Haha, Lao Wang, you like to joke too." Zhang Jianhua didn't believe such words.

"I'm not kidding. After all, biotechnology R&D is much more difficult and slower than mechanical R&D. I'll be very lucky if the first generation of products can be completed by the end of the year."

Zhang Jianhua reminded: "It's not that I don't trust your judgment, but I believe in his scientific research ability."

"But that person was not directly involved!"

"As long as you are listed, if the project encounters difficulties and may not catch up with the progress, I believe that the person will take action, so you can relax!" Zhang Jianhua then complained:
"The second stage on my side will be troublesome next."

Although Wang Lifeng did not participate in the project that Zhang Jianhua was in charge of, he still knew some of its contents.

The project that Zhang Jianhua is in charge of is called: Low-Earth Orbit Defense System.

The first stage is to build a satellite network that can monitor all parts of the world, and more than half of it has been completed.

But the second stage was exactly as Zhang Jianhua complained.

Because the second phase of this system is to have active interception capabilities, and the envisioned third phase is to have low-Earth orbit strike capabilities.

It can be said to be one step at a time.

The difficulty naturally increases as well.

Humans have been using artificial satellites to monitor the world for decades. Now we are just taking it a step further by improving the accuracy, density and survivability of these artificial satellites.

But the next two stages are not so easy to accomplish.

In terms of satellite interception systems, the main technical routes include laser destruction, electromagnetic wave interference, microwave radiation, etc.

However, the researchers at Zhang Jianhua's team were also overwhelmed by the third-phase satellite active strike system.

It mainly targets ground targets from low-Earth orbit, which presents many problems.

Either the size of the satellite is too small to accommodate equipment that is too large, or the maintenance cost of the technical satellite is too high.

After all, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the probability of the Asian Union encountering a war is relatively small at this stage. If a large number of satellites are deployed in low-Earth orbit and are not used in a short period of time, this will lead to higher and higher maintenance costs for the entire system, and the effect produced will be limited to deterrence.

Therefore, there are huge differences within the Asian Community on whether to advance the third phase of the low-Earth orbit defense system.

Wang Lifeng doesn't have this worry.

Especially as the threat theory of artificial intelligence becomes increasingly loud, the Asian consortium seems to be particularly interested in developing some equipment that can be independent of existing electronic systems.

(End of this chapter)