When we arrived at Parton Forest, the modern aircraft manufacturing plant was hidden in the vast forest. There were only two roads to enter and exit the farm, one to the outside world and the other to the 27th National Defense Department's residence. In order to build this cooperative factory, the Lorraines and the Starry Sky Group invested a total of more than 15,000 gold kroners. You should know that the construction of the first Free Lorraine Canal cost less than 10,000 gold kroners that year, which shows how expensive the current high-end technology research and development and production equipment is.

In the past year, more than 50 engineers and technicians and more than a thousand workers moved here with their families, giving this aircraft manufacturing plant, hidden deep in the forest, a real soul and vitality. Now, in its spacious and grand manufacturing workshop, one assembled aircraft is arranged one by one, and it looks like a metal structure full of modern texture. This is also the first all-metal bombing/transportation aircraft production line in the Federation. Currently, the N series military transport/bombers are manufactured with dual engines.

Before this, only the Federal Army had all-metal models, whether bombers or transport aircraft, they usually had metal frames and textile skins. When Weiss and Nicholas arrived here, the new weapons purchased by the Star Group from the Grumman Group had arrived, but they were not as cool as they imagined, but were very simple frame guns, just like installing guns and corresponding retraction devices in a metal frame. They were made of two guns, and in terms of size and shape, they were indeed

It can be equipped with heavy aircraft. In Weiss' memory, people in the old time and space also tried hard to combine aircraft and artillery. During World War II, attack aircraft equipped with small-caliber artillery played the role of "can opener" on the ground armored combat vehicle. In the years after the war, the most successful one was the C-130 fire support aircraft, which was not only well known to military enthusiasts, but also a "frequently" on the screen. In Transformers, the "air gunboat" showed its power and beat the machine warriors who used future technology to no aura.

Before the guidance technology matured, artillery did have advantages that ordinary bombs could not reach, which is why flight ships generally used artillery rather than bombs as their main weapons. In fact, in the early days of the rise of flight ships, experts had conducted a lot of research on these two main attack methods, and theory and practice showed that artillery was more destructive and deterrent than bombs, and the weapons of attack aircraft were the opposite of flight ships. In the previous battle, the federal army used bomb-loading attack aircraft to defeat the Norman flight fleet, and when the fuselage was sturdy and load-limited, the use of bombs was also the only effective way for aircraft to attack the behemoth of flying ships. Now, the maturity of artificial star source stone technology, coupled with the potential growth in the production of star source stone, has given people a bright prospect of breaking the original limitations.

In the factory's design room, Weiss saw a wooden model that he had never seen before, which is what Nikola called a "flying gunboat". Judging from the appearance outline, it is still a conventional aerodynamic aircraft: the wide wing is equipped with four piston engines, the propeller is a three-blade layout, and the tail is also a traditional vertical tail. Compared with the aircraft I have seen in the past, its biggest special feature is that there is a dual-mounted turret connected in parallel on the left and right in the middle of the fuselage. It can be regarded as an amplified dual-mounted machine gun turret. Their horizontal firing boundary covers the rear hemisphere of the aircraft, and the vertical firing boundary is close to 300 degrees. It can also shoot forward and front up and front down targets.

Seeing this model, the first question Weiss gave Nicholas was, “What are their positioning?”

The tacit understanding formed by long-term cooperation allowed Nikolai to understand his intention to raise this question at the first time, so he answered straightforwardly that they could be used as aerial cavalry on the battlefield, raiding and ambushing enemy flying ships, and coping with ground targets. These 15PIR caliber aircraft-borne artillery are equipped with three types of conventional ammunition, one is armor-piercing bombs for attacking ships, one is high-explosive bombs for attacking ground, and the other is shotgun for combating air. In the test, this artillery can penetrate any aircraft's armor at a distance of 3,000 feet, including the heavy-loaded aircraft used by the enemy during the war. When using high-explosive bombs, it can attack targets in the air and on the ground from 20,000 to 30,000 feet away. Although the accuracy in flight is not as good as the artillery of flying warships, its carrier moves very quickly and can fully utilize the advantages of efficient maneuvering.

Air cavalry on the battlefield! Weiss repeated this concept and thought about it. When it comes to attack combat aircraft, he used to think of dive bombers with mature concepts and tried to explore in the direction of aerial torpedoes. In the war, the Normans used air torpedoes to deal severe damage to the flying fleets of Wissex and the Federation. However, this novel weapon has many limitations. The first thing to bear is that it must be used on flying warships, because artificial star source stone parts must be used before launch

Pressure and heating are carried out. Secondly, the current navigation technology can only ensure the inertial flight attitude of the aerial torpedo and cannot deal with flexible targets at all. Before the emergence of guidance technology, the aerial torpedo could only act as a slow artillery with great power and could not play the role of rockets or missiles. The medium-caliber aerial artillery undoubtedly made up for the gap between bombs and machine guns and machine guns. After solving the problem of carrying platforms, there is indeed practicality that has never been seen in the history of Earth civilization...

"What is the Supreme Military Technical Committee's evaluation of this weapon?" Then Weiss asked a very direct and important question, which was related to the prospects for the use of this weapon.

"From what we know, it is very optimistic." Nikola replied frankly, "The most important thing is that this kind of aircraft with light or ultra-light flight ships has gotten rid of its dependence on star source stone. In fact, after the breakthrough of artificial star source stone technology, the military technical committee members have been carefully considering alternatives for strategic adjustments. They have two options, one is to build a large number of heavy aircraft that combines aerodynamic principles and artificial star source stone technology, and the other is to use artificial star source stone technology to build more flight warships, but I think the floating performance of artificial star source stone restricts this path - in addition to the low unit floating force, we are worried that fierce artillery battles will affect the stability of artificial star source stone, so the flying warships built on artificial star source stone are equivalent to defective products of conventional flight ships."

From Nicholas's words, Weiss heard some information, that is, the artificial star source stone is still worse than the real star source stone in terms of performance and stability, but these involve advanced secrets, which is not convenient for her to inquire.

"In addition, we have discussed a lot about the North recently." Nikolai did not point out who she was discussing, perhaps those experts who studied artificial star source stones with her, or members of the Supreme Military and Technical Committee. These are not important, but what is important is that they found another interesting paradox, that is, if the discovery of the north is really the remains of the spacecraft, or part of a spacecraft, and it is relatively complete, then the scientific information it carries is far more valuable than the star source stone material it contains, but the Vissex people are now trying hard to transform it into a star source stone resource, and the allocation of star source stone resources.

Bargaining on the issue rather than exploring the advanced technology of higher civilizations - it takes a lot of time and energy to analyze the ancient and advanced civilization. Perhaps it is possible to gather the top and cutting-edge talents on the entire Orence planet to make substantial progress in the expected years. From this perspective, what the Wissex people discovered in the north may only be the star source stone deposit, which was rendered into the so-called spacecraft ruins for some ulterior motive... For example, using a certain number of star source stone resources to lure the Federation to change its strategic deployment, re-group the route of armed forces to the flight ships, and abandon their dominant flight technology.

After hearing Nicholas say this, Weiss nodded: "The direction we have been thinking about recently coincides with it. We have sent you a telegram to invite you to come for this purpose. We intend to maintain the scale and momentum of mechanical technology through national competition, rather than letting the expected number of flying ships increase rapidly to replace engine-powered machinery. We are not willing to delay even if it takes a month."

"After that being said, what do you think about this?" Nicholas asked back.

Because of the tacit understanding, Weiss knew that what she was referring to was the model of the heavy aircraft next to her. Judging from the way it operates with cannons and mainly uses artillery attacks, it may be more appropriate to call it a flying gunboat.

"In terms of attack, it is impeccable and has good power. The only shortcoming is that the defense is too weak, especially the propeller engine, which is easily damaged or destroyed by artillery debris, which is still incomparable to light flight ships. However, I think nothing is absolutely absolute. If you want to pursue a balance of firepower, speed, and protection, it will inevitably lead to the size of the fuselage. Perhaps... From the complexity of the battlefield, we can modularly design the combination of aircraft and artillery to form several extended models. For example, the double-equipped gravity artillery in front of us is located on both sides of the fuselage, which is a heavy combat type; if a double-equipped flat-line is installed in the rear half of the fuselage, it is a ground attack type; if one is installed on the back of the aircraft, it is an airplane operation

War type. Some are camouflage combat type equipped with heavy bombs, and command type equipped with high-power communication equipment. In this way, a formation composed of several types of aircraft is like a flying fleet, with different roles and different uses, making the enemy unpredictable. Compared with the attack aircraft we used in the previous war, the biggest advantage of the aircraft equipped with artillery is that the attack distance is increased, just like the difference between infantry using swords and archers using bows and crossbows in the age of cold weapons. If an army only has swords and infantry, the damage during combat is difficult to reduce, and if there are swords and infantry combined with archers, or only archers are used under specific conditions, casualties can be reduced a lot."

Nicholas nodded constantly and praised: "I knew it was right to bring you here. Of course, this factory also has your shares, so it is reasonable to let you participate in this important R&D project."

"Why is it here, not your base camp?" Weiss expressed his curiosity. Although the equipment of this cooperative factory is the most advanced, it has just opened for a short time and its R&D capabilities are far inferior to the main base and research center of Starry Sky Group located in the east. According to normal logic, high confidentiality and high value design should be completed by the main factory, and then produced by the branch factory and the cooperative factory.

Nichola frowned and did not answer immediately, but suggested going to the lounge for a cup of tea. After sitting down and pouring the tea, she asked the staff to leave the lounge and close the door. Then she lowered her voice and said: "The situation in the east recently is not ideal. There are a large number of suspicious people active. Data theft has occurred more than once."

Weiss did not have such a clear understanding of the situation in the east, but recalled that before Brooks was transferred to the east, he also mentioned that the Normans seemed to be brewing a new attack route, that is, to attack the eastern part of the Federation through the violent sea with harsh meteorological conditions. In the Norman style, since he wanted to make plans for the eastern part, he would definitely launch a large number of intelligence operations in advance, just like they did in the western and northern parts of the Federation. Because of the changes in the environment, the Star Group moved the focus of research to this relatively less conspicuous cooperative factory. This was a wise move, but it also meant that Lorraine had to make great efforts to do security.

While drinking tea, Weiss was considering security matters. Assuming he was a Norman, how to start if he wanted to spy on the information here, he analyzed it from this perspective and found that the environment here was not as safe as before. Adjacent to the military camp and away from the living area, it gave people a sense of ideological paralysis. Once the Normans wanted to do something, they could take advantage of this.

As a good friend of Weiss, Nicholas guessed his thoughts when he looked worried. She suggested: "Let's do this, let's do a division of labor. I'll be responsible for the technology, you provide good ideas; you are responsible for improving the security system, I provide advice and necessary financial support, how about it?"
Chapter completed!