Doomsday: I Build a Space Fleet

Chapter 246 New Demands

Six air-to-ground missiles roared away, accurately hitting and destroying the target.

Immediately afterwards, the information displayed on Lorraine's data panel changed.

[Laser Bug - Resolution 8%]

Seeing this, Lorraine immediately instructed Cleveland to deduce the possible hiding places of the remaining targets based on the information gathered at this stage.

He then dispatched a frigate, ordering it to change course and prepare to use its naval guns to bombard these locations where enemy targets might be present.

After the frigate changed course and moved some distance away from the flagship, the drone that was deploying sonar buoys suddenly issued an alarm.

[Warning: Unidentified underwater target detected!]

The two drones, which had been waiting in the air for a long time, immediately adjusted their course, preparing to drop the two lightweight torpedoes they were carrying.

But the alarm was suddenly lifted, and the sound waves could no longer detect any unusual targets!

Lorraine frowned and began to issue orders.

"Attention, Ship No. 2002, land attack system is loading high-explosive munitions and setting the time fuse."

"Using the last known location of the suspected target as the origin, draw a circle with a radius of 400 meters and conduct a comprehensive strike on that circle."

After Lorraine gave the order, the 380mm coilgun turret and the 130mm electromagnetic gun turret located below the flagship rose from under the armor plates and began to adjust their angles, preparing to strike the underwater target area.

[Artillery ready.]

"put!"

Then, a series of blue lights flashed below the frigate, and dozens of low-velocity shells crashed into the water, successfully reaching their target area despite the obstruction of the seawater.

A series of explosive explosions successfully created a huge bulge on the sea surface.

Immediately afterwards, a new piece of information appeared on Lorraine's data panel.

[Pistol Shrimp - Analysis Progress 0.2%]

"Platinum, it seems you guessed right, there really is a zombie nest underwater."

Subsequently, Lorraine found information about this creature.

Pistol Shrimp

The pistol shrimp, about 5cm in length, lives in shallow tropical oceans and has a pair of disproportionately large and small claws.

When hunting, they quickly close their massive claws, spraying a jet of water at speeds up to 100 km/h to stun or even kill their prey (such as small fish, shrimp, and crabs).

Such a high-speed water flow can cause cavitation, forming a tiny, low-pressure bubble.

These bubbles take only a billionth of a second to emerge and burst, and the temperature reaches 4700 degrees Celsius when they explode, making them easy prey catchers.

When the water pressure returns to normal, the bubbles burst, making a popping sound. If a group of pistol shrimp simultaneously closes their large claws, the sound is enough to allow a submarine to evade sonar detection.

"It seems that creatures infected with the zombie virus will change their body size, and even their habits will change to some extent."

"However, this also explains why those unmanned underwater vehicles disappeared."

Since the enemy's biological ships did not have any unusual recordings, Lorraine began to think about how to effectively and safely kill these pistol shrimp.

While pondering, Lorraine observed every move on site in real time through the data link.

As a heavy anti-ship missile swept across the sea, Lorraine thought of the vehicle suitable for this mission—a ground effect vehicle.

However, this type of vehicle also has very obvious drawbacks.

Ground effect vehicles (GEVs) are exactly what they are, as they rely on ground effect to fly at high speeds at low altitudes.

Since the extent of the ground effect zone is positively correlated with the length of the aircraft's wings, such aircraft typically have relatively large wings and engines positioned higher than the fuselage.

However, due to various limitations, the flight altitude of conventional ground effect vehicles is usually between 1 and 6 meters, while a small number of ultra-large ground effect vehicles can reach a flight altitude of 10 to 15 meters.

However, this also brings the most obvious drawback of ground effect vehicles: their range of operation is limited by sea conditions.

For some small ground effect vehicles, waves of more than one meter generated by sea state 3 are enough to seriously interfere with their range of operation.

However, in contrast to its extremely obvious shortcomings, this machine also has several very obvious advantages.

Ground effect vehicles typically cruise at speeds between 100 and 320 knots (160 to 590 kilometers per hour), far exceeding the speed of ordinary ships and surpassing the flight speed of conventional helicopters. They can even reach the maximum speed of some tiltrotor aircraft.

The aircraft has a very large carrying capacity, and the cargo it can carry can reach 50% of the aircraft's own weight.

This aircraft utilizes the high lift-to-drag ratio resulting from the ground effect, making its unit transportation cost far lower than that of airplanes and high-speed ships.

Because the aircraft utilizes ground effect and typically flies at low or very low altitudes, it is naturally located in radar blind spots and is difficult for radar to detect.

The boat-shaped structure at the bottom of this type of aircraft allows it to take off and land directly on the water surface. Some small-weight ground effect vehicles can even land in shallow waters such as swamps.

These numerous advantages result in an extremely wide range of applications for this type of aircraft.

With their ability to fly at low altitudes and high speeds, various aircraft possess strong penetration capabilities and can carry out certain special tactical missions near the coastline.

In addition, this type of aircraft typically possesses extremely strong underwater obstacle-clearing capabilities.

With its strong carrying capacity, the ground effect vehicle can carry a large number of mine countermeasures systems and engineering troops.

Moreover, it exerts less water pressure when navigating in water, and is less susceptible to damage from explosive obstacles such as acoustic mines, pressure mines, magnetic mines, and anchor mines. It also features super draft, fast speed in still water, small underwater physical field, and insensitivity to underwater explosions.

Even if a mine explodes, the damage caused by the explosion-proof design of the ground effect vehicle will be much less than that of other mine-clearing vessels, making it easier to enter complex minefields and remove various obstacles in the water.

Thanks to advancements in radar technology, the weakness of ground effect vehicles in resisting waves can be mitigated to some extent.

By scanning with radar, ground effect vehicles can know the wave height in the area in advance, thereby changing their course and avoiding the sea area with poor conditions.

After figuring out the advantages and disadvantages of ground effect vehicles, Lorraine added the type of vehicle to the pre-research list and then turned his attention back to the battlefield.

At this point, there were still 25 minutes left before all the sonar buoys were deployed, and the frigate responsible for land attack had already returned to the flagship.

While the fleet was regrouping, Lorraine also took the opportunity to glance at the information displayed on the data panel.

[Needle-piercing insect - Analysis progress 43.7%]

[Fire Ant - Resolution 45.6%]

[Laser Bug - Resolution 30.8%]

[Pistol Shrimp - Analysis Progress 25.4%]

"Captain, I am in position."

After hearing Xu Ling's report, Lorraine looked at the situation of the four fighter jets that had been mounted on ground attack configurations.

After a brief deliberation, Lorraine did not refit it with anti-ship capabilities, but instead kept it in its land attack configuration.