The history of the emergence of automatic machinery in the human world can be traced back hundreds of years, and floating cannons are not a new concept. However, based on safety and other considerations, the military has always been very cautious in the application of automatic weapon platforms for hundreds of years. Even if it is equipped with drones, in most cases, it is only unmanned in the aircraft, but someone is operating on the ground. ≤

Therefore, the design department really has little experience in designing float cannons. The recent example is the flash in the pan when the sneak attacks on the Shang tribe.

However, there are no technical obstacles in floating cannons, and all difficulties are problems in design concepts and tactical requirements.

In order to meet the military's requirements as much as possible, the design department even found the Black Bear and asked about the design requirements in person.

Although Black Bear knew it, the design indicators of the new warship were not determined by just one sentence. He turned around and found Ye Fei.

The two closed the door and discussed for an afternoon, and then called back several fleet leaders stationed at the base star and the heads of the design department. More than a dozen people sat around Ye Fei's office, full of stars dazzled.

Everyone held a meeting in Ye Fei's office. On one side was a general who had been fighting against the enemy for many years, and he was so familiar with the needs of the fleet that he could not be familiar with. On the other side were professionals from the design department. They gathered together on both sides, just like sleepy encountering a pillow. The discussion was so intense that it was hard to get into the mouth. However, in most cases, the commanders of the military were quarreling back and forth.

People in the design department are low in military rank and dare not speak nonsense. The main job is to record the design requirements that the generals quarreled after a fight, and then analyze them rationally to determine whether the plan is feasible. If there are any problems, it is also necessary to explain what difficulties exist.

A group of senior officers rolled up their arms and sleeves. They almost performed a full martial arts show. After three and a half days of quarrel, they finally came up with a plan that everyone could accept.

But it's just acceptance, it's still far from satisfaction.

Both Ye Fei himself and the professionals in the design department were helpless. After all, the military's technical level was there. Unless the technology of the Guangmeng League was hired, it would be impossible to meet the different requirements of so many people.

The problem is that even if Ye Fei and the military bosses are willing to do this, they can contact the right race through fear of people. It is not certain whether they are willing to work on OEM.

More importantly, warships are not only the weapon platform of the army, but also the lifeline of the country. Even if the Republic's technical level is poor, they will be self-produced and sold, and they will be handed over to the hands of strange aliens. What if the aliens do something on the warship, wouldn't it cost their lives?

A country's important weapon must not be used to others.

After the design department obtained the design requirements, it immediately started the corresponding design work, but soon discovered that if the floating cannon completely meets the design standards, the final finished product length will exceed 400 meters!

Although this length is inconspicuous compared to the current main battleship, it is actually longer than the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier in the old era. It has already deviated from the level of floating guns, and is simply a small warship.

The design department tried every possible way but failed to reduce the size of the floating cannon. In the end, it could only report this shocking result and requested to reduce the design requirements.

Since Ye Fei personally took charge of the design of the new warship, the design plan was quickly placed on Ye Fei's desk.

Minister Ye made a decision without saying a word: Just follow this plan!

Ye Fei also comforted the design department and said that there is no need to be too cautious. If the performance can be improved, the hull of the floating cannon can continue to be enlarged.

Such an answer is simply a mess. If it is enlarged, it will become a medium-sized warship. What is the floating cannon?

How could they know that Ye Fei had his own considerations.

If the floating cannon is too small, they may not have looked at it even more when they hit the groundworm. He felt that the volume of more than 400 meters was not enough.

Although the new floating cannon is named after the floating cannon, it is actually a small remote-controlled battleship!

After clarifying this, the technical department's design work was a long time. In just half a month, it designed three remote control warships with different focus. Finally, Ye Fei selected the design plan with the best comprehensive performance.

So a funny scene appeared, and the new warship eventually turned into a big guy with an 8.7-kilometer-long and consisting of a mothership and 444 large floating guns.

This planetary warship was eventually named heavy star, but those who know it clearly call it a star rating is more appropriate.

Strictly speaking, heavy-star warships are the latest development type of combined warships, and they follow the path of heavy firepower and high output. The main body of the warship serving as a combat platform is average. The purpose of floating cannons is special, with heavy motor power, offensive firepower and light defense. It can be said that it is the worst defense level of humans after they stepped out of the solar system. It has thin skin and large fillings, and the standard one-shot death.

Another change in the heavy-star battleship is that there are finally more people on the ship, no longer two or three kittens.

The added personnel are mainly operators of floating cannons. After all, they are small warships more than 400 meters long. It is impossible for one person to fully utilize the performance of floating cannons. Therefore, the military equipped each floating cannon with three operators, and two operating groups also added an additional backup personnel. In this case alone, there were more than 1,500 people on the heavy-star battleship.

In addition to making the firepower of the warship very powerful, this change also greatly reduces the self-sufficiency of the warship, which has caused good complaints from the logistics department, and in a short period of time, there will be no sufficient floating gun operators.

However, these two problems were quickly solved. First, optimize the design plan and increase the automatic control equipment of the floating gun, reducing the number of people operating each floating gun to one person. In this way, the personnel on the ship were reduced by two-thirds at once, greatly reducing the logistics pressure.

The second is the reduction and control training plan. Anyway, as long as the floating cannon can die with the landworm, it will be profitable, and there is no need for too complicated control.

To be honest, Ye Fei never thought of designing the floating cannon so comprehensively at the beginning. He just wanted to design a suicide warship that could die with the landworms, but everyone disagreed with his opinion.

After all, human enemies may not only have landworms. Comprehensive combat platforms such as warships must have comprehensive capabilities and cannot take any wrong steps.

Ye Fei regretted the decision he had found a group of people to discuss the design standards of floating cannons.

At the end of October 2231, the Chongxingsha completed the test work and was officially delivered to the fleet for use.

After half a month of airworthiness, the Chongxing left the base star and rushed to the far end of the near-nuclear end of the Orion arm, becoming the main warship under the Expeditionary Fleet. The mission was to escort the warships on high-risk tasks.

The Expeditionary Force has a wide business and heavy missions, and a warship is not enough. It can be said that there are too many monks and less porridge, and the wolf cubs have to reduce the number of tasks in the dangerous area - until this time, the land worm swarms that crossed the front line were still not cleared, and the land worm swarms encountered by the Expeditionary Force were only one of the few insect swarms that crossed the border.

All races of the Light League were busy eliminating the enemy during this period, and even the Expeditionary Force was assigned several combat support missions.

Although there is no need to fight head-on with the landworm, the wolf cub still dares not be careless. Every time he uses the excuse to suspend the expeditionary force's clearance mission and then sends the heavy star to participate in the battle.

Chongxing lived up to expectations. During the war, more than a hundred worms were killed. Because the fleet of the Light Alliance was heading in front, Chongxing was a character who was slapping cold and slapping, so his own combat losses were almost negligible.

With the continuous entry of heavy-star warships, the lack of combat power has been alleviated to a certain extent. Before the end of 2231, the Expeditionary Force received a total of seven heavy-star warships, which can basically meet the current mission needs.

The military's plan is to replace all warships of the Expeditionary Force with heavy star ratings, and it is expected that all replacement work will not be completed until mid-2232.

During this period, the Barley Fleet took the lead in flying out of the Orion Arm and entered the vast interstellar space outside the spiral arm.

The seemingly quiet interstellar space is not really peaceful and peaceful. The extremely high-intensity cosmic rays envelope the fleet. Dangerous spaces that cannot be seen with the naked eye are like traps in the universe waiting for prey. Once trapped, they will be doomed.

The Barley Fleet lost a warship shortly after leaving the Hunter Arm, but Wu Han didn't even know how the warship was lost. He only knew that the warship suddenly lost control, and all the personnel on the ship died bizarrely, but found out the cause of the death.

Afterwards, the military spent a lot of time analyzing the detailed data sent back by the Barley Fleet and found that the fleet's route happened to pass through the pole of a pulsar, which could only be observed at the position of the Barley Fleet. It was impossible to see in the direction of the Orion arm!

That is to say, this is a pulsar that has not been formed for a long time!

The newly formed pulsar is at the stage of the strongest radiation, and the lost warship is a warning ship located outside the fleet. Therefore, it is inferred that the warship has fallen within the super pulse range of the pulsar, and this accident occurred.

After receiving the notification from the headquarters, Wu Han was very afraid. If the flight direction was slightly off at that time, the fleet would fly into the radiation area, and the consequences would be unimaginable.

In order to prevent similar incidents from happening again, Base Star had to urgently provide a batch of unmanned spacecraft. From then on, the Barley Fleet placed the unmanned spacecraft in front of the warship for a half-hour to one-hour voyage, losing more than a dozen unmanned spacecraft, and successfully avoiding several dangers of death.

Wu Han originally planned to find a suitable habitable planet at the far end of the Outer Arm to serve as a fleet logistics base, but considering the situation in the Orion Arm, he felt that putting the logistics base inside the Orion Arm could not guarantee safety.

Finally, Wu Han gritted his teeth and flew out of the Orion arm with the fleet. He turned several turns in the middle and visited more than a dozen independent stars that did not belong to any spiral arms. He successfully found a second-class livable star and two third-class livable stars that could be transformed.

After receiving the report, the General Logistics Department sent personnel to lead a large army of engineering robots to establish bridgeheads on these planets and carry out planet transformation work. With the efforts of a large number of engineering robots, I believe that in no time, these planets will be able to provide sufficient supplies to the two fleets of barley and wheat.

However, there are different views within the military, believing that galaxies independent of the spiral arm are like isolated islands on the sea. Any force leaving the spiral arm will notice these conspicuous spiral islands, which will increase the chance of these planets being exposed.

The logistics base placed in the spiral arm is surrounded by stars, just like a mountain in the mountains, which is safer in comparison.

This kind of thing has always been a matter of justice. Ye Fei simply refused to comment and calmly transferred the three full main fleets to a resource star nearly ten thousand light years away to protect the safety of these planets.

It is not only the logistics base of the Expeditionary Fleet, but one day in the future, it may be the rear of the entire Republic!

The Barley and Wheat fleet was still far from the target, but the fleets flying to the Man and Xian Arm entered the mission area one after another.

The first to arrive at the mission area was the fleet flying to the Marsman. The three fleets entered the Marsman from different locations. Through the feedback from each fleet, it can be found that the number of stars outside the Marsman is rare, and livable stars are even rare. Exploring the fleet outside the Marsman, only a few low-quality livable stars that cannot even meet the minimum transformation conditions. Except for unexpected encounters of a group of cosmic creatures, there are no other discoveries.

There are a lot of stars in the middle, but they are far lower than the density of the Orion Arm. No extraterrestrial civilization was found, but a few planets with tall worm pillars were found.

The density of stars inside the human arm is a little higher than that of the Orion arm, but it is already a world where the landworms are hosted, and there is no loophole at all. The fleet turned around and returned without even entering the human arm.

Instead of wasting time in the hinterland of the worm, it is better to go somewhere else to try your luck.

The discovery of the detection of the man and horse arm offset the idea of ​​the development of the man and horse arm in the direction of the army. Before the landworm was discovered, it could cross the space between the arm and directly hit Huanglong, and issued a return order to the three fleets in time.

Instead of returning directly, they detour the far end of the Orion arm and return under the support of the Expeditionary Force to avoid being followed by the landworms.

In contrast, the situation of the Yingxian Arm is much better. No matter where the fleet entered, they did not encounter landworms. The density of stars in the three directions outside, middle and inner directions is not low. Although there have not been a few habitable planets yet, as the investigation gradually deepens, more and more will definitely be.

However, a stable environment means that the local forces of the Yingxian Arm have the natural advantages of stable development. Although they have not encountered any interstellar civilization yet, it must be only a matter of time.
Chapter completed!