Chapter 1423 Continuous Shooting!

"400 kilograms to 4 tons?"

Chang Haonan subconsciously glanced at the "gun barrel" hanging high in the air:

"From an engineering perspective, if the load mass is reduced by one order of magnitude, and other conditions remain unchanged, then the demand for detonation energy can be reduced to about one percent of the original... Considering that the final speed that the catapult needs to achieve is much lower than that of the shell, then the energy supply module alone should be smaller than this electromagnetic gun, probably..."

He looked around, as if looking for a more intuitive reference.

Finally, he pointed to a 10-wheel heavy truck parked in the distance:

"If it's designed properly, it can probably be integrated onto a truck of a similar size... Of course, this is just an analogy. An ordinary wheeled chassis certainly can't bear the reaction force generated by the ejection of a 4-ton aircraft, and there's no place to install a long enough ejection rail. A 0.4-ton one can be used as an example."

This answer obviously exceeded Ma Mingwei's most optimistic estimate, so much so that he muttered to himself almost without thinking:

"If it's this small... maybe the application can be expanded to the Army?"

In fact, at the beginning, Chang Haonan was a little confused.

But after hearing this, it’s time to come to my senses.

The weight range is from 0.4 tons to 4 tons, and it belongs to both the navy and the army, so there seems to be only one possibility that meets the requirements.

"Academician Ma wants to launch a medium-sized drone?"

Ma Mingwei was stunned at first, then he smiled as if to say, "I've guessed it."

"To be more precise, we want to launch large batches of drones in succession."

After he finished speaking, perhaps because he was worried that Chang Haonan still didn't realize the scale of his plan, he added:

"For example, launching 20-30 aircraft within a few minutes to form a semi-autonomous combat cluster with multi-aircraft coordination and distributed control capabilities..."

In fact, to be honest, Chang Haonan has also made many achievements in the fields of wireless communications and remote control, but both the distributed command network and the medium and low orbit relay communication constellations are "infrastructure" in this field.

As for the drone itself, it was too difficult for him in the early stage and too simple in the later stage, so he never really got involved.

It's like building a highway without paying much attention to what cars are running on it.

Now, when I suddenly heard the idea proposed by the other party, I felt a sense of surprise for the first time: "Has our national defense industry developed to this level?"

Ma Mingwei next to him didn't notice any of this.

Seeing Chang Haonan's strange expression and his reluctance to speak, he thought that the latter was wondering why he chose the immature plasma power generation technology, so he explained:

"The electromagnetic catapult that uses traditional electrical energy storage devices as the energy source can meet the working frequency of 4-5 catapult cycles per minute in a short period of time, but it is difficult to maintain it for a long time due to the limitation of the energy storage principle. After about a dozen cycles, it will gradually slow down... This is of course not a big deal for large aircraft. The ground crew is not superman, and it is impossible to maintain the efficiency of preparing for a catapult in 12-15 seconds. However, there is nothing to prepare for small and medium-sized drones before they are released, and the frequency of their deployment is basically completely determined by the catapult."

"As for steam catapults, we can't even reach the upper limit. In actual operation, it's not easy to launch one every 45 seconds. What's more, the superiors are no longer prepared to invest further resources in steam catapults, and the logistics and equipment departments are not willing to maintain two sets of similar equipment with completely different principles at the same time..."

"In short, we need a technology that can store energy in the form of chemical energy but can convert it into kinetic energy in a short period of time with extremely high efficiency. At the beginning, the 713th Institute even considered using rocket boosters, but after testing, it was found that the rocket that could propel a drone weighing about 1 ton into flight was already very large and complicated. If each aircraft was to be equipped with a booster rocket, firstly, ordinary ground crews would have to operate pyrotechnics in a decentralized manner, which would be too dangerous. Secondly, a large safety zone would have to be set up during takeoff for rocket boosters, which might be even more exaggerated than that of a heavy fighter jet, and there wouldn't be enough space for the operation site..."

"..."

Hearing what the other party said, Chang Haonan also imagined in his mind the scene of dozens of ground crews installing booster rockets on the aircraft on the ground or on the ship...

It's a bit scary indeed.

It feels like the aerial bombs and torpedoes are being exchanged back and forth.

Nanyun was ecstatic.

Of course, in terms of security, everyone is at a level where no one can laugh at anyone else.

Solid propellants are admittedly not stable enough, but the process of generating magnetic fluid through explosion also involves hydrogen and oxygen… Although it is certainly transported uniformly through pipelines and does not require decentralized operations, it is not much better.

Fortunately, there is room for improvement:

"If the size requirement is not particularly strict... For example, if the installation platform is considered to be an amphibious assault ship or a large destroyer, the combustion gas can be further replaced from hydrogen to a safer type such as methane. If the temperature is not high enough, some flammable metals can be added..."

Ma Mingwei is undoubtedly a leader in the field of power management and control, but he has not done much research on chemical energy, so naturally, Chang Haonan's words are the final word:

"It's always better to be safer... But then again, the tactics of drone swarm combat are still in the conceptual stage, so some specific requirements may change at any time. For example, the Navy has not yet decided whether to use the amphibious assault ship currently in the design stage as a take-off platform, or to build a drone mothership specifically to distinguish it from the amphibious landing force and make it easier to command."

"Also, the Army may require the entire set of equipment to be loaded on a truck, as you said before... Of course, it's not an ordinary truck, it must be at least 8*8 or 10*10 in size."

Chang Haonan actually just picked something as an analogy just now, but he didn't expect that he would accidentally meet the needs of potential users.

It can only be said that with the continuous increase in the total scale of military expenditure, the army, which once had to wait for new shoes and new recruits, is finally getting better.

"Even if it is integrated into a truck, it is not necessary to go into detail on the detonation tube and gas tank... We chose a moving magnet motor because the slide rail is too long and it is purely a verification device. If we want to pursue higher integration, we can save a lot of weight and size just by replacing the motor with a moving coil."

This sentence attracted a strange look from Ma Mingwei.

The moving magnet type uses a fixed long iron core armature as the secondary, and can be designed on this basis into a non-contact, frictionless linear motor between the primary and secondary, so the travel range of the mover is longer. However, as a price, the disadvantage is that the winding is complex, and the weight and power consumption of the entire system are relatively large.

In engineering, especially for electromagnetic catapults, there are actually many ways to decouple the ejection stroke and the actuator stroke, thereby extending the size of the equipment.

So unless the scale is really large, moving magnet motors are not a particularly common choice.

If it is for the sake of saving trouble, directly using the motor rotor as the armature to accelerate the projectile is indeed very simple and crude.

Seeing this, Chang Haonan had to give an additional explanation:

"For us, it doesn't matter if the structure is simple or complex... The key problem is that when the electromagnetic gun is fired, the projectile needs to pass through the armature and the sabot to contact the guide rail and the inner bore of the barrel respectively. Because the final speed of the entire assembly must reach Mach 7 or even higher, the internal ballistic dynamics is much more complicated than that of conventional artillery. We need to reduce the number of modules involved in the system as much as possible to conform to the rigid-flexible coupling model as much as possible..."

Electromagnetic catapults do not involve such outrageous terminal velocities, so Ma Mingwei did not consider the issue of launch dynamics.

Of course, what’s more important is that this acceleration device, which looks like the arm of a tower crane, makes it difficult for people to perceive it as a “gun barrel”.

"Speak of it."

Ma Mingwei suddenly changed his tone:

"I see this gun has more than one blast tube installed... Does that mean it can fire rapidly?"

Talking about this, Han Chenfeng, who had been silent just now, instantly became excited.

Just as the firing rate of traditional artillery needs to consider the problem of barrel overheating, electromagnetic launch will also face the problem of motor overheating if it works continuously.

But it is much easier to cool a motor than an entire gun barrel.

Moreover, the heat generated by the operation of the motor is not comparable to the combustion of gunpowder.

So it is indeed easier to achieve a high rate of fire.

He glanced at Chang Haonan and saw that the latter nodded at him.

So he stepped forward and introduced:

"In continuous mode, it can fire 15 times per minute, and because there is not enough space to place the ammunition lifting mechanism, we have specially prepared two 10-round magazines for this gun..."

As he spoke, Han Chenfeng took out a metal frame with a spring inside from the side:

"So if you really want to talk about it, this can even be considered a somewhat retro magazine cannon..."