Chapter 1527 Mysterious Stripes

"Come to think of it." While waiting for the second security checkpoint, the self-defense system operator Chen Ming suddenly broke the silence, "We were scanned twice on the road by radar signals suspected to be from the Maritime Self-Defense Force's FCS3. Unfortunately, the duration was too short, and the recorded data should not have much analytical value."

"I don't quite understand either." Wang Zhijin shook his head. "You said that the US fleet has five Aegis air defense ships. Why did they send the Hyuga, Takanami and Mayuyu, three ships without regional air defense capabilities, to perform the cover mission?"

To some extent, he has entered a state of "post-war summary".

Zhang Xi also recalled at this time: "Regarding the Hyuga... Around this evening, the destroyer Xingcheng reported that their radar detected a large number of ship-borne helicopters taking off from the Hyuga, and then spread out in a fan-shaped flight to the north."

The group has now passed all inspections and arrived at the door of the combat situation center.

After swiping the pass card, the door slowly opened to both sides, and an electronic screen as big as the entire wall immediately attracted everyone's attention.

The screen is showing a real-time situation map of the South China Sea, with dozens of icons in different colors marking the locations of ships and aircraft of various countries.

The technicians were importing and processing the data, so everyone found a slightly secluded place to sit down and continue analyzing the situation:

"From the formation alone, it looks like they are conducting their best submarine search and attack operations. However, since they can be detected by surface radar at a distance of hundreds of kilometers, it means that they maintained a flight altitude of at least 1500 meters throughout the entire process. They are definitely not conducting anti-submarine operations."

Compared to these two naval leaders who were former staff officers, Zhou Kaili was not too troubled:

"Well, if you ask me, maybe Xiaori was inspired by the commissioning of the Liaosheng last year, and is using helicopters to simulate the overtime operation of vertical take-off and landing fighters in preparation for the subsequent equipment of F35B fighters."

In his opinion as an air force officer, the Hyuga looks no different from an aircraft carrier except for its smaller tonnage. As long as the F35B arrives, it can be directly transformed into a light aircraft carrier.

Of course, Zhang Xi and Wang Zhijin knew that it was not that simple. The requirements for take-off and landing conditions for vertical take-off and landing aircraft are much higher than those for helicopters. The deck of 16DDH has not been specially strengthened and cannot actually carry AV8B or F35B directly. It has to go back to the dock for major modifications.

But at this moment, a young officer suddenly stood up and turned to the others: "Report, the technical team is ready."

Yuan Xiaokang, who was in charge of the development of the Wuzhen-8 reconnaissance equipment, walked to the control console and entered a series of commands.

The image on the big screen switched to a set of complex parameter tables.

"First, let's review the flight data of the WZ-8." Yuan Xiaokang's voice was calm and professional. "The total flight time was 53 minutes, the maximum speed reached Mach 4.8, and the maximum flight altitude was 41200 meters. The power system performed beyond expectations, and there was 12% fuel remaining."

The flight path animation of WZ-8 began to play on the screen.

A red line extended from the southern waters of Qiong Province, drew an elegant arc near the Sulu Sea, passed perfectly near the enemy fleet, and then turned a huge 180° turn and returned.

Accurately utilize almost all available international airspace.

"Here is the key point." Yuan Xiaokang paused the animation and zoomed in on an area. "The WZ-8 was first detected by the AN/SPY-120 radar at a distance of 1 kilometers from the target fleet, and was subsequently locked by two other different types of radars. However, as we expected, no air defense system could pose a real threat to a target at an altitude of 4 meters and a speed of Mach 4 at this distance."

Chief Designer Cheng Junhong interrupted him:

"Let's take a look at the results of synthetic aperture radar first. This is the highlight of today."

The vast majority of those present are naval commanders, and they may not be particularly interested in the working conditions of the WZ-8 itself.

Zhang Xi originally wanted to say that he was not in a hurry, and it would be okay to listen to more about Wuzhen 8.

But the big screen had switched to a huge long radar image.

This is a SAR image of the entire mission area.

Everyone's attention was instantly drawn to it.

Soon, near the end of the right side of the picture, Zhang Xi saw more than a dozen densely packed white lines.

After zooming in, the image clearly shows the real-time status of the US fleet.

More than a dozen ships were making emergency turns, leaving spectacular wakes on the sea.

The screen then switched to the thermal imaging channel, but like SAR imaging, it lacked layered information. Even with a high resolution, the specific situation on the deck could not be seen clearly.

But no matter what, the look of embarrassment was clearly evident.

"Maybe they misjudged the nature of the WZ-8?" Zhou Kaili was the first to analyze. "This seems to be a move to evade anti-ship missiles."

Wang Zhijin suddenly asked, "What's the situation of the Hyuga formation?"

Yuan Xiaokang switched the screen back to the SAR channel and then zoomed in on an area approximately in the middle.

Zhou Kaili noticed the three ships in the upper middle of the image: "Is this it?"

"That's right." Yuan Xiaokang adjusted the display range. "In comparison, these three targets appear unusually calm. They maintained a neat formation course all the way without any evasive action."

Wang Zhijin seemed to be thinking: "Either they were well-trained and didn't panic at all, or... they didn't even notice Wuzhen 8."

"This is where it gets interesting." Yuan Xiaokang scratched his head. "According to the passive radar system's records, of the three ships in the Hyuga formation, only the Takanami conducted a brief scan when the Wuzhen-8 approached within 50 kilometers. The scan lasted less than 0.5 seconds, and then it lost track."

"This doesn't make sense." Self-defense system operator Chen Ming frowned and said, "Even if it's an old-fashioned radar, it shouldn't be unresponsive to such a large target."

"Wait..." Wang Zhijin's eyes widened slightly, "On a plane of this size, in addition to optical, infrared and SAR, you also integrated passive radar detection capabilities?"

"This part was not included in the original plan, but after replacing the new ramjet engine and the supporting power generation system, some extra space and electricity were freed up." Yuan Xiaokang explained calmly, "We considered that the mission assumption of the WZ-8 is to rely on speed and altitude for hard penetration, and it may be detected by many potential air defense systems during flight, so we installed this system as an additional system."

Cheng Junhong then stood up and spoke, bringing the slightly off-topic discussion back on track:

"The aerodynamic shape of the WZ-8 is quite special, and its radar cross section (RCS) is actually two orders of magnitude smaller than that of traditional aircraft of the same size... Considering that the FCS3 is not a serious search radar, when facing a target with extremely high speed, high altitude and small RCS, it is indeed possible to misjudge the real signal as clutter and filter it out."

The Maritime Self-Defense Force cannot be considered "well-trained" by any means, so this explanation is obviously more reasonable.

Zhang Xi and others thought that the analysis of the results was almost finished, but Yuan Xiaokang suddenly turned to the console:

"Switch to SAR channel 2."

Several people who were about to stand up put their butts back down again.

"SAR channel two?"

Yuan Xiaokang smiled and replied, "A relatively inconspicuous technological breakthrough - underwater terrain detection mode."

The image on the screen suddenly changed to a pattern of white and gray stripes.

Zhang Xi and Wang Zhijin, who were both from the navy, quickly figured out that this seemed to be some kind of underwater topographic map.

But only the shallow water part.

"This is a new function developed based on the technology of the 'Ocean' series of satellites," Yuan Xiaokang explained. "By adding radar processing modules and adjusting the signal synthesis algorithm, we have achieved penetrating imaging of shallow sea areas by airborne synthetic aperture radar for the first time."

As he spoke, he walked to the screen and waved his arms in front of several of the most obvious stripes: "The stripes of different densities represent underwater sand ridges, tidal gullies and shallows. The resolution can reach the meter level within 30 meters of water depth."

Zhang Xi instantly realized the value of this function.

"This is of great value for submarine warfare..." He had served on a Type 035 conventional submarine in his early years and was familiar with underwater matters. "It can greatly reduce the workload and difficulty of seabed surveying, especially in areas close to other countries..."

"In theory, this system can also detect underwater facilities in shallow waters..." Yuan Xiaokang suddenly stopped talking, his eyes fixed on a corner of the screen, "Wait..."

The others also held their breath.

He quickly zoomed in on an area.

At the edge of the Luzon Trough, an abnormal stripe about 2.5 kilometers long is clearly visible, which is completely different from the surrounding naturally formed underwater terrain.

"This doesn't look like it was formed naturally." Yuan Xiaokang moved closer to the screen. "I blocked the signal below a depth of 45 meters. Theoretically, the trough and trench should be blank..."

The operations room suddenly fell silent, with everyone staring at this unexpected discovery.

Yuan Xiaokang quickly entered the command and called up the historical satellite data of the area for comparison.

"Last month, the satellite images from Ocean 4 showed that there was nothing here." Yuan Xiaokang frowned, "which means it can't be an underwater terrain."

In fact, this conclusion is obvious.

It is impossible for a thin ridge of sand to stretch across the deep sea area.

The war situation center became quiet again.

There was really no one who could help him in this matter.

A few minutes later, Cheng Junhong made a suggestion:

"Since this function was developed based on the Ocean Series satellites, why not contact the National Remote Sensing Center and ask them to do some analysis?"