Chapter 1538 Mysterious Data

Beijing, Torch Laboratory.

Chang Haonan leaned back in his large, soft office chair, enjoying the rare leisure time during working hours.

The TV screen on the opposite wall was broadcasting the evening military news.

The female anchor spoke clearly and in a calm tone:

"…During a recent routine exercise, our naval officers and soldiers demonstrated the spirit of international humanitarianism and successfully provided assistance to a foreign submarine that accidentally got into distress in the relevant waters…"

The camera switched to show the Canglong moored at the Yazhou base dock, with its bow obviously damaged and barely held upright by buoys.

Similar reports have been coming in for three days.

Although this incident involved a wide range of issues, the three parties unanimously handled it in a low-key manner.

The Confrontation-North exercise was also moved to the Western Pacific under the name of the second phase.

At least on the surface, the whole thing should gradually calm down.

The news quickly jumped to other content, and even inserted a preview of a scientific pig farming tutorial.

It is difficult to understand why CCTV first thought of putting military, children and agriculture on the same channel.

Chang Haonan picked up the remote control and clicked it lightly, and the screen went dark.

The only sound in the office was the low hum of the computer fans.

He turned in his chair and looked back at the computer screen in front of him.

Until now, Chang Haonan has maintained the habit of browsing the Internet platforms in his spare time.

The world here is completely different from the prosperous and peaceful world just shown on TV news.

On several active military forums and emerging social media platforms, clickbait articles and hot posts are emerging in an endless stream:

"Why did the two aircraft carriers retreat south in a hurry? The inside story of the navy's sword-drawing! "

"The exercise fleet encountered a strong interception, was the Soryu a victim?"

"Six ships forced back two aircraft carriers? The truth is far from that!"

……

The AIS was turned on throughout the exercise fleet's withdrawal from the Sulu Sea, so its movements could not be hidden from the eyes of anyone interested.

Most netizens tend to believe that it was the destroyer and frigate formation that went forward to intercept that forced the other side to change its plan, and that the "distress" of the Soryu was also the result of the failure of the infiltration operation.

But the voices of doubt are equally loud:

"It's true that Xingcheng and Jiangcheng are the main destroyers, but the two old frigates in Xiangfan and Jiangmen are almost antiques! Six ships, two of which are old models. How can they let the other side turn around and run? This is probably illogical."

"That's right. With a dual-carrier battle group and complete anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-missile equipment, there's no way they'd be scared off by a few destroyers and frigates, right? There must be some force involved that we don't know about!"

These views are obviously very convincing. Apart from a small number of people who are overwhelmed by the event, or self-media who are just watching the fun, most people will not make a wrong judgment on the strength comparison between the two sides.

But it is an indisputable fact that the exercise fleet left the Sulu Sea as if fleeing for its life.

For a time, all kinds of speculations were rampant, and even divided into three mainstream factions:

"Nuclear submarine deterrence theory": It is believed that the navy must have secretly dispatched attack nuclear submarines to approach the exercise fleet and launched a simulated attack. This silent death threat is the key to forcing the other side to retreat.

"Dongfeng Express Theory": It is firmly believed that the Second Artillery Corps dispatched anti-ship ballistic missiles and carried out coordinated deterrence on land. The exercise fleet detected relevant signals or received warnings and had to withdraw to a safe distance.

"Electromagnetic fog theory": It is speculated that the naval aviation dispatched powerful electronic warfare aircraft to completely suppress the communication, radar and command systems of the exercise fleet. In order to avoid unexpected events due to information disadvantage, the other exercise fleet had to evacuate first...

……

Chang Haonan rolled the mouse wheel, browsing these analyses that were either passionate or serious, with an imperceptible smile on the corner of his mouth.

I have to admit that the imagination of the spectators is rich enough.

However, no one has come close to the real answer yet.

A black ghost flew over the aircraft carrier at an altitude of 40,000 meters at nearly five times the speed of sound.

In fact, even the existence of the Wuzhen 8 model is still a secret.

As for Plan B, even fewer people know about it.

Just as Chang Haonan was about to close the webpage, the intercom on the table suddenly rang.

The janitor from Torch Labs.

A General Zheng from the Air Force had just arrived at the laboratory park by car and said that he had an appointment to meet with Chang Haonan.

Of course it is Zheng Liangqun.

Soon, a figure in a blue uniform appeared at the door, followed by two capable guards and a young clerk carrying a briefcase.

"Chief of Staff Zheng, please take a seat." Chang Haonan stood up to greet him and pointed to the sofa in the reception area.

The two men were already very familiar with each other, but the other party came for serious business, so naturally he had to mention his position when talking about work.

The guards and staff stayed at the appropriate positions inside the door in tacit understanding.

After a few simple greetings, Zheng Liangqun got to the point with a serious look:

"Academician Chang, my first mission this time is to express my gratitude to you on behalf of the command organization... Your help in this incident, especially your guidance on the acoustic jamming system of the Zhu Kezhen, played a decisive role."

He leaned forward slightly and emphasized:

"According to the subsequent analysis of the Canglong's sonar data, they completely lost their sense of direction after being disturbed, mistook a piece of hard rock for a hidden passage, and crashed into it, eventually being forced to surface."

After listening to this, Chang Haonan showed a helpless smile on his face:

"To be honest, the core purpose of designing that waveform sequence was just to create confusion and interfere with their judgment of the real terrain. As for the current result... it is probably caused by the coupling of the interference sound wave signal with the special local underwater terrain... It is purely a coincidence, a low-probability event in probability..."

Zheng Liangqun listened and nodded to show his understanding, but the look of "I understand, I understand everything" in his eyes did not diminish in the slightest.

He obviously preferred to believe that everything was within the other party's calculations.

This beautiful misunderstanding has happened so many times that Chang Haonan can no longer completely clarify it.

"Anyway, the result is satisfactory." Zheng Liangqun did not intend to dwell on this detail, but changed the subject, "This incident also made the decision-makers realize the intensity of the underwater secret war. The superiors have decided to advance and accelerate the construction of a fixed underwater monitoring network in the South China Sea."

He held out three fingers:

"The initial plan is to deploy large fixed sonar arrays in 15 key waterways and strategic nodes. In the three most core and sensitive areas, we will refer to the experience of this incident and install additional special acoustic jammers to make it more difficult for submarines from foreign countries to operate at our doorstep."

"That's good!" Chang Haonan's eyes lit up. "I can provide some ideas on the algorithm level to make the interference more targeted, the waveform more complex, and more difficult for the other party to identify and counter... But at the specific implementation level, we still have to let the comrades in charge of specific projects in the Navy come to coordinate."

After hearing this, Zheng Liangqun smiled even more broadly. This was exactly one of the purposes he hoped to achieve on this trip.

Then he gestured to the clerk next to him.

The latter immediately took out a document from his briefcase, with a red stamp of "Confidential" on the cover.

Zheng Liangqun took the document and handed it to Chang Haonan: "This is a summary of the internal technical assessment report of this incident, including the final qualitative conclusion from above. It is my personal thank you gift."

Chang Haonan didn't say anything, but just opened it and took a quick look.

Nearly one-third of the report was devoted to elaborating on the dual core roles of "strategic deterrence" and "intelligence acquisition" played by the WZ-8 in the entire incident.

It included the entire combat process from its launch by the H-6S, to its high-altitude and high-speed penetration, to its "harmless passage" over the US fleet, and finally its safe return to bring back key data. In the end, it also highly praised the future application potential of the WZ-8.

Zheng Liangqun also noticed where Chang Haonan's attention was and changed the subject:

"This drone with four times the speed of sound can achieve such an effect. If air-breathing hypersonic weapons are put into service in the future, I am afraid that the enemy will not dare to move around in the second island chain."

The latter certainly understood the hidden meaning.

I just want to ask about the development progress of hypersonic missiles.

"The progress of the air-breathing hypersonic engine is going smoothly." He closed the report and concluded, "The aerodynamic layout, structural strength, and flight control system are all relatively complete. The ground simulation test and the test flight results of some subsystems have also met expectations. Now the only thing left is the dual-mode ramjet engine, which is the hardest nut to crack."

He frowned slightly and tapped the armrest of the sofa with his finger:

"Shock wave control in the inlet under scramjet conditions, stability and combustion efficiency of the combustion chamber at the moment of transition from subcombustion to scramjet mode...these problems have been solved in theoretical models, including wind tunnel simulations, but there are still some bottlenecks in engineering implementation."

"Oh? What's the problem specifically?" Zheng Liangqun looked concerned. "Do you need any additional help?"

"It's mainly the key fasteners of the adjustable structure of the air intake, and the movable parts of the ceramic-based composite materials inside the combustion chamber that are resistant to extremely high temperatures and pressures..." Chang Haonan explained in detail, "But at this stage, the marginal effect of simply piling up people and money is already very obvious, so there's no rush."

Zheng Liangqun nodded thoughtfully.

Although he did not have much concrete knowledge of specific academic concepts, he still understood the complexity of material issues.

Before Zheng Liangqun could speak again, Chang Haonan had already put the materials on the table and asked openly, "Chief of Staff Zheng, I think you made this official trip not only to thank me and learn about the progress, right?"

The hypersonic project submits a research report every quarter. Although Zheng Liangqun is not in the CC range, he can still find it if he really wants to know.

As for expressing gratitude, you can say it at home.

Being exposed so directly by Chang Haonan, Zheng Liangqun's face flashed with embarrassment for a moment.

But then he returned to normal: "Well, it is true."

He gestured again to the officer with the briefcase.

This time, the clerk did not open the briefcase. Instead, he carefully took out a palm-sized silver-gray box with a combination lock and a physical protective shell from his shoulder bag.

Zheng Liangqun took the hard drive, the smile on his face faded, his expression became extremely serious, and he handed the hard drive to Chang Haonan with both hands.

"This is……"

Chang Haonan took the heavy object with doubt.

After I got it, I found that it was a hard drive with a very high protection level.

"This is a complete hard drive copy of all the detection data exported from the Canglong submarine." Although there were no outsiders, Zheng Liangqun subconsciously lowered his voice, "After preliminary restoration and mirroring by our technicians, the data is guaranteed to be intact."

"Submarine detection data?" Chang Haonan weighed the hard drive in his hand, even more confused.

In his opinion, what the Canglong obtained was nothing more than information such as the seabed topography and hydrological parameters.

This may be valuable for marine geological research, but my research has nothing to do with underwater topography, so this thing is completely useless.

"That's the problem..." Zheng Liangqun shook his head and sighed, "The things in this hard drive... are very strange."

Chang Haonan stopped what he was doing.

"In addition to conventional sonar echoes, water depth, and bottom information, we also found information about the distribution of magnetic field intensity gradients, gravity field data, the fine structure of seafloor fault zones, and some records of microscopic particle flux anomalies that cannot be fully interpreted for the time being."

Zheng Liangqun explained:

"In fact, this is only part of it. There are also more data streams marked with unknown parameters and unknown units... In short, the navy technicians are almost at a loss as to what to do about it."