Chapter 291: Weapons Ready, The Transformation Of Hope Village

In modern warfare, from the smallest destroyer and frigate to the largest cruiser and aircraft carrier, all these ships would not choose to install short-range ballistic missiles. Instead, they would choose anti-ship ballistic missiles.

The reason for choosing these was simple.

There were no more battleships!

What was the hallmark of a battleship? Heavy armor and large-caliber guns!

More than 90% of the mainstream anti-ship missiles currently in use were barely effective against the battleships of the olden World War II era.

If battleships still existed, the Russian idea of mounting ballistic missiles on the Kirov class cruisers would probably still be able to flourish. Now that battleships were gone, this would naturally become mere idle talk.

Since battleships had such great advantages, what if they had not become obsolete and could be equipped with missiles?

The reason this did not materialize was also very simple.

In modern times, due to the large number of precision components needed and the complicated technology, the price per unit for weapons could not in any way be compared to prices in the World War II period.

Likewise, the heavier the displacement, the higher the cost of building a battleship.

Based on the respective sizes of a battleship and an aircraft carrier, a modern battleship with displacement that was comparable to an aircraft carrier would require much stronger radar and more precise instruments.

The hull of the battleship itself would not be cheaper to construct than an aircraft carrier. Taken together with the battleship’s missiles, which were numerous and varied, the price for its manufacture could compete with that of an aircraft carrier.

Besides, since all ships sailed on the ocean, they were affected by the curvature of the Earth, so the capabilities of shipborne radar in detecting surface ships were actually weaker.

If they were unable to utilize the airspace for attacks, they would have to get close-range to fire missiles at their opponents!

Steering such a valuable battleship to engage in close-range combat with missiles—however foolhardy a hoodlum one might be, they would not have the funds or the boldness to do this.

Therefore, as battleships became obsolete and the “skin” of various types of ships became thinner, it made no sense to choose large-caliber missiles, even heavy-duty anti-ship ballistic missiles that only weighed around 500 kilograms.

Furthermore, ballistic missiles had better carriers in modern warfare—nuclear submarines, which were both convenient and stable.

The other factor was that the environment for launching ballistic missiles was not good at all.

If a hot launch was employed, the missile would launch on deck right away, which meant that the electronic devices of the whole ship would probably be exposed to the missile tail flame.

If the missile was cold launched, then it would need to be ejected to an extremely high altitude before its engine could ignite. The swaying of the ship’s deck would severely impact ejection precision, and the missile’s accuracy would be compromised in the end.

This had led to an inevitable outcome in the development of weapons technology.

However, if circumstances in the wasteland were moved to the ocean, such considerations would need to be fully integrated into the actual situation.

Short-range ballistic missiles were also known as tactical missiles.

Normally, they were used in land wars and fitted with conventional warheads. They were used mainly for attacking fixed or moving targets outside the range of ground artillery or deep within the enemy’s tactical position.

R-3 short-range ballistic missiles measured 7.1 meters long and 0.82 meters in diameter, with a launch weight of 3050 kilograms. They utilized solid propellants and had a firing range of 320 kilometers, with a velocity of 960 m/s. They also had a digital calculator and autonomous inertia controller attached to them, as well as an aerodynamic rudder on their tails.

With the benefits of advanced technology, the R-3’s effective blast radius was 165 meters, and its explosive limit was 310 meters.

Compared to equivalent tactical missiles on Earth, there was no doubt that the R-3 was smaller, faster, and more powerful.

Unfortunately…

This was far from what Su Mo wanted!

“Everyone will be moving all the time on the ocean. It’s very possible that before I fire my missile, the enemy would still be within range, but once I’ve launched the missile, they might have left before it hits them.

“If the enemy is 250 kilometers away and I decide to attack, the missile’s ETA would be…

“4.5 minutes!

“If I calculate based on the scenario that everyone is using wooden ships, without taking the wind direction into account, after 4.5 minutes, they’ll be at least four hundred meters away, which is way outside the blast radius.”

After making some calculations, Su Mo looked at the range of the R-3 missile and assessed the estimated distance. He then substituted the calculations into the equation, and an idea gradually came to mind.

From the looks of things, fitting a standard conventional warhead on the missile would not work. The blast radius was too small; even if he had a silo for launching, the radius would still be more or less the same.

Most probably, once the missile was launched, it would only make a loud noise and be as effective as a fireworks display.

That was why, after looking at the explosives stored in the base, Su Mo’s heart sank. He decided that in the next ten days, the shelter had to advance in another technology tree…

TNT!

Furthermore, this kind of TNT was not trinitrotoluene in the conventional sense. It was a super-explosive made by integrating psychic energy water and enhanced nitric acid!

“Based on the power of psychic energy water in combination with TNT, if I replaced an equal weight of explosives in the missiles with even higher-quality TNT, they would be even more terrifyingly powerful.

“Theoretically, a kilogram of exploding TNT produces 4.2 million joules of energy.

“Given the 100%-300% increase in power after the addition of psychic energy water, the 50% increase from enhanced nitric acid, and the 5%-30% boost from the system, a kilogram of TNT can achieve 18 million joules of energy.

“Taking into account the ratio of the explosives’ expansion efficiency to the force of impact, the number could probably go higher if I convert the equivalent blast range of the explosives and substitute it into my calculations…”

Calculating equivalents was not that hard after all.

After substituting the numbers in his calculation and discovering that an equivalent amount of this special TNT could actually effectively increase the lethal range from 300 meters to 1.4 kilometers or more…

Su Mo could no longer maintain his calm, and his heart began pounding like a drum.

A blast radius of 1.4 kilometers… Good gracious, what was this?

The legendary M388 nuclear artillery shells that had a larger killing radius than their range only had an actual killing radius of up to 500 meters.

As for the usual outfitted missiles, excluding nuclear and hydrogen bombs, there were only a handful that could exceed a kilometer.

Now, however, all he needed to do was add in the miraculous psychic energy water and mix it in, just like that.

The power of the explosives would effect a qualitative change.

“That’s it; psychic energy water can’t simply be put up for sale next time, otherwise it will fall into the wrong hands.

“I’m afraid an inconceivable disaster might happen!”

Before the psychic energy water had been upgraded, it was already able to produce such terrifying results after being added to conventional weapons. As for how much more powerful it could be now that it had been upgraded—Su Mo could not help but shudder at the thought.

Under such circumstances, when might was right, the only thing necessary was to do whatever it took to add psychic energy water into the upgraded TNT.

Even Dongfeng 17 that he had previously launched in front of the kobold’s castle could not compare with this special edition super-explosive.

Su Mo shook his head and set aside these warmongering thoughts. He turned over to a new page and began to study how to make this special T

NT.

TNT, as in trinitrotoluene, was simple to make. He had learned it from his chemistry textbook during high school—toluene reacted with concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulphuric acid to form 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene.

However, before he was transmigrated, there were many countries on Earth that could not produce TNT.

Su Mo did not know the specific reason, but now, since he had decided to have dealings with officials, he was not worried about their deviousness. He went to the side of the machine tool right away and took out the robot workers that he used for producing nitrocellulose.

After several times of use and entering the ruins, the machine gun ammunition in the shelter had already been used up.

There were 1500 rounds of rifle ammunition left and 400 rounds remaining for the handgun.

When he considered the dealings he would be having with Tundra Shelter and that he would be going to sea soon, he would not be able to make ammunition for a long time, not before reaching the new world.

As for the amount, Su Mo made a grand gesture and designated a massive set of numbers right away.

50 machine guns with 800,000 rounds of ammunition!

200 rifles with 500,000 rounds of ammunition!

100 handguns with 30,000 rounds of ammunition!

The combined 810,000 rounds of bullets, with a total weight of 1.4 tonnes, were nothing for a destroyer that had a carrying capacity of thousands of tons.

As for the materials needed to produce this ammunition…

He was short of nitric acid, so he would need to put serious pressure on the saltpeter mine for once.

Once the cotton had been manufactured to standard, the remaining one-third of it could wait until he had reached the new world.

The most important element was bronze. Even if Su Mo doubled the amount of ammunition, given the convenience of market trading, he would quickly be able to replenish the necessary amount.

Now that he had a plan, Su Mo rapidly organized what was left to do today.

He taught the robot workers how to begin making nitrocellulose in batches, turning it into ammunition in the end, and storing it up.

He gave orders to the mining teams of Hope Village to head to the saltpeter camp and conduct large-scale mining for natural saltpeter.

Using Connie the lioness’ game panel, he needed to continue figuring out the game functions that the foreign races were able to use, as well as investigate their current movements.

Three missions, which completely took up a full day’s work.

After carefully putting away the notebook with all his crazy plans into his storage space and clearing the miscellaneous items on his workbench, Su Mo began teaching the robots again.

The saltpeter that the shelter currently possessed and some of the leftover materials that were insufficiently pure were piled up in the corner.

Using this to make batches of nitric acid would produce inferior results, but for use as teaching materials to demonstrate for the robot workers, it would be more than sufficient!

The first time, after the AI learning function was switched on, the robot watched and learned while Su Mo made it, just like before.

The second time, the robot slowly followed the steps to make it, and Su Mo sat beside it to provide guidance.

For the third, and fourth time, even without Su Mo’s help, the robot had already mastered this simple chemical reaction. In fact, it was even more precise than Su Mo in the measurement ratios.

Once he had the nitric acid, Su Mo brought some cotton over. Very quickly, after another three times, the robot finished learning the process of making nitrocellulose.

Of course, just like the robot workers that constructed the shipyard—from making nitric acid from saltpeter, then taking the raw materials, making it into nitrocellulose, and setting it aside to dry—the robot was so fast throughout the process that Su Mo felt quite moved.

However, he had already been surprised before. Su Mo was not in a hurry either. After making sure the robot was already able to work normally, he left the base and headed to Iron Rock Mountain.

“It feels good to have someone working for me. In the past, I’d have to mine the saltpeter myself!”

As he walked out of the Underground Shelter and got nearer and nearer to Iron Rock Mountain, Su Mo could sense just how much the activities of Hope Village had influenced nature and his life.

Currently, on the left and right sides of Iron Rock Mountain, the land within three hundred meters had been entirely plowed with rotary tillers by the villagers who had had enough of poverty and starvation. They had planted garlic scapes that had a shorter growth cycle.

Given the growth rate of the garlic scapes and the efficiency of light on the wasteland, they definitely could be harvested before the ocean disaster occurred.

When he went further, he saw that Iron Rock Mountain was also slowly being dug into the shape of what Su Mo had designed before.

Below the fifteen-meter radius that would be submerged under the ocean, there was not much change.

However, after passing this height, human wisdom manifested itself!

On the gentle slope eighteen meters up, a small platform had been chiseled every two meters.

In the middle of each platform was a slight hollow depression that could fully receive sunlight from the sky.

All they had to do was wait until the ocean disaster, then scoop some seawater into these platforms. With the evaporation brought about by the blazing sun, they could obtain the most important item for sustaining human life…

Salt!

Salt obtained from treasure chests would eventually run out once mutant creatures decreased, or the foreign races’ treasure chests reduced drastically.

Salt could replace all the other base materials and become one of the top strategic materials that humans needed.

Iron and bronze would not be needed, wood and stone slightly less. At most, this would only slow down the pace of the shelters’ development.

However, if there was no salt, it would be a slow process of low blood pressure developing into edema, followed by the decline of muscular strength and neuronal excitability, then brain edema, and eventually urinary retention and death. Torture like this would drive a person mad!

“Good, good. Sure enough, Chen Shen hasn’t let me down.

“When the time comes to head to the new world, we can build the base beside the ocean and slowly develop while extracting salt and fishing for marine animals.”

Drawing parallels from inference, when Su Mo considered that salt could become a currency, he could not help feeling rather excited.

Once he had the destroyer, occupying an expanse of shoreline to construct a shipyard would not be a problem.

With the ship, they could rely on the sea and establish the Underground Shelter there. Then they would have land rights, air supremacy, and even maritime power taken care of in the future.

With such a comprehensive battlefront, no matter how cunning the enemy was, it would be very difficult for them to attack!

After he walked past the salt bays made from four or five platforms, the elevation rose to 25 meters above sea level, only 15 meters or so away from the top of the mountain.

Here, the land was completely flat, and there were numerous caves that had been customized into various storerooms with different functions.

However, before Su Mo could do a thorough inspection, Chen Shen appeared at the end of the corridor when he walked past a corner.

“Huh, Brother Su, you’re here—I was thinking of going down to look for you!

“It’s really strange, yesterday those dozen-over Zeus Shelter management people were still so unyielding, shouting about human rights, claiming that we can’t just simply interfere with different borders and that we have no rights to cross borders and deprive them of their freedom!

“When I woke up in the morning, without exception, all of them were crying and confessing—they even brought out a lot of good stuff!”

Although his expression was full of confusion, Chen Shen’s eyes brightened up when he mentioned that there was good stuff!

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