Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1668 The Real Firepower

For example, a royal symbol was used as a hotel. When I went to Shangluo, there was even an ice cream machine there. For battleships, focusing on service is the right approach.

"In fact, Shangluo told us about its future development direction."

"Really?" Victoria exclaimed in surprise. "So Shangluo has already given you a spoiler! What's next?"

"Shangluo introduced us to something called 'vertical launch system,' which stands for 'vertical launch unit.' Besides aircraft carriers, it will be the primary weapon of warships for a long time to come. Because once missiles replaced cannons as the main weapon of warships, it was quickly discovered that missiles don't need aiming; they can fly to their target on their own after being fired. At the same time, some truly effective missiles are too large to rotate for aiming. Therefore, arranging missiles like fireworks, one after another, and vertically embedding them inside the warship, is the most suitable option."

"Ah!" Victoria exclaimed, suddenly realizing, "I see! So you're going to build warships like this too, and then place the missiles vertically?"

“No, you don’t understand.” Lu Huaiyang shook his head. “The key to this story isn’t in what comes later, but in the beginning—Your Excellency Victoria, have you noticed something? Actually, relativistic kinetic energy weapons don’t need to be aimed. All it takes is for the ship to rotate, right?”

"???"

"So why don't we deploy relativistic kinetic energy weapons, those near-light-speed cannons, on the broadsides?"

"Pfft~~" Shang Luo almost spat out his water. "When I was saying all this, I remember my senior brother was nodding. I thought he was going to create a hairline!"

"He thought your suggestion was good, but he made some minor modifications."

Relativistic kinetic weapons could indeed be mounted on turrets, but the turrets would be redundant since the ship itself is mobile.

Originally mounted on the turret, the entire ship's design directly followed the design concept of the "super dreadnought," with the main guns positioned accordingly.

However, this main gun took up too much space. Therefore, taking into account Shangluo's suggestion of "vertical launch units" and combining it with the classic configuration of early sailing battleships, Zhu Xianxi decided that the guns of the next generation of warships should not be on the turret, but should face to the side.

There should be multiple gun decks, or a single gun block should be set up. This block should be distributed across the entire side.

In this way, a warship that could previously only mount nine cannons can now accommodate dozens, or even hundreds, of relativistic kinetic energy weapon positions. This is important because, based on previous use, this type of warship has a major problem—because the projectiles travel at near the speed of light, there's no way to use gravity or aerodynamics to correct their trajectories. It must be positioned directly above the target to fire directly.

Considering the orbit, the time a warship has to pass overhead is limited. Therefore, figuring out how to unleash maximum firepower within that limited time becomes the crucial, albeit temporary, solution.

Therefore, these new warships found their purpose. Tactical objectives that previously required multiple overhead passes and firing attempts could now be achieved with a single overhead pass.

"So, the Emperor's thinking is this—the vertical launch system you mentioned can be considered as an upward-pointing cannon barrel, right? But for relativistic kinetic energy weapons, while the deck space is sufficient, the ship's depth is actually insufficient if they're mounted vertically. But that's alright, we can just arrange the cannons horizontally in two rows. Because although the depth is insufficient, the width is sufficient." "Wait a minute," Shangluo remembered something, "Aren't we discussing space battleships? Up, down, left, and right aren't actually important, are they? And if they're arranged on the sides, do we need to use two sets of energy?"

Lu Huaiyang shook his head: "Indeed, there are on both sides. However, the relativistic kinetic energy weapons on both sides only use one set of kinetic energy cores, so there is no waste. As for why it is left and right instead of up and down, it is mainly because the command tower and observation and aiming system need to be set up at the top and bottom, so the gun positions are placed on the left and right - you can't let the captain stay on the left or right, can you?"

"I think I understand." This line of thinking surprised Shang Luo as well.

I never imagined that the Ming Dynasty's weapon development had progressed to this level—they're even able to answer questions before you speak! This is technology that even Zhongguo doesn't possess. After all, Zhongguo doesn't have magic-powered weapons.

As for turning the ship sideways for rail bombing, that scene is somewhat familiar in Shangluo. If a temple were built on the ship, it would be even more familiar.

"So, Commander Lu, isn't there a problem?" Shang Luo remembered something. "A salvo from nine cannons can penetrate the weak points of the Earth's crust. What would happen to the Earth if dozens or even hundreds of cannons were fired simultaneously?"

“Hmm,” Lu Huaiyang thought for a moment, “We have considered this problem. But you can think of it this way: it’s difficult to adjust it to be too large, but it’s much easier to adjust it to be too small. If the power is excessive, we can just spread the firepower to cover more targets—so.”

He looked at Victoria: "Your Excellency Victoria, you want to know our next plan, right? This is the plan."

"You'll be able to manufacture it soon, won't you?"

“Actually, it’s not that fast,” Lu Huaiyang replied. “The main reason is that we haven’t collected enough cores yet—the speed at which we’re getting cores from the Romans is still too slow. After analyzing the underlying principles, we’re working on replacing the kinetic cores, and we should have results soon. The version I mentioned earlier that’s deployed in space is a medium-term goal; in the short term, we plan to deploy a sea-based version first.”

In the sea-based version, the broadside guns will be slightly angled upwards for long-range firing. Because it doesn't utilize a full-power kinetic energy core, the sea-based version primarily relies on "magic" to deliver munitions over long distances. It is anticipated that this version of the warship will be able to conduct area-of-effect bombardment of targets using a total of over 50 guns at a range of 1000 kilometers.

Following the royal army's usual practice, what would be fired here wouldn't be solid shot, but rather flare-type rockets. In other words, this is an enlarged version of the flare-type storm gun that Victoria is now seeing.

In the form of guns, a battalion of soldiers can unleash the firepower of a division.

If transferred to shipboard mode, a single ship can rival the firepower of an entire fleet in the past.

“I understand.” Victoria nodded. “So, can this fight aliens?”

Shangluo shook his head: "This kind of thing should be more than enough to fight Rome in a parallel world, and might even be able to fight back."

(End of this chapter)