Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 283 Mars-class battleship!
As early as the previous war with the Haveler civilization, Li Qingsong discovered a weakness in his own military system.

That is, we lack war equipment with sufficient combat power and deterrence, making it difficult to gain sufficient influence in a specific area or in a specific battle.

For example, if the two sides are in a stalemate, one side lacks the war equipment to break the deadlock.

Our side is in an advantageous position, but it is difficult to turn this advantage into combat results as quickly as possible.

When at a disadvantage, it is difficult to quickly reverse the situation or break out quickly.

To use classical war terminology, this means that while our side has the "marshal" who is the commander of the battlefield, and the grassroots soldiers, there is a lack of "generals".

Originally, the battlefield niche of "General" was filled by Earth-class battleships. However, with the advancement of technology and the increasing strength of the enemy, Earth-class battleships are no longer capable of fulfilling this "General" role.

Now, with the significant improvement of various technologies and all the prerequisites in place, Li Qingsong decided to develop the "Mars" class battleship to play the role of "general".

Based on the important responsibilities that the Mars-class battleship will inevitably assume on the battlefield, Li Qingsong took great pains to develop this Mars-class battleship.

Li Qingsong overturned the initial overall design drawings thousands of times. And each time he designed a new drawing, he would mobilize at least tens of thousands of clones, who would do nothing else but design.

Every overthrow means an improvement and an optimization.

Li Qingsong was constantly optimizing and iterating the more subtle internal layout, and it took him several years to complete the overall design.

After the design drawings were completed, the next stage of research and development began. It wasn't until this moment that the real problem emerged.

The design standards of the Mars-class battleship are too high, and the requirements for material performance, energy intensity, armor strength, chip stability, weapon and equipment performance, etc. are really too high. Even though there has been a significant technological improvement at this moment, the existing materials and equipment still cannot meet the requirements of the Mars-class battleship.

There was no other choice, so Li Qingsong had to set up a special working group for the "Mars-class Battleship" project, and specially mobilized more than 100 million clones to participate in the research and development of every detail component. He also allocated resources specifically for this purpose, and allocated the industrial production capacity and scientific research capabilities of hundreds of thousands of factories, research institutes, and laboratories to this working group.

In the end, it took several more years, and even squeezed out the space exercise resource quota, forcing Li Qingsong to temporarily reduce the loss of exercise warships, before all the technical obstacles to manufacturing Mars-class battleships were finally overcome.

A giant space dock has been built, and all relevant equipment and resources have been allocated.

Li Qingsong was filled with excitement.

After spending such a long time, it is finally time to move from planning drawings to reality. The super battleship that only exists in dreams has finally entered the actual construction stage!

One heavy transport ship after another travels back and forth between the dock and the industrial base. In the ultra-long-distance communication system, the computing power of hundreds of supercomputing bases converges here, and the wisdom of tens of millions of clones is infused here under Li Qingsong's control.

Soon, the first keel was laid. On top of this keel, equipment, cabins, cables, and pipes were quickly laid.

Like a tree in spring, its bare trunks quickly sprouted branches, and on these branches grew green leaves and flowers. Finally, after more than two years, this unprecedentedly large super battleship finally appeared before Li Qingsong.

Looking at this giant warship with an overall rectangular shape, full of bumps and depressions, and filled with various equipment, Li Qingsong was filled with excitement.

The overall mass of an Earth-class battleship is about 1.6 tons. At this moment, this Mars-class battleship has increased its mass by more than ten times based on the Earth-class battleship, and its full-load mass has reached 30 tons.

Its total length reaches more than 400 meters, and its widest and highest points reach 60 meters and 40 meters respectively.

Compared to a transport ship or aerospace carrier, it is a small ship, but compared to a battleship, it is a giant.

Even Earth-class battleships look tiny in front of it.

The large enough size and mass allow Li Qingsong to install all large and even giant weapons and equipment currently developed on it.

What Li Qingsong valued most were the four energy cannons that could be called giant cannons.

Normally, the mass of a projectile fired by an energy cannon does not exceed 5 grams, and the muzzle velocity does not exceed 200 kilometers per second.

But at this moment, the mass of the projectiles fired by these four largest giant energy cannons increased tenfold to 50 grams. At the same time, their muzzle velocity was also higher, reaching a full 300 kilometers per second!

By this calculation, the kinetic energy of such a projectile alone is 22.5 billion joules, equivalent to the explosion of about 500 kilograms of TNT.

But kinetic damage is only the smallest part of it.

This giant projectile is also in a strongly excited nuclear state! Once the excited state destabilizes due to impact, approximately 0.005% of its mass will be converted into energy. For this projectile, this is about 2.5 milligrams of mass, which is equivalent to the energy released by the explosion of about 50 tons of TNT!

A single conventional projectile, placed on Earth in the past, would have been enough to collapse a mountain. Hitting a small warship like the Mercury class would have been enough to destroy its energy shield in one shot.

The firing rate of these four giant energy cannons can reach 50 rounds per second.

When fully loaded, it will be loaded with a total of about 8000 million rounds of this special projectile, enough to support the four giant energy cannons to fire continuously at full power for 110 hours.

The mass of these projectiles alone is about 4000 tons, which is heavier than a fully loaded Venus-class battleship!
But these four giant energy cannons are just one of the weapons and equipment on the Earth-class battleships.

In addition, it is also equipped with 4 ultra-high-power laser cannons, as well as numerous medium-sized and small energy cannons and laser cannons throughout the ship's hull with no blind spots. There are a large number of interstellar mines that can be thrown at any time, and an even greater number of interception energy cannons and laser cannons for self-protection, as well as a total of 640 interstellar missiles, 128 energy cannons, and so on.

In terms of defense, it is also equipped with Li Qingsong's latest multi-layer high-intensity energy shield, which enhances its own defense to an unprecedented level.

(End of this chapter)