Black technology: a super empire spanning two worlds

Chapter 246 [Manufacturing Cost Estimation]

In the underground base, Xiao Yu looked at Xiao Lan and asked, "Xiao Lan, with the data from Earth as a reference, calculate the manufacturing cost of the exoskeleton power armor that has been technologically downgraded."

Xiaolan immediately responded: "It is under evaluation."

After a short silence, Xiaolan's voice came again: "Evaluation completed."

The efficiency can be said to be extremely fast. The evaluation was completed in just half a minute. After all, Xiaolan can be said to be the most powerful artificial intelligence on Earth. There is also a super quantum computer to support it in the base. Moreover, the data evaluated by Xiaolan must be roughly the same as the actual situation, and the error will not exceed 5%.

Xiao Yu said succinctly: "What is the estimated amount?"

Xiao Lan immediately responded: "The manufacturing cost of a single set of power armor, according to the evaluation data, is 2280 million RMB."

Xiao Yu was stunned when he heard the estimated figure: "Is it so expensive?"

As a single-soldier equipment, a set of more than 2200 million is indeed a bit expensive. You should know that the cost of a blank 99A main battle tank is about 1000 million to 1500 million yuan. Even the top-end version with an active defense system is only about 2000 million yuan.

The cost of individual power armor is so high that it is simply unrealistic to equip it on a large scale at such a price. The current active army of the University of Tokyo has at least 100 million troops.

If all of them are to be put into service, according to the cost estimate made by Xiaolan, a budget of 22.8 trillion yuan would be required.

It costs 10 million to arm 2.28 soldiers, and it is basically a fantasy to equip them in an organized manner. This is not the most expensive part. The real cost is in logistics maintenance.

With this thing out, the cost-effectiveness of the army's individual equipment will be no less than that of the navy and air force in the future.

The reason for its high cost is that the material used in this power armor is at the same level as that of the J-36 Shenlong fighter. Because it is a wearable exoskeleton armed power armor, there are people inside. Xiao Yu does not want to further downgrade and compromise at this level, but hopes that the lives of the soldiers will have a greater safety factor.

"Don't be anxious, let me think about it, let me think about it first..." Xiao Yu said to himself, and then pondered for a while, trying to find a relatively more cost-effective solution.

After a while, Xiao Yu's eyes lit up, and he said while clapping his fists together, "It can be mixed with cheap unmanned intelligent mechanical power armor. This plan is quite good."

The so-called mixed plan is to have a small number of human warriors lead the unmanned intelligent power armor company to fight.

Unmanned intelligent power armor can save the need for human protection. The reason why the estimated cost is as high as 2280 million is because there are more stringent requirements on the strength of the power armor body in order to ensure the life safety of the wearer, and the cost has therefore soared significantly.

However, unmanned intelligent power armor can omit this step. The strength requirements of the fuselage materials can be greatly reduced to save costs. Modules including the auditory compensation system and life support system can also be cut because they are not needed, which can also greatly save costs.

Xiao Yu followed his train of thought and said, "A company is usually composed of three platoons, and a platoon is composed of three squads, so a combat company only needs 10 to 15 human warriors equipped with power armor."

According to the domestic "three-three system" organization, specifically, a squad consists of about 10 soldiers, usually a platoon has about 30 people, and the total number of officers and soldiers in a combat company is about 120 people.

Xiao Yu's plan is to form an intelligent combat company with 10 to 15 human soldiers and about 100 intelligent power armor combat units. One human soldier is assigned to 10 intelligent power armor combat units and obeys the command of this human soldier. In this way, a certain degree of organized deployment can be achieved, because the total cost budget can be greatly reduced several times.

With such a mixed solution, less than 15 people are needed to build a new type of intelligent mechanical combat company. The fewer people there are, the lower the casualties rate on the battlefield.

Moreover, since it is an unmanned intelligent combat unit, it does not have to be completely restricted to humanoid power armor. It can even draw on the physiological structure of animals in nature and use bionics to create power armor of different forms to better adapt to combat needs.

It can even have the ability to change form to adapt to the ever-changing battlefield situation. Unmanned intelligent combat units have no people inside and can change form in any way as long as they can.

The intelligent combat corps in the Blue Star world already has this capability. A typical example is that Xiao Yu witnessed with his own eyes the Tianfeng fighter jet of the Heavenly Kingdom, which can switch between fighter mode and infantry combat mecha mode.

However, Xiao Yu has no plans to do so, at least not in the short term, because if he does so, the manufacturing cost will soar again, and the cost may not even be in the tens of millions, but hundreds of millions.

Even if it can be done, it will definitely not be done in the short term.

The current level of scientific and technological productivity on Earth is not enough to support the large-scale emergence of such products, mainly because it is not economically feasible. Technical feasibility is not a problem because Xiao Yu can obtain technical support from the Blue Star World.

The "human-machine" hybrid solution he came up with is essentially a compromise based on the current level of productivity on Earth.

After a while, Xiao Yu looked at the virtual girl next to him and asked, "Xiao Lan, based on the existing technology in the database, can you integrate an unmanned solution for this power armor? While ensuring combat effectiveness, you can reduce its survival rate and lower the manufacturing cost. Calculate how much the final cost can be reduced?"

To put it bluntly, unmanned intelligent power armor is a military consumable, no different from weapons and ammunition, except that it is a humanoid weapon, so it does not require a too stringent survival rate, at least it needs to give way in terms of economic accounts.

Xiao Lan responded immediately. With the support of the super quantum computer in the base, the new solution was integrated and generated very quickly.

In less than a minute, Xiao Lan had integrated the plan for the unmanned humanoid intelligent power armor, and after about twenty seconds, the cost estimate was calculated.

Wars are fought with logistics, and in the final analysis it is all about economics. The scale of a war that can be fought often depends on the strength of one's own economic foundation.

After a while, Xiao Lan immediately replied concisely: "The new plan has been completed, and the evaluation data shows that it is 358 million yuan."

When Xiao Yu heard this number, he nodded repeatedly with great satisfaction: "Not bad, I thought it would be difficult to reduce it to 500 million. This cost is much cheaper. Even if we equip each of the 82 combined brigades in the army with a power armor combat battalion, there won't be much budget pressure."

After the military reform, combined brigades became a standard configuration, with a combined brigade consisting of multiple combined battalions, such as artillery battalions, air defense battalions, reconnaissance battalions, support battalions, and so on.

If power armor troops come into being, there will definitely not be a single-arms power armor troop organization at the brigade level or above with a scale of several thousand or even tens of thousands. Instead, they will enter the combined brigade in the form of a combined battalion and become an intelligent mechanical combat battalion under the jurisdiction of a combined brigade.

……

(End of this chapter)