What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 414 Bad Weather (4400 monthly votes in May)

Lake Erie.

The Great Lakes region once gave rise to world-renowned industrial areas, but it also produced countless carrier-based pilots.

During World War II, in order to accelerate the training of carrier-based aircraft, the United States converted two inland lake cruise ships into training aircraft carriers. Novice pilots had to complete a certain number of takeoffs and landings before they could board real aircraft carriers.

The water here is calm, making it a very suitable training environment.

The calm lake surface began to tremble, and the tremors intensified at a visible rate.

A mosquito gnat, manufactured by India, flew rapidly 5 meters above the water, leaving a cloud of water vapor in its wake.

Apart from the waves, it almost perfectly replicates the scene of the air raid, even the supersonic flight.

"awesome."

Air Force Secretary Wayne applauded, intending to praise the pilot's skills to Rams, when he saw a gnat suddenly drop in altitude and crash into the water, creating a large splash.

Immediately afterwards, the ejection seat, trailing a plume of flame, soared into the sky, and the parachute opened, carrying the pilot as he plummeted into the lake.

Rams, who had been observing from the sidelines: "..."

The small boat that had been prepared rushed to the rescue, and before the pilot was lifted into the ambulance, he turned around and explained the reason:

"The control stick has failed! This must be a problem with the aircraft, fxx, I heard the sound of metal breaking!"

This pilot was also an elite member of the Big Cat Squadron. He volunteered to pilot the gnats he had obtained from the Indians to participate in the test, but suffered an unexpected defeat.

The mosquitoes manufactured by the Indians were also quite old. Forcing the already outdated machines to push their limits resulted in their collapse.

Huai En's expression wasn't good, and he said in a low voice:

"This is just an ordinary elite squadron. Let's bring in better veterans and a better plane."

Rams' eyes sparkled:
"The experts who were involved in mosquito gnat research in Ying are here too, right? What conclusions have they reached?"

"not yet."

Huai En smiled bitterly:
"The wreckage is too fragmented. At present, we can only determine from the fragments that the craftsmanship and materials are very ordinary, at most at the level of the 1950s or 1960s."

Furthermore, mosquito gnats have been almost completely eliminated even in India. The IAA is investigating whether Dr. Tan Ke stole secrets, but it's taking too long and is difficult to investigate.

"Well……"

Rams looked at the tugboats salvaging the plane on the lake, rubbing his temples with a headache:
Because the damage was so severe, the president urgently needed an explanation.

The Prism Building is now wearily clarifying the rumors that the five separated warships were sunk, but it will have to explain the cause of the loss once the two fleets dock.

But if they were defeated by a bunch of such outdated weapons, the army and weapons suppliers would be in for a lot of trouble.

But to say that people are incompetent would mean that all of our own pilots, whose value exceeds their weight in gold, are idiots.
It would be better to just get hit by a nuclear bomb; at least that would give us a plausible reason!
……

Prism Building
Besides finding the secret to nighttime air raids, the Imperial Navy was also busy.

Faced with Hans's superhuman abilities, which are arguably defying the laws of physics, they could only offer temporary relief:

According to personnel records from the USS Enterprise and the USS Kearsarge, approximately 1.4 Sea Sparrow missiles were needed to shoot down one Gnat missile, demonstrating the extreme effectiveness of close-in weapon systems (CIWS). If every warship had Sea Sparrow missiles, it would be impossible for them to suffer such severe damage.

The Empire's warships had considered defending against saturation attacks before, but they had never imagined that such an attack would occur in near-space, as such a scenario would be theoretically very difficult to find.

However, it is impractical for the fleet to have to leave the coast hundreds or thousands of kilometers away simply because of bad weather, so temporary remedial measures can only be taken:

"The rolling air missile must be accepted this year. Before that, we need to install Sea Sparrow launchers on all warships that lack 10-kilometer close-in weapon capabilities." Johnson righteously deflected the blame, leaving Raytheon with no choice but to accept the challenge.

"This will be possible, but due to increased demand and shorter timeframes, the budget may be significantly overrun."

"This is not a problem."

Johnson waved his hand, then adjourned the meeting, leaving a group of naval leaders to discuss the matter privately.

Facing his own people, the composure he had maintained in front of the media these past few days finally vanished from his face, replaced by deep worry.
"Gentlemen, the Antarctic Fleet has failed, but Congress will soon pass the plan to land in Panama, otherwise the Panama Canal will lose more than 80% of its cargo ships."

The Germans still disagree with our use of Guyana, so we can only choose Suriname or Bassin to build forward bases. The army and air force still need warship cover!

Fern, still injured, was also present at the meeting and immediately said:
"This will take at least several months to do, and all the participating warships must be equipped with anti-aircraft weapons."

Johnson: "But what I want is not to lose any more warships. The Empire has many warships, but we need to maintain our presence all over the world. The Antarctic Fleet has already exhausted all the redundant forces we can use. Even if we lose another one, it will cause great trouble for the overall strategy."

Besides battleships, the enemy is very good at launching surprise attacks at close range. Battleships are the only ship type that can be immune to close-range damage and still fight. We need more battleships.

The IAA received a secret tip that the University of Tokyo had another Yamato shipyard that wasn't being publicly disclosed.

Upon hearing this news, everyone else sensed something was wrong. Calvin was the first to react, frowning and saying:
"This is too unusual. Could it be... that the University of Tokyo already knew about the existence and attack methods of the Second Fleet?"

The expressions on everyone's faces immediately changed. If a second fleet were to emerge on the other side of the Pacific, that would be truly terrible news.

Encirclement from both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would be nothing short of returning to the era of isolationism overnight.
"That's why we absolutely need to get those battleships."

Johnson tapped the table:

"If they won't give it to us, we must at least extract more information from them."

……

Nansha
When the cargo ship bound for Miãos Island passed by, Tang Wen took a helicopter to the newly built Fexin Island.

The island reclamation progress has been significantly delayed compared to the previous plan, mainly due to weather issues.

"We've only been working for less than half a month, and we're about to have to stop again."

Ge Xuan's expression wasn't very good; the typhoon season in the second half of the year was just too intense.

Moreover, islands at sea have no mountains to block the airflow, so construction must be stopped as soon as the wind is even slightly strong.

Through the Ministry of Petroleum's channels, they also requested the Meteorological Bureau to conduct several simulations using supercomputers, and found that the situation was even worse than expected.

If the original construction plan is followed, at most 60% can be completed.

Tang Wen: "What if we increase the scale?"

Ge Xuan shook his head again:

"The number of construction workers has reached its limit, and adding more manpower would be useless. Moreover, the most troublesome thing is that the construction period has been disrupted. A big storm could make all the previous efforts go to waste."

"..."

This is not okay.

Tang Wen stared at the beautiful coral reefs on the beach, stroking his chin as he began to think.

(End of this chapter)