Genius is just the threshold for me!

Chapter 353 The Southern Incident Exposed, Directions for Improvement of the Ghost Ship

"Lin Dong, are you feeling better from your cold?"

The next afternoon after school, I went to the milk tea shop across from the entrance of the residential area.

Zhang Yihao took a cup of milk tea that Huang Qingyao had extorted, which Young Master Lin had paid for by treating everyone, and looked at Lin Dong, asking, "I heard from Xu Qingling and Huang Qingyao that you had a pretty high fever the day before yesterday."

"My fever broke yesterday, and I don't feel anything today," Lin Dong explained simply.

"There's a final exam tomorrow, are you going to take it?"

"Why bother going?"

Lin Dong shook his head: "So many people have missed the exam. Even if they take it tomorrow, they'll still be at the bottom of the grade. When it comes to the subject and class division in the second year of high school, I'll just have Old Lin give them a heads-up."

"That's true—" Zhang Yihao nodded.

"Brothers and sisters, the Southern Exercise is in full swing! The Southern Exercise is killing like crazy!"

At this moment, Li Tao and Su Yue were drinking milk tea and playing on their phones when suddenly, Li Tao seemed to see something and exclaimed in disbelief.

"During this southern exercise, our heavy bombers directly bombed the aircraft carriers, rendering two aircraft carriers and a number of escort ships unusable. More than a hundred carrier-based aircraft, running out of fuel, were scrambling to land at airports and along highways in the Philippines."

"Pfft! Cough cough!" Zhang Yihao almost choked on his milk tea, his eyes wide as he exclaimed, "Really? A bomber can break through defenses and get right over an aircraft carrier? Are their carrier fleet's air defense systems just for show?"

As a family member of someone in the military industry, although Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAC) is not the same company as Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) that specializes in carrier-based aircraft, Zhang Yihao still has a clear understanding of the protection of aircraft carrier battle groups.

Apart from antique aircraft carriers from World War II, modern aircraft carrier battle groups have triple air defense protection.

To date, there has never been a case of fighter jets flying over an aircraft carrier when the entire carrier strike group is deployed, let alone heavy, large bombers.

"Where did you see this news? Didn't the southern exercises end the day before yesterday? But I haven't heard anything about it these past two days," Su Yue asked curiously as she leaned closer to Li Tao.

"It's said online that this is a huge deal, and the US has made a statement behind the scenes. Global media and the internet have blocked this news, and it's only being spread on some clandestine networks."

But this morning, their Republican-leaning blond couldn't help but reveal it, and now that global media restrictions have been lifted, it's started spreading like wildfire.

Li Tao explained the reasoning behind it, excitedly finding a video: "As for how to break through the defenses and rush to the top of the aircraft carrier, our heavy bombers have laser weapons—"

Look at this leaked flight footage of carrier-based aircraft; three large bomber squadrons are charging straight into the anti-aircraft defense network.

As he spoke, Li Tao opened the video.

At an altitude of 10,000 meters above the clouds, all below were thick clouds, but through some gaps in the clouds, one could see the blue ocean below.

A dozen kilometers ahead of the video recorder, three fighter jet formations could be vaguely seen advancing, constantly tearing apart the clouds that occasionally soared to tens of thousands of meters in altitude.

What was truly awe-inspiring was the sight of missiles emerging from the ocean below, surging towards the three formations from all directions like a tidal wave. In less than twenty seconds, nearly a hundred missiles launched an attack on the formations.

Because it is flight video of a fighter jet, the fighter jet's system interfaces with radar to identify the target's speed.

The video clearly shows that the three formations are making supersonic penetration at Mach 1.8, and the missiles are all at speeds of Mach 4, Mach 5, and even Mach 6.

However, missiles traveling at this speed, once they enter a 10-kilometer radius of the formation, begin to be attacked, become disoriented, and miss their targets. The remaining missiles within a 6-kilometer radius continuously explode in mid-air.

The person who uploaded this video seemed worried that the audience wouldn't be able to see it clearly, so they added a magnified edited video clip in the middle.

Although the resolution of these enlarged images is somewhat blurry, it is still possible to distinguish that the three formations are Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group's large bombers, J-20A fighter jets, and Shenyang Aircraft Corporation's J-11 fighter jets, as well as some unmanned combat aircraft.

"Oh My God----"

Su Yue watched for a while, and when she saw the three formations intercept hundreds of missiles, and no more missiles rushed up from below the clouds, then quickly disappeared from the video, she said incredulously, "This recording aircraft just watched? Didn't it participate in the interception?"

"They were the first wave of interceptors, and all their missiles have been fired. Now it's just an empty fighter jet; the only way to stop them is to pilot it directly into the air—"

Li Tao's excitement remained undiminished as he said, "But some people abroad have revealed that they had more than a dozen fighter jets involved in the collision, but they were all shot down by the escorting J-11 and J-20 fighters with air-to-air missiles."

Now, the three formations have been replenished and have at least one hundred air-to-air missiles left, plus unmanned combat aircraft. Even if all the carrier-based aircraft rushed in, it wouldn't be enough to defeat them.

"Bombers use lasers to intercept missiles, protecting the escort formation; the escort formation, armed with air-to-air missiles, protects the bombers —"

Zhang Yihao gasped and said, "This is an aerial fortress."

"I was wondering why the base suddenly didn't have to work overtime the day before yesterday afternoon. Comrade Lao Huang even had a happy drink that night, and Channel One news also spent three minutes introducing the combat performance of the bombardment."

The host's remarks emphasized a cruising range of 15800 kilometers and an operational radius of 8000 kilometers, stating that it could respond to any malicious attacks and provocations.

After watching the video, Huang Qingyao couldn't help but say, "So the day before yesterday morning, that bombing really went on a killing spree."

"Little Huang, it's not called Big Boom."

Lin Dong and Xu Qingling watched the video together and chuckled, saying, "Channel One News said its code name is Red Ghost, or Ghost for short."

"Of course I know, isn't it simpler to just shout loudly—"

Huang Qingyao answered casually, but halfway through her sentence, her eyes widened suddenly, and she turned to look at Lin Dong with a dangerous expression: "What did you just call me?"

"Little Huang?" Lin Dong reiterated, "He and Wangcai are quite a good match."

"Ah! Lin Dong, I'm going to kill you!"

Huang Qingyao gritted her teeth and was about to rush over.

But Lin Dong hid behind Xu Qingling, took a sip of milk tea and said, "See, you broke down after just one sentence—forget it, I'll leave Wangcai here to keep you company."

Done.

Lin Dong jumped up and told Li Tao and Zhang Yihao that he was going home.

"If you're so capable, don't you dare leave!" Huang Qingyao shouted in a helpless and furious rage from behind.

But the next moment, the creaking sound of the motor began.

Upon hearing Lin Dong's instructions, Wangcai walked in from outside and squatted down in front of Huang Qingyao without saying a word, just looking at her.

"————" Huang Qingyao fell silent.

Xu Qingling couldn't help but laugh, and pulled Huang Qingyao to sit down: "You can't even beat him. You were just trying to extort milk tea from him—and he gave it back to you, didn't he?"

"You two are both biased!"

Huang Qingyao sat down angrily, sipping her milk tea and biting the straw, saying, "Why didn't you speak up for me when your Dongdong was extorting me!"

"You said it yourself, it's my Dongdong."

Xu Qingling replied with a smile, "Of course I'm on his side."

"————What you said makes so much sense, I can't refute it."

Huang Qingyao rolled her eyes and didn't continue the topic, instead chatting with Xu Qingling about other things.

Click—

Lin Dong took out his key to open the front door, then pushed open the second heavy, soundproof wooden door. Immediately, a familiar sound came from inside.

Forty-eight hours ago, because of a wrong and foolish decision made by our current leaders, we democrats have encountered an unprecedented disaster.

Twelve brave pilots will forever rest in the skies and seas of the Asia-Pacific region, 45 fighter jets will be destroyed, and the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Stein carrier strike groups will be rendered combat incapable for the next year or even longer.

I have been saying that we need to increase investment in manufacturing and industry, and reduce investment in global bases and the global military.

Because constantly emphasizing that global militarization will only drag our country into an abyss, and the events that occurred in the Asia-Pacific region 48 hours ago proved this point.

I don't understand how they made such a decision.

Two aircraft carriers, each only 1.8 square kilometers in size, dared to provoke a single aircraft carrier with a total area of ​​960 million square kilometers.

I am furious that our brave pilots and our aircraft carrier are being used like this.

Twelve heroic pilots, twelve families condemned to eternal tragedy—all destroyed by a single decision made by these damned democrats.

As Lin Dong listened to the impassioned and angry English speech, he walked into the living room and saw Wang Xingguo and Lin Weiliang sitting on the sofa watching the speech.

"That Republican guy running in the election—"

After watching it once, Wang Xingguo turned off the TV and couldn't help but say, "It's different from before."

"That's insane."

Lin Weiliang also looked somewhat taken aback: "I didn't expect that even though we had already reached a private agreement, and the global internet and media had all kept quiet, he actually released it directly for the sake of votes—didn't he know that this would be a major blow to his country's reputation, prestige, and strategic plans?"

"Dad, this is normal. His strategy is different from what he used to have."

Lin Dong cracked a sunflower seed: "The pro-democracy camp wants to shut up, but there are still four months until the election."

After four months, the negative effects of the AevumIQ serum will have largely dissipated, and the pro-democracy camp's approval rating will rise again. This is certainly not what he wants to see, nor is it what the republicans want to see.

"Just because of that?"

Lin Weiliang was taken aback: "Then that means the end of the Ming Dynasty? The struggle between those two factions was that intense?"

Although struggles exist all over the world, in most regions there are limits to how struggles can be conducted.

Rarely have we seen the Donglin Party at the end of the Ming Dynasty, who placed struggle above national interests, even at the cost of dragging the country into the abyss.

"If that's the case, this guy has a very high chance of winning the election four months from now."

Wang Xingguo sighed and said, "With him announcing this, the conditions we initially agreed on with them the day before yesterday will definitely have to be renegotiated."

After 48 hours of search and rescue, the final report on the southern incident has now been released.

Forty-one fighter jets were destroyed in the southern airspace, and 38 pilots successfully ejected. Thirty of them were rescued.

More than a hundred other fighter jets made emergency landings due to fuel exhaustion, but there were not enough airports in the Philippines. Four fighter jets crashed while attempting to land on highways, and one of them was killed.

Then, the two carrier strike groups will lose their combat capability for a year or even longer, and the United States' entire global strategy, especially its Asia-Pacific strategy, will suffer a direct and severe blow.

The domestic combat loss situation was that a J-16D crashed into the sea midway due to wing damage, but the pilot and operator ejected successfully.

Apart from the operator who was seriously injured and required more than ten hours of emergency treatment to be out of danger, there were no other casualties.

"Godfather, this won't have a big impact. We rescued 30 pilots for humanitarian reasons, which is a significant bargaining chip. Besides, the global trade agreement was already finalized within 24 hours."

Lin Dong shook his head: "The only problem is that if the Republicans take office, their tactics will be different from those of the Democrats."

After finishing his sentence, Lin Dong didn't dwell on the topic any further. He looked at Wang Xingguo and asked, "I saw the documents for the J-20S project today. What's the headquarters' stance?"

The J-20S project, which features a loyal wingman system, was already being discussed during the Chinese New Year.

However, Lin Dong assessed that given the industrial level at the time, the project would be very difficult. After in-depth research, he decided to postpone it until next year.

But now, headquarters is suddenly in a rush to start—

"The staff analysis shows that the Ghost's combat capabilities have been exposed, and the enemy will have countermeasures within the next two years. This will allow us to put the J-20S on the agenda, giving us an absolute trump card."

Wang Xingguo briefly explained the reasons for launching this project.

"That's true."

Lin Dong nodded in agreement: "The lasers have reached the current industrial limit, but the Ghost's laser power is still a bit lacking, so there are still quite a few countermeasures available."

The best way to ensure the maximum combat capability of a new piece of equipment is to keep its combat performance hidden. As long as it is not exposed, the enemy will not be able to find a way to counter it.

The Ghost's laser interception is very strong, but it is not without its own countermeasures.

The simplest and most effective solution is to replace the missile with a thicker, more heat-resistant material and replace the sensor with a custom-made laser-resistant sensor.

Although this would weaken the missile's performance, it would provide excellent protection against lasers.

This reduces the laser interception range of the Ghost Ship, which originally had a blinding range of 10 kilometers and a 6-kilometer radius, to 5 kilometers, 3 kilometers, or even closer, thus enabling it to penetrate the Ghost Ship's defenses.

This is why all personnel involved in the Ghost Ship's live-fire exercises are subject to national security surveillance.

This is because once the laser interception system is exposed, the enemy can quickly come up with countermeasures.

"Xiao Dong, besides laser power, is there any other way to improve this Ghost?" Lin Weiliang asked from the side.

Equipment is always a back-and-forth affair; you have to plan one step ahead and then another two or three.

The Ghost Ship has now been exposed. The enemy may have countermeasures, but they can also analyze the enemy's countermeasures in advance and make improvements accordingly, thus maintaining a continuous lead in combat power.

"Dad, yes."

Lin Dong nodded, then looked at Lin Weiliang with a strange expression and said, "For example, increase the number of loyal wingmen. If we could have three thousand loyal wingmen like the three thousand swarm drones—"

"Hiss—three thousand loyal wingmen? You really think you're playing with game equipment?!"

Lin Weiliang widened his eyes and took a breath. The next moment, he realized that he seemed to have offered himself up. He immediately stood up and said, "Your mother seemed to be calling me just now. I'll go over and help your mother and your godmother cook together."

"Wait! Engineer Lin, there's no rush for dinner! Ruohua and Engineer Zhang can handle it themselves. What are you doing squeezing in here, a grown man?"

But before Lin Weiliang could leave, Wang Xingguo grabbed him, his face full of surprise, and said, "Let's talk about what these three thousand loyal wingmen are all about. It just so happens that the core of the J-20S project is also this loyal wingman system—let's discuss it together today."