Chapter 77

When the news reached the Beijing warship, Lin Yuan was inspecting various departments on the ship. Through an open door, he saw a scene that surprised him.

Four soldiers on duty were enthusiastically playing games under the leadership of their company commander! The company commander was wearing headphones, clicking the mouse with a loud clatter, and loudly directing his subordinates. A sharp-eyed soldier noticed Lin Yuan, immediately put down the mouse, and stood up. The company commander, unaware of the situation, loudly called out the soldier's name, angrily saying, "Hey, why aren't you moving! We're going to lose!"

At this moment, the company commander also noticed Lin Yuan. He quickly stood up and said, "Report, report to the captain, I am leading the soldiers in testing the computer's performance!"

Lin Yuan chuckled and asked, "What performance are you testing?"

The company commander replied, "Report to the captain, we are testing the graphics card performance! We have set the graphics of this game, known as a graphics card killer, to the highest quality! All special effects are turned on! The frame rate exceeds sixty! The graphics card performance is fully qualified!"

Lin Yuan glanced at the name tag on his chest and asked with a smile, "Your name is Li Kai?"

Li Kai straightened his chest and said, "Yes!"

Lin Yuan asked, "From the drone department?"

Li Kai replied, "Yes!"

Lin Yuan asked, "Why are you playing games while on duty?"

Li Kai loudly said, "I promise it won't happen again!"

Lin Yuan asked, "How many types of drones are equipped on the Beijing warship?"

Li Kai replied, "Three types: the first is the WR-30, powered by solar energy, a high-altitude long-endurance strategic drone used for strategic reconnaissance and relay communication command; the second is the WR-20, a conventionally powered reconnaissance drone; the third is the WR-11, used for tactical reconnaissance and surveillance."

Lin Yuan said, "Do you feel idle, so you play games?"

Li Kai nodded awkwardly, and Lin Yuan said, "You will be very busy soon!"

After saying this, Lin Yuan turned and left. As he reached the door, he turned back and said, "You, write a 3,000-word self-criticism and submit it to your superior!"

At this moment, Lin Yuan received Zhang Hua's analysis and immediately decided to accelerate the construction of the new fleet.

Lin Yuan's idea was: in a possible future war, aircraft carriers, due to the inability to replenish weapons, would not directly undertake attack missions but would serve as the command, control, reconnaissance, and surveillance center of the entire fleet. Using the drones equipped on the Beijing warship, they would search for targets in a certain sea area to achieve the goal of detecting the enemy first. On the battlefield, using drones for calibration would achieve more precise shooting!

Using drones for ground artillery reconnaissance and calibration is a common practice, but no one has ever used drones for naval artillery calibration! The reason is simple: by the time drones appeared, the era of decisive battles with large guns and battleships had already passed.

On the morning of December 11, 1894, Deng Shichang led the first batch of trained gunners aboard the captured Japanese warship, the Yoshino. In the Battle of the Sea of Korea, it was the Yoshino that fired the first shot. Historically, Deng Shichang's Zhiyuan warship was also sunk by the Yoshino. However, now the Yoshino was serving the Chinese.

The Yoshino was an excellent cruiser at the time, capable of reaching 23 knots under forced ventilation and equipped with rapid-fire guns.

On the current Yoshino, some of the gunners were trained by Deng Shichang, some were engine room and navigation personnel trained by the Beijing warship, and others were Beijing warship personnel carrying advanced communication and ranging equipment. The reason Lin Yuan told Deng Shichang that distances could be accurately measured was because of the portable laser rangefinder on the Beijing warship.

That morning, on the East China Sea, the wind speed was 2.3 meters per second, and the wave height was 0.2 meters. A WR-30 drone took off first, serving as a relay command in the sky above the Beijing warship. Subsequently, a WR-11 tactical reconnaissance drone took off.

In the 21st century, the role of drones in war has always been a focus of military theorists. Since they are unmanned, drones can undertake many extremely dangerous tasks. Even if there are losses, there is no need to bear the burden of personnel casualties, which would cause significant social pressure.

Although the use of drones in war can be traced back to 1914, it wasn't until 2013, 100 years later, that drones completed takeoff and landing on aircraft carriers. This was due not only to military theory but also to technical challenges.

Drones cannot handle emergencies as quickly as manned aircraft. The ability of drones to think like humans exists only in science fiction. During takeoff and landing, many unexpected events may occur, and these cannot all be programmed into the drone's system. Control personnel find it difficult to handle emergencies in a very short time.

The landing process is even more dangerous. Manned aircraft rely on human control to align with the runway and adjust their height during landing. Drones, however, require control personnel to observe the situation and then control the drone, which takes a longer time. If the arrestor hook fails to catch the arrestor wire, a common occurrence in manned aircraft, the pilot can immediately choose to accelerate and take off again. However, for drones, this might not be possible in time.

The Beijing warship is equipped with many drones to explore the application of drones in future naval warfare, something that unexpectedly became useful after the time travel.

The first exercise was the WR-30's discovery of a maritime target, with the 4,000-ton Kakegawa warship serving as the target. Lin Yuan was standing next to Li Kai, who was closely watching the images transmitted by the WR-30, hoping to find the target.

The automation of our military's aerial reconnaissance has greatly improved. Originally, reconnaissance involved a series of steps: photography, film processing, photo printing, and visual interpretation. This not only required a large amount of manpower but also a significant time cycle. On the modern Beijing warship, this process is completed by a computer, and target interpreters only need to observe the targets.

Real-time images of the maritime target were transmitted back to the Beijing warship. The computer on the Beijing warship processed the series of 0s and 1s, performing image enhancement, edge processing, and noise reduction to create images suitable for human viewing. The WR-30, flying at an altitude of 5,000 meters, could monitor an area of 150,000 square kilometers. After a series of image segmentation and feature extraction, the computer had identified potential ship targets.

However, the computer could not determine which were enemy ships and which were civilian vessels, so human judgment was necessary. Li Kai and his subordinates closely watched the screen. The high-definition camera on the WR-30 could clearly see a 10 cm by 10 cm square. Such clarity meant that a single image could be over several gigabytes, placing high demands on the computer's processor and graphics card.

Li Kai dragged the image, searching for possible targets. The image moved smoothly without any lag. Li Kai identified the target based on the characteristics of the Kakegawa warship, finally locking onto it.

Lin Yuan looked at the coordinates transmitted by the Kakegawa and indicated that Li Kai's judgment was correct. Deng Shichang quickly steered the Yoshino to the target area. However, during the target calibration, a significant problem was discovered.

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