Andrei immediately said: "Comrade Beria, please instruct." Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Beria on the other end of the phone said: "Not long ago, Engineer Kuusinen proposed a high-power weapon for the future, and now the United States is working on a bomb called the atomic bomb, which can destroy a city with one bomb!" After the introduction, Andrei pretended to listen carefully, but his mind was churning, the Pandora's box of nuclear weapons was opened, and now the Soviet intelligence officers are probably already collecting information about the Manhattan Project, and then Beria said: "Engineer Kusinin does not know the details of this weapon, but he has put forward a lot of information, and now we have organized several survey teams to find uranium mines, and some uranium mines may be produced in the hands of the Germans, you immediately dispatch a part of the signal flag to cooperate with the Alpha team, We're going to form a special reconnaissance team to locate the uranium mine! ”

Then Beria's other words surprised Andrei even more, because Beria went on to say: "There is one more thing, we must also protect the Volga River and the hydropower station in the rear, because the next research on the atomic bomb will require a lot of electricity!" "Yes. The difficulty of electricity, the atomic bomb is not really in the design or construction, but in the acquisition of pure uranium-235. Natural uranium contains impurities that are difficult to remove. The process of refining uranium typically costs billions of dollars and requires top scientists who are familiar with high technology.

Impurities are another form of uranium: uranium-238. The problem with uranium-238 is that it absorbs neutrons and sometimes produces plutonium, but this process does not release additional neutrons. Just as isolating air can extinguish a fire, taking away neutrons will block the chain reaction.

Ordinary uranium dug up underground contains 99.3% of the impurity uranium-238, and only 0.7% of uranium-235 that can be fissioned. In other words, natural uranium is almost completely contaminated. The separation of uranium-235 from uranium-238 is called uranium separation. When the separation is close to 100%, the uranium is called nuclear bomb grade, and the raw material that is eliminated is called depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is uranium-238 containing less than 0.7% uranium-235.

Uranium separation is extremely difficult. Because uranium-235 and uranium-238 are both uranium, ordinary chemical techniques cannot distinguish between the two. The separation method must take advantage of the fact that uranium-235 is slightly lighter than uranium-238. But the difference is very small, only 1.3%.

During World War II, the leaders of the Los Alamos nuclear bomb program experimented with several different ways to enrich uranium-238. The first successful method was Lawrence's invention of the electromagnetic isotope separation method (calutron). He named the instrument after the University of California, Berkeley's nickname, Cal, presumably because it was shaped like the letter C. The electromagnetic separator, built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, separated almost all of the uranium-235 needed for the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.

The electromagnetic separator operates by first evaporating the uranium and then accelerating it in a type C electromagnetic field. If they have the same velocity, the heavier uranium-238 atoms will have a circumferential path that is 1.3% larger than that of uranium-235, so they can be collected separately at the end of the path. The method was slow and cumbersome, but after a year of operation, it eventually separated enough uranium-235 needed for the Hiroshima bomb.

After World War II, a completely different method was used to purify uranium, called gas diffusion. In this method, uranium is mixed with fluorine to produce uranium hexafluoride, which becomes a gas at a relatively low temperature of 134°F. The gas is then compressed so that it diffuses in a porous material. The lighter molecule (uranium-235) moves faster and therefore spreads faster. Each purification step can only slightly increase the amount of separation. As a result, a large uranium proliferation plant is required to accommodate the necessary number of steps.

And no matter which separation method you use, there's one thing you'll need, and that's a centrifuge! The most modern and efficient way to separate uranium-235 is with a gas centrifuge. Uranium hexafluoride for the centrifuge (the same gas as in the diffusion plant). The heavier gas, uranium-238, tends to concentrate on the outside of the cylinder, while uranium-235 is closer to the center of the cylinder. Then uranium-235 is pumped out. In fact, the amount of separation in a centrifuge is very small (because the mass difference between uranium-235 and uranium-238 is very small), so the gas has to go through thousands of centrifuges to meet the amount of separation required by a nuclear power plant or nuclear weapon.

Despite the large number of centrifuges required, it is relatively small and efficient. Because it rotates too fast, it has to be made of very strong materials so that it doesn't disintegrate. A key new material is Marnaris aging steel, which is mainly used in uranium centrifuges, rocket bodies and high-performance golf clubs. Later, U.S. intelligence was very sensitive to countries that imported or manufactured large quantities of aging steel, unless they were the main producers of golf equipment.

A typical separation plant has several thousand centrifuges, but all the machines are assembled in a space no larger than the size of a movie theater. Such a system is capable of producing separated uranium for several nuclear bombs per year. It was difficult for intelligence services to determine the location of the hidden detachment. They do not require a lot of energy and run quietly, thanks to the delicate balance of the cylinders, which prevents them from disintegrating during rotation.

No matter how you extract it, electricity is very much needed, and it's not a few percent of the electricity of the entire country, and now it seems that the Soviet Union's nuclear research is much faster than the original history, after all, although Kuusinin can't make it, the information he provided made the Soviet Union take a lot of detours, and now World War II is impossible to cause an atomic bomb in the current situation of the Soviet Union, but the time of the Soviet Union has been greatly reduced, I'm afraid it won't be 49 years, and then, Beria's words surprised Andrei even more, "Also, You select a group of team members to form a special group, and I will immediately arrange a special plane to go to the Caspian Sea, and then a batch of heavy water, refining equipment and materials will be shipped! "Yes, Comrade Beria." Heavy water! How did the USSR progress so fast? Yes, heavy water, many people may have found the word heavy water when watching the news of the North Korean nuclear issue, heavy water is mainly used as a moderator in nuclear reactors, it can reduce the rate of neutrons, so that it meets the needs of the fission process. Heavy water is also a material that has been used in the study of chemical and physiological changes. Thick and pure heavy water cannot maintain the life of animals and plants, and its lethal concentration is 60%~80%.

Heavy water, like ordinary water, is a liquid compound made from hydrogen and oxidation, but the hydrogen atoms of heavy water molecules are different from ordinary water molecules. We know that there are 3 isotopes of hydrogen. One is the Aga, which contains only one proton. It is combined with an oxygen atom to produce ordinary water molecules. The other is heavy hydrogen, deuterium. It contains one proton and one neutron. It is combined with an oxygen atom to form heavy water molecules. There is also tritium, which is super heavy hydrogen. It contains two neutrons and one proton.

Heavy water is similar in appearance to ordinary water, and is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless liquid. The density is greater than that of ordinary water, and the melting point and boiling point are higher than those of ordinary water. Due to its large molecular weight and slow movement speed, heavy water is minimal, and water (hydrogen oxide) is the lightest on Earth in the snow and ice in the mountains, especially in Antarctica. Heavy water is less distributed in nature.

Heavy water has a very important use in cutting-edge technology. The heart of the nuclear power station is the atomic reactor, and in order to control the normal progress of the nuclear fission reaction in the atomic reactor, heavy water is needed as the neutron moderator. Heavy hydrogen can be obtained by electrolysis of heavy water, which is the raw material for hydrogen bombs.

Heavy water can be produced by a variety of methods. The original method was electrolysis, as heavy water could not be electrolyzed, so it could be separated from ordinary water. Another simple method is to use heavy water to boil higher than ordinary water and obtain it by repeated distillation. Later, a number of other better methods were developed.

The two main methods in later generations were hydrogen sulfide exchange (GS method) and ammonia-hydrogen exchange method.

Now the Soviet Union is trying its best to make heavy water It seems that the progress of nuclear reactors is also fast, in fact, everyone knows that the first nuclear reactor was a graphite reactor, and graphite reactors produce plutonium, which is easier to extract nuclear fuel, and plutonium can be used to make nuclear bombs. So in fact, the first reactor in the USSR was a graphite reactor, but in line with the principle of not putting eggs in one basket, the USSR was also engaged in heavy water reactors.

Waiting for Beria to hang up the phone, Andrei felt like a man on his back at the moment, Pandora's box was about to be opened, and when the American nuclear bomb exploded in 45 years, Stalin was afraid that he would do whatever it took to accelerate the speed of nuclear research, and now the Soviet Union is much faster than in history, and this history is becoming more and more unpredictable!

For this urgent task Andrei immediately arranged, and then received the task of the team. Quickly started the action, Andrei came to the field airport in person, this is the first time Andrei came to the field airport during World War II, and the permanent airport equipped with a concrete runway next to the big city is almost the same, the field airport is also composed of a lookout, a radar station, a weather station, a runway (more than two), a machine, an oil depot, maintenance, guards and other parts, but the runway is a dirt runway and the department is active and not fixed, so the take-off and landing conditions are not as good as the permanent airport, Andrei came to the airport, The airport has specially arranged a place for the general of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to rest, I have to say that it is good when it is cold, the ground is hard, the dirt runway is now extremely hard, the airport is now non-stop taking off and landing planes, you must know that it is not appropriate to talk about air supremacy in the Soviet-German battlefield, it should be mentioned air supremacy, the ability to use air power, not to control the sky. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Air Force suffered very heavy losses in the early stage, lacked experienced pilots, and it was difficult to form "air supremacy" in various airspace, but their attack planes and light bombers could take advantage of the air defense gap of German fighters to break into the theater of operations from low altitudes to attack German ground targets. The initial Il-2 attack was carried out with few fighters to provide escort, so the losses were very large, but the casualties it inflicted on the Germans were equally large enough to offset the losses. A careful analysis of the records of the German aces on the Eastern Front shows that the Il-2 accounts for a large part. Similar situations often arose on the Eastern Front: the Soviets summoned as many fighters as they could at the beginning of the German offensive; The German attack on the Soviet positions was blocked, and dive bombers were called; The German dive bombers were in the air, and just after two bombs were dropped, the Soviet fighters arrived, so the German dive bombers were forced to withdraw from the bombing track to dodge; German escort fighters exchanged fire with Soviet fighters at an altitude of about 2,000 meters; More than a dozen Il-2s took advantage of the chaos to enter from a height of 200 meters and attack the German ground forces; Some German fighters dived to disperse and attack the Il-2; The German dive bombers took advantage of the entanglement of fighters on both sides to re-prepare for bombing; Soviet reinforcements arrived; German reinforcements arrived, and there was a scuffle between the two sides; More than 20 kilometers away, a group of Pe-2s took advantage of the overwhelming response of German fighters to attack its supply depot...... In the process, Germany's well-trained and experienced fighter pilots may have been able to shoot down more than a dozen Soviet planes without a single casualty; But it is also likely that the Soviets inflicted heavy casualties on the German ground forces, bankrupting their attacks.

Under the vast sky of the Soviet Union, neither side actually had absolute air supremacy, but only who had more time to take advantage of the sky. An airport manager next to him was instructing the people around him, "Rats have been gnawing on wires lately to prevent rats from spreading diseases." "Rats? That's right, Andrei remembered that when he watched the documentary, the tank of a German division was bitten off by rats, and now the Luftwaffe is fighting on multiple fronts, and when Stalingrad counterattacked, the relative air supremacy fell into the hands of the Soviet Army, and the Germans had to experience the feeling of being dropped a bomb from the sky, and Andrei walked next to the person in charge at this time, and the person in charge immediately said with a flattering face: "Comrade General, the plane encountered bad weather on the way, and the next time had to be delayed." ”

Andrei remembered that at the beginning of the great counteroffensive in history, there was a big snowstorm that caused the Soviet Air Force to not attack for air cover. So Andrei asked: "Do you see the recent weather, can planes take off and land?" The person in charge cautiously replied: "The weather in the next few days, according to the forecast of the meteorological department, does not seem to be very good, but as long as the conditions permit, we will do our best, but if there is a snowstorm, the airport can only stop operating." ”

This winter has caused huge trouble to the Soviet Union, and now it is the end of 42 to 43, and the Germans are also going to the end of the crossbow, but at this time the German army is still very strong, and it can still be trapped in the beast.

And an hour later, the special plane finally arrived, and for safety reasons, the airport arranged for 4 fighters to accompany the protection, Andrei arranged for a special team to get on the special plane, and then returned to the front headquarters, at this time the order of the Moscow base camp has been conveyed, the front army is ready to counterattack, Andrei also attended the military meeting on the side, the plan is no different from the history of the previous life, Andrei patiently finished the meeting.

Unexpectedly, Khrushchev came over again, and Andrei hurriedly asked: "Comrade Khrushchev, is there something wrong with you?" Khrushchev said: "At Andrei's military meeting just now, I found that you were obviously inattentive, what do you think about this counteroffensive?" ”

"Yes, it is worthy of being the boss in the future, and this observation is also great!" Andrei thought about it, and seeing that Andrei did not answer immediately but thoughtfully, Khrushchev could not hold back, and he said: "Andrey, I know that your insight has always been very good!" Tell me if you found something wrong but didn't dare to say it? ”