Chapter 536: Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers

Scientists on the island of China have taken a chemical approach, and years ago, with the help of Xiaofeng, scientists spent years finding a chemical catalyst that could be industrially produced, which could turn ordinary liquid hydrogen into metallic hydrogen at room temperature and pressure.

Metallic hydrogen is a kind of room-temperature superconductor, but also a high-density, high-energy storage material, with this widely used material, even in the field of energy and materials at the same time to launch an industrial revolution, but in the case of oil still has great value, Fang Xiaoyu is not willing to let this kind of product that can cause earthquakes in the world to enter the civilian market.

After the massive mining of helium-3 from Red Moon, a nuclear fusion reactor was built, and after several years of refinement, the reactor not only worked well, but also shrunk to the point where it could be used by large warships. In fact, this kind of nuclear fusion reactor is several times better than the nuclear fission reactor used by US aircraft carriers on the earth.

With a displacement of nearly 100,000 tons of the 'Nanming' class, only one reactor is needed, but it is the first time that the China Foundation has applied this kind of technology on a warship, and it has placed one more for the sake of insurance. This is also very normal, the first aircraft carrier of the US military back then, the USS Ford, was equipped with eight reactors for insurance.

This kind of super energy of the nuclear fusion reactor, Fang Xiaoyu did not dare to leak it casually, except for the interior of Zhonghua Island, metallic hydrogen is only allowed to be used as the power system of naval warships, and strict confidentiality regulations have been formulated for it, and the outside world only claims that it is a new fuel cell technology improved by submarine power.

With metallic hydrogen, a fully functional fusion reactor became possible, so on the new Nanming-class aircraft carriers, such fusion reactors were used, with these two reactors greatly reducing the size of the boiler compartment, and even eliminating the marine fuel tank altogether, freeing up a lot of space for the hangar.

Driven by two metallic hydrogen reactors, the aircraft carrier not only gained a high speed of 33.5 knots, but also a range of 2 million nautical miles at an almost terrifying speed of 20 knots, which greatly saved the space of the supply ship, allowing it to free up a large amount of space to carry fuel and more food and ammunition.

Moreover, the most dangerous time for the aircraft carrier is when it is replenished, if it is a conventional aircraft carrier, each replenishment is close to eight hours, and in the replenishment flagship aircraft can not take off and land, the aircraft carrier is in a completely defenseless state, and now the fuel supply is reduced, and the replenishment time will be greatly shortened.

In addition to the power system, another highlight of the Nanming-class aircraft carrier is its carrier-based aircraft. Due to the maturity of jet aircraft, carrier-based aircraft were naturally replaced by jet aircraft.

Because the jet aircraft is larger, the same aircraft carrier can carry a lot less, so in order to facilitate logistics maintenance and improve combat effectiveness, the Chinese Navy adopts a general-purpose carrier-based aircraft mode, in addition to four twin-engine 'Hawkeye' early warning aircraft and eight Wasp helicopters for anti-submarine operations, there is only one aircraft on the aircraft carrier, the Sailfish 2 carrier-based aircraft.

The Sailfish 2 carrier-based aircraft is a multi-role fighter, it has a total length of 19.2 meters, a wingspan of 11.77 meters, a height of 5.02 meters, an empty weight of 13.7 tons, a maximum take-off weight of 28 tons, it uses two afterburner turbojet engines, a single thrust of 8,120 kilograms, which is converted to 7,220 horsepower, which has greatly exceeded the number of horsepower that the propeller aircraft can have, and the maximum speed has reached 1.2 Mach.

In addition, the fuel tanks in the fuselage are combined with the fuel tanks in the thickened swept wings to carry a total of 9,822 liters of fuel, which gives it a flight radius of 980 kilometers. In addition, the aircraft is equipped with a 23-mm cannon and two 12.7mm machine guns, and has nine hardpoints under the wings to carry rockets, fuel tanks, bombs of all kinds, or the latest Thunderbolt air-to-air missiles in the Chinese Empire.

In order to effectively use the missile, the aircraft is also equipped with an on-board computer and a passive phased array radar, so that its detection range reaches 60 kilometers, which is just right for the range of the Thunderbolt-3 medium-range air-to-air missile.

This kind of aircraft is not only equipped with the Navy but also equipped with the Air Force, the aircraft is divided into A/B/C/D four models, of which the A type is the basic combat type, it is generally equipped with the Navy's shore-based aviation and the Air Force, and the Air Force model is the Golden Eagle 5 type.

Type B is a two-seat trainer type that is generally not equipped with troops, and Type C is an attack type, which strengthens the downward-looking radar and strengthens the weapon pylons, so that it can carry heavier high-power television-guided bombs and heavy torpedoes, as a ground and sea attack aircraft, this aircraft is mainly equipped with naval aircraft carriers and army attack aircraft wings, and the army model has also been changed to Vulture 2. Type D is an electronic warfare aircraft specially equipped with electronic warfare equipment, which is mainly used for jamming enemy communications and radar signals.

The Leader-class aircraft carrier is equipped with four AWACS aircraft, eight helicopters, sixty-six Sailfish-2C aircraft and eight Sailfish-2D electronic warfare aircraft. In order to allow these larger and heavier jets to take off and land safely on the aircraft carrier, the Nanming-class aircraft carrier was equipped with an angled flight deck, three elevators, four steam catapults and three arresting cables for the first time. This type of aircraft carrier Fang Ruijun directly ordered the construction of 12 aircraft carriers, in addition to replacing the three 'General' class aircraft carriers, nine more aircraft carrier formations will be formed.

In the past, each aircraft carrier formation had only 12 'Qingjiang' class destroyers, but after the rearmament, each aircraft carrier formation will consist of two aircraft carriers, accompanied by six 'Meishan' class cruisers and 24 'Qingjiang' class destroyers, as well as four Seawolf Type 3 submarines and five 35,000-ton Pinghu-class comprehensive supply ships, and sometimes two Yushan-class dock landing ships can be brought for amphibious operations and antisubmarine purposes.

In addition, in order to match the range of the new aircraft carrier, Fang Ruijun hoped that the 'Meishan'-class cruisers in these formations would change the power system to a metallic hydrogen reactor, but in the end they gave up because of the problem of the same large reactor size as the submarine, but the 'Qingjiang'-class destroyer successfully installed four Hongqi-1 anti-aircraft missile launch tubes, two ultra-high-speed close-in defense guns, and replaced the ordinary projectile depth charge system with two anti-submarine rocket depth bomb launchers.

Compared with the large-scale shipbuilding of the Navy, the equipment of the Imperial Air Force and the Army of China has changed much less, the Wehrmacht Air Force mainly eliminated the old Golden Eagle 3 fighter and replaced it with the Golden Eagle 4 jet fighter, while the Guards Air Force secretly changed the Golden Eagle 4 fighter to the Golden Eagle 5, in addition to the Kunpeng 2 bomber in the Cossack Imperial battlefield after trial, the military found that its bomb load and range are still not very strong, so they also changed to the Kunpeng 3 bomber.