Xu Lanzhou gently pulled his white gloves with his slender and white fingers, and he looked naturally revealing the beauty of a red-makeup warrior. No one in the bridge www.biquge.info the slightest bit of tension, everyone was doing their job in an orderly manner.

The holographic screen next to the captain's seat displays updated messages.

"Hostile targets were found against the fleet, number 72."

"The target was determined to be an improvised nuclear fission weapon, threat level F5."

"The automated defense system deploys."

"Defensive firepower distribution optimization starts."

For Iridium, space warfare is more than an order of magnitude more complex than operations in Earth's atmosphere. The calculation and reaction of human beings alone are far from keeping up with the complex combat environment, and almost all high-level scientific and technological space warfare to humanoid intelligent life requires a certain degree of artificial intelligence and automated systems to assist. More of the time for human operations is used as the last layer of support and for making major decisions.

Even the military development on Earth has advanced to the level of network-centric warfare. The R19 fleet is much more technologically advanced, but its essence is still the path of multiplicity into one, information sharing, and group planning. The command and control system of the flagship Holy Falcon can unify the use of weapons beyond the subsystems of each ship, forming a unified and well-structured firepower network. Whether in attack or defense, the unified combat system has optimized the use of firepower and reconnaissance resources to the greatest extent, greatly improving combat efficiency and greatly enhancing combat effectiveness.

Xu Lanzhou glanced at the more than a hundred defense strategies given by the automatic finger control system, reached out and touched the holographic screen, and changed it. The defensive counterattack strategy of the command system needs the approval of the captain, and if the captain does not approve it within the time limit, then the system will adopt the optimal strategy to defend and counterattack.

With a space tactical cluster consisting of a battlecruiser, a heavy cruiser, and two corvettes, with considerable firepower and diverse firepower options, the Iridium fleet can directly use laser weapons to illuminate missiles launched from silos, detonating them on the ground. This means of defense and counterattack can shoot down and detonate these missiles at a distance of less than two thousand meters, and it does not even need to mobilize the main gun-level laser weapons on the Holy Falcon, but only needs to be done with a light level or above. As for the diffraction and deflection that occurs when passing through the atmosphere, powerful in-ship calculations can complete ballistic correction in femtoseconds.

However, Xu Lanzhou did not use such a method. With the yield of the nuclear bombs launched by the Americans, detonating these nuclear weapons directly in the atmosphere can basically destroy the entire central and northern regions of the United States, causing direct casualties to tens of millions of people. The resulting clouds of nuclear fallout and radiation could adversely affect the wider region and the world, potentially killing hundreds of millions of people.

Xu Lanzhou is bent on expanding the earth into an empire's colony in the new universe, but even the ruthless imperial soldiers with butcher knives will not cause excessive killing at will. Tens of millions of civilians have rarely died in the Empire's major wars, which is not only inhumane, but also incompatible with the interests of the Empire. An intact colony, an adequate population, and a rich cultural harvest could all have a positive impact on the development and progress of the empire.

Therefore, Xu Lanzhou chose an interception method that is relatively less harmful to the earth, but this does not mean that the R19 fleet has to take any risks, and the threat of the F5 level is impossible to break the protective shield of the lightest frigate.

72 reinforced Minuteman III missiles broke through the atmosphere and rushed at extremely high speed towards the position where the R19 fleet was located. This extremely high speed is only for the people of the earth. For the Iridium fleet, the speed of Mach 20 or 30 is simply not enough. The probabilistic cloud principle of space warfare inferred by Ye Qing before is a basic principle of space warfare. Even a large warship with not excellent maneuverability can calmly change its orientation in the face of a missile with a speed of Mach 20 or 30, so that the nuclear missile cannot hit.

But for the R19 fleet, the energy consumed to sail because of a few F5-class nuclear missiles is far greater than the energy consumed to conduct a simple interception. Therefore, the Holy Falcon and other Iridium warships have no intention of moving at all, and even moving the ship's orientation is not an option in the intelligent command and control system at all.

The two shuttle-class corvettes were the main force of the interception mission, but the huge Holy Falcon and the Flying Bear were just playing soy sauce in the mission. The shuttle-class corvettes themselves are the positioning of the fleet's air defense ships, and in the space warfare of Iridium against other interstellar civilizations, the fleets of many civilizations will have ships carrying a large number of interstellar fighters. This kind of aircraft-carrying interstellar warship is generally called an aircraft-carrying cruiser, and only when the scale reaches a certain level will it be called an aircraft carrier (space carrier). Although the firepower of the interstellar fighter is much weaker than the firepower of the battleship's main gun, it is very flexible and can carry out relatively long-distance attacks. According to the principle of probability cloud, an aircraft-carrying cruiser can cover a larger range of probability clouds when it carries a certain number of interstellar flight troops. With the opposing side's limited anti-aircraft firepower and effectiveness, an interstellar fighter carrying a lightweight directed energy weapon, or an even more terrifying high-destruction anti-ship missile, can constantly wear down a battleship's shield and eventually sink her. Moreover, interstellar fighters also have advantages that artillery warships do not have in the fields of planetary bombing, breaking engagements, raiding warfare and reconnaissance warfare, and can also allow the fleet to strike the enemy from a safer distance. Therefore, whether it is the United Empire of Iridium or other interstellar civilizations, few people will ignore the construction of aircraft-carrying cruisers and aircraft carriers. Of course, the weaknesses of these two types of ships themselves are also very prominent, once the shelled battleship breaks into the firing range, it will be easy to be sunk by the opponent, and in the face of some capital ship-level or even heavy cruiser-level warships, it is difficult for the weak fighter group to break through the opponent's protective shield, and the enemy fleet with strong anti-aircraft firepower will not take long to destroy the fighter group.

The shuttle-class air defense corvettes are special air defense warships built by Iridium, although the size is not large, and there is no particularly strong main gun, but each shuttle-class is equipped with 36 laser cannons above lightweight, 68 small and medium-caliber Gauss railguns, and 8 space missile launchers, which can launch 64 standard-volume missiles at the same time, and the main gun is four twin-mounted large-caliber Gauss railguns. The number of weapons on a shuttle dart class is even comparable to that of a capital ship, of course, there is no comparison at all in terms of power. The large number of weapons is naturally intended for regional air defense at a larger range. The defense of the fighter itself is negligible, and it can be easily destroyed by both a lightweight laser and a small-caliber Gauss railgun.

When the Minuteman III missiles launched by the two Shuttle-class air defense corvettes in the United States broke through the atmosphere and rose to an altitude of about 100,000 kilometers above the earth's surface, they simultaneously launched laser cannons to irradiate the nuclear missiles. At a distance of about 100,000 kilometers, the system automatically calculates the amount of advance, plus the speed of light of the directed energy weapon flies over, and in the blink of an eye, all the Minuteman III missiles are detonated!

The huge explosion occurred silently, and the extremely dazzling light filled the entire space at this moment, like a small sun, radiating a large amount of light and heat outward. There is no sound in a vacuum, and this is how the most terrifying explosion ever made in human history was created in a state of absolute silence.

The R19 fleet, which is 100,000 kilometers away, is also silent, and such an explosion is nothing to them. The explosion of 72 nuclear bombs with a considerable yield could not even cross a hundred thousand kilometers and wipe off a single hair of Iridium's warships. However, the light radiated was a little dazzling, and when the extremely intelligent warship fired the laser weapon, it had already raised a strong light filter, and all the light that could cause damage to the officers and soldiers of the Iridium fleet could not pass through this filter. And this was the only response they made, and the shield of the incomparable battleship was not even activated. Most of the thousands of Imperial immigrants living in the Ruyi City don't even know what's going on. They were in a man-made ecosystem, looking up at the clear blue sky with white clouds, and the Ruyi City's high-transparency hull filtered out the glare.

As for radiation, although the distance of movement in the vacuum is farther, the Iridium battleship has to face a super complex cosmic environment, the hull is automatically shielded from all kinds of harmful radiation, and the protective shield also has a similar effect, so it is still the same, there is no effect.

Dean Mo of the Fleet Research Institute even smacked his lips and said unsatisfactorily: "This distance is so long, in fact, you can try the S05 particle jet cannon carried by the Holy Falcon to directly stop the fission chain reaction of those nuclear weapons." ”

However, Dean Mo's words made his proud disciple Lin Yin sneer, and Lin Yin said, "The S05 Jet Cannon does have the ability to accurately manipulate particles to cause damage or other effects, but the key is accuracy. As long as the specific structure of those nuclear weapons is known, the jet cannon can stop the chain reaction in a variety of ways, through a series of means such as neutron absorption or ionization destruction, or increase the critical mass, or make it impossible for the nucleus to cross the fission barrier. Although we have obtained information about this US nuclear weapon, we are not completely sure of some things, and a little bit of impreciseness may make the chain reaction suppression fail. The S05 Jet Cannon is not designed to do something that researchers can only do in the laboratory, but to accurately and variously adjust various particles and energy carrying, so as to more efficiently and effectively attack opponents of different levels and defense forms. ”

was ridiculed by Lin Yin, but Dean Mo was not angry at all, his proud disciple had a very good talent in applied science, which made him very satisfied. Several other scientists joined the discussion, each expressing their views on what they thought was the best interception option.

The Iridium fleet just raised its finger, and the US nuclear missiles were destroyed in an instant. And a group of Iridians are discussing with great interest how to intercept nuclear missiles more efficiently, or more elegantly.

This is the so-called, the gap in strength.