Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Just as missiles fell one after another in downtown Washington, exploding into brilliant fireballs, there was a missile testing base somewhere in Germany.

"boom!"

Along with a loud noise, a huge "swimming pool" aroused water columns rising into the sky, and a group of scientific researchers in the distant observation post shook their heads helplessly. "Failed again."

The research project here is submarine-launched missiles. In the original time and space, the United States and the Soviet Union chose to start from the mature design of land-based tactical ballistic missiles when developing submarine-launched missiles. Therefore, both countries' attempts to develop submarine-launched ballistic missiles were based on the method of landing land-launched ballistic missiles on ships and using water-launched missiles. Way. That is to say, when launching, the submarine needs to float to the surface, then lift the missile after completing the filling process and ignite it for launch. The submarine was exposed to the water throughout the launch. This method had no concealment in actual combat, so Yannick skipped this step directly and wanted to develop submarine-launched missiles that could be launched underwater.

It's just that submarine-launched missiles are the most technically difficult of all missiles, bar none; how big are they? There are not many countries that have submarine and missile technology in later generations. There are only five countries in the five permanent members of the P5 that have submarine-launched ballistic missile technology (there are as many as nine countries with nuclear weapons).

And its difficulty is multi-faceted and multi-level.

The first difficulty is the missile carrier, the submarine.

Submarines definitely cannot be ordinary submarines. They are limited by many factors such as size and power. If you want to achieve submarine launch of missiles, you must have multiple basic requirements such as strong power, long range, and large bomb-carrying volume. Only those who meet these basic requirements can Nuclear submarine. As the most important weapon of the country, only the five permanent members of the country possess nuclear submarines. It is conceivable that this alone stumps most countries. On the other hand, ordinary nuclear submarines only meet the basic requirements for missile submarine launch. If you want to complete missile launch underwater, ordinary nuclear submarines must be improved, such as increasing the bomb load, eliminating turtle backs, and reducing noise. This adds a certain degree of difficulty to the difficulty of ordinary nuclear submarines.

If you are lucky enough to have a nuclear submarine with missile submarine launch capabilities, the next thing to consider is missiles.

Naturally, the missile cannot be an ordinary road-based missile. The missile must be launched from the water and enter the air, and it must work stably in two different media. This step is the shortest, especially the moment it breaks through the water, which is measured in seconds, but it is the key to the success or failure of the submarine-launched missile.

Because the density of water is 800 times that of air, the forces on objects flying in water and in air are completely different. To give the simplest example, a bullet can fly stably in the air for a long distance, but when the bullet enters water, it will instantly lose stability and can only travel a short distance. The flechette bullets used in underwater firearms have a straight trajectory underwater, but once used on shore, they will fly randomly. Therefore, submarine-launched missiles must be suitable for both water and air.

If you happen to have nuclear submarines and submarine-launched ballistic missiles with submarine-launched missile capabilities, then the launch method of submarine-launched ballistic missiles is the top priority. Later submarine-launched missiles were roughly divided into three methods according to different ignition stages.

In the first type, the missile is ignited directly in the launch tube; in the second type, after the missile rushes out of the launch tube, it is ignited underwater at a certain distance away from the submarine; in the third type, the missile is ejected out of the water and ignited in the air.

Each of these three methods has advantages and disadvantages.

Later Soviet Union/Russia adopted the first approach. Before launching, fresh water must be poured into the launch tube from a special water storage container. When the pressure inside the tube is similar to that of the outside world, the launch tube cover is opened. Then the missile's liquid engine is ignited in the tube, and the missile's own thrust is used to exit the tube. A hole will be formed at the tail of the tube. High-pressure air chamber to buffer the gas impact force generated during launch.

The use of such a "wet" launch helps solve the inherent problem of liquid rocket engines requiring a certain amount of time to pre-cool during startup, and helps alleviate the shortcomings of reducing the ignition time of liquid rocket engines compared with solid rocket engines.

The disadvantage is that the use of liquid missiles plus "hot" launch requires more suspension and shock-absorbing equipment than the solid missile + water launch method. It is also necessary to guard against the possibility of leakage of liquid fuel from liquid missiles, so an automatic sprinkler system needs to be installed. These devices make the launch tube more complex than the solid missile launch tube. Of course, the sealing design corresponding to the missile itself is naturally indispensable.

The second method of igniting in water does not have high requirements on the launch tube, and it is powered out of the water. It is generally more controllable and less affected by wind and waves, but it has higher requirements on the missile itself, because the underwater launch environment is relatively bad. Later French M51 submarine-launched missiles used this launch method, and its reliability has always been problematic.

The last one uses high-pressure gas to eject the missile out of the water and ignite it in mid-air. The United States' submarine-launched missiles use this method. The biggest difficulty is that the timing of ignition must be very precise. After a missile of dozens of tons breaks through the water, it is basically at the end of the war. You must start the rocket engine before it falls, otherwise the missile will fall. Into the sea.

Today, Germany's research and development direction is to ignite and launch directly in the launch tube, but the research progress is not very smooth. This is the fifth time a missile has exploded in the launch tube.

"Do we need to change the launch method?" Someone murmured as they watched the huge water column scatter, with most of it falling back into the "swimming pool". In addition to igniting directly in the launch tube, Yannick also told them the principle of igniting on the water surface.

Another researcher shook his head. "But our missile cold launch technology has not been perfected yet." Cold launch is a launch method that uses auxiliary power to eject the missile from the launch tube, and then ignites the main engine when the missile reaches a certain height. The missile and its launch equipment are not affected by the high-temperature gas generated by the missile's main engine, so it is called cold launch.

Cold launch is not a new technology and has been used on submarines for a long time. During World War II, the way submarines in various countries launched torpedoes was to inject high-pressure gas into the launch tube before the torpedo was launched, so that the internal and external air pressures were equal. When launching, the front sealing cover opens, and high-pressure air pours in from the rear of the launch tube, pushing the torpedo out.

However, shooting a torpedo weighing one or two tons horizontally and ejecting a missile weighing several tons or even more than ten tons vertically are not at the same level of difficulty at all.

Just when several people were arguing, the middle-aged man at the head spoke. "You're going to give up after just a few failures? Is there anything wrong with what His Highness proposed? There must have been some failure caused by negligence. Pump out the water and clean up the launch pad." When His Highness Yannick was mentioned, everyone suddenly became silent. , left the observation post and got busy again.