Lake-Class Warship

From the successful development of the material to mass production, and then to large-scale mass production, it took New Humans more than thirty years. It can be said that the emergence of every new technology is the result of the diligent efforts of all humankind.

Meanwhile, the Dongting Warship, the first Lake-Class Warship of the New Humans, was successfully built from scratch during this period.

Next came various sea trials, actual data collection and analysis, and further improvements to the design.

After everything regarding the experimental warships was settled, a hundred years had quietly passed since humanity defeated the Kun-Tai Civilization.

Over the course of a century, New Humans has achieved Heavy Nuclear Fusion, made another breakthrough in materials technology, and successfully mastered Neutrino Detection Technology and Magnetic Field Deflection Shield technology. Heavy Nuclear Fusion and the emergence of more powerful materials have enabled humanity to manufacture larger caliber main guns, such as super-large Positron Cannon, super-large Gamma Ray Cluster Weapon, and Super Large Electromagnetic Railgun.

It can be said that humanity has mastered all the technologies that Level 2 Civilization should possess in this short span of a century. And the Dongting Warship is the culmination of all these technologies.

The hallmark of Level 2 Civilization is Heavy Nuclear Fusion and Cold Nuclear Fusion. These two technologies did not diversify the weapons of warships; they still used the weapons of Tier 1 Civilization, only with larger calibers and greater destructive power, and their power was naturally incomparable.

There is also Plasma Cannon, but given the emergence of Magnetic Shield, the New Humans believe there is no need to build such a weapon that can be deflected by a magnetic field and whose power is far lower than that of Positron Cannon.

Of course, the types of weapons have not changed, but that does not prevent the New Humans from adding some ingenious ideas to the existing ones.

Take, for example, the Super Large Electromagnetic Railgun.

The original Electromagnetic Railgun projectiles were just lumps of iron, relying solely on their powerful kinetic energy to kill enemy ships. Modern Super Large Electromagnetic Railgun are different; their projectiles have been redesigned to not only kill enemy ships with their powerful kinetic energy but also possess an explosive capability.

As for its explosive properties, it is naturally a hydrogen bomb.

For a Level 2 Civilization, the hydrogen bomb sounds primitive, and it really is primitive, but it has an advantage that many other weapons do not have: its power has no upper limit.

As long as the yield is large enough, its power will continue to increase. If the technology is advanced enough, the yield can be continuously increased until it becomes a massive star that can be launched in a supernova explosion.

Of course, strictly speaking, supernovae are no longer considered hydrogen bombs. Hydrogen bombs also have an upper limit, which is the critical mass that Hydrogen Element's own Gravity can trigger Nuclear Fusion, which is the minimum mass standard for forming a star.

However, even with that technology, there's no need to develop such massive bombs to destroy the enemy, because technological advancements have enabled that civilization to possess far more powerful weapons.

That said, the reason why the Super Large Electromagnetic Railgun is called super-large is because the projectile has been changed to a projectile carrying a hydrogen bomb, which is why its caliber has been greatly increased.

The reason still lies in the extremely strong magnetic field.

After incorporating a hydrogen bomb into the projectile of Electromagnetic Railgun, a layer of Magnetic Shielding Material must be applied to its exterior. Otherwise, under the continuous influence of an extremely strong magnetic field, the hydrogen bomb is highly likely to explode or be damaged due to the magnetization of its internal structure.

The main reason why the Tier 1 Civilization did not do this was that its magnetic field technology was not up to par and it was not capable of doing so.

In addition, there is the issue of the hydrogen bomb's structural impact resistance, because the Electromagnetic Railgun has extremely high kinetic energy, and the original hydrogen bomb structure simply cannot withstand its impulse.

Therefore, in the new design, the hydrogen bomb, which serves as the special warhead of the Electromagnetic Railgun, has undergone various reinforcement and modifications by the New Humans, and No. 1 Alloy Material has also been used on it.

Hmm. No. 1 Alloy Material with a melting point of 150 million degrees Celsius. The New Humans named it to distinguish it from the newly developed material with a melting point of 280 million degrees Celsius. As for the material with a melting point of 280 million degrees Celsius, that is naturally No. 2 Alloy Material.

After completing various experiments on the Lake-Class Warship, humanity's Shipbuilding Plan was immediately put on the agenda.

This time, humanity learned from the lessons of the Callisto-Class Warship and did not build many Mountain-Class Warships, but instead focused its efforts on the Lake-Class Warship.

Because test results have shown that even a hundred Mountain-Class Warship cannot defeat a single Lake-Class Warship. The Mountain-Class Warship's largest-caliber Laser Weapon is completely unable to burn through the Lake-Class Warship's armor, which is made of No. 2 Alloy Material.

Positron Cannon would be useful, but once the Lake-Class Warship activate their Magnetic Shield, it becomes useless.

Therefore, the New Humans abandoned the combat strategy of coordinating multiple ship types of different sizes, and instead focused on how to improve the coordinated combat of different types of main guns on the same class of warships.

As for Small Escort Ship, they certainly won't be included in combat formations. Even their original intelligence gathering work will be carried out by inexpensive, fully AI-controlled Probe Spaceship, oh, and Neutrino Detection as well.

Therefore, they no longer have a place in the newly envisioned fleet. They can only become duty ships for the New Humanity Security Department, along with the Callisto-Class Warship.

To truly fight aliens, only the strongest and largest warships can be deployed; sending other types of ships would be tantamount to suicide and is completely unnecessary.

Of course, the reason why small ships lose their detection capabilities is ultimately due to the lack of faster-than-light and longer-distance communication. This means that even if a small ship detects an enemy ship firing at its own warship from a distance, it cannot transmit this information to its own warship faster than Energy Weapon.

There are many other secondary reasons, such as the fact that large warships are integrated in both offense and defense and have comprehensive functions.

Previously, some military personnel had suggested that smaller vessels were more agile and faster, and this is indeed true; smaller vessels are generally more maneuverable than larger ones, but ultimately their speed is the same. To be precise, in a short period of time, smaller vessels, due to their smaller mass, have greater acceleration, thus achieving a higher speed.

However, while faster, it wasn't ridiculously large. In other words, it wasn't as extreme as people imagined, with large warships resembling turtles and small warships like birds.

Another point is that, during military exercises, it has been observed that no matter how agile a small ship is, it cannot match the agility of a large ship's Close-In Weapon System CIWS). Simply put, even if you painstakingly make eighty turns and constantly change position in all directions, a large Close-In Weapon System only needs to make a small adjustment to its design angle to unleash countless laser beams at near-light speed.

And even if they manage to get close enough to large warships, what then? For example, Escort Ship wouldn't be able to penetrate the armor of Lake-Class Warship at all, and it could even be magnetized and cause equipment malfunctions if it got close enough to the Magnetic Shield of Lake-Class Warship.