Munitions Empire

The Otherworld is also a planet, with many places resembling Earth before Tang Mo's crossing. Therefore, based on the principle of higher vantage points providing wider views, this rule applies in the Otherworld too.

As a result, radars need to be mounted on masts to augment their detection range. However, no matter how much you increase it, the height of the mast is limited.

The same logic applies on the ground; even though you can choose higher places to set up radar stations, blind spots caused by the terrain are unavoidable.

In this situation, having aircraft carry powerful radars in the sky becomes an excellent solution: installing a radar at an altitude of eight thousand meters is an exciting prospect!

However, this design needs to solve several problems, which are trivial for Tang Mo, yet extremely challenging for other countries.

First, the radar on an early warning aircraft requires very high power, which demands the aircraft provide a sufficient supply of electricity. Perfectly resolving the power supply issue on an aircraft is quite a challenge.

Secondly, the radar's filtering capability is also crucial. It's manageable at sea, but near land, ground clutter can significantly interfere with radar detection.

Finally, ensuring the radar's detection range while maximizing power in the smallest possible size is a substantial challenge for equipment integration.

After integrating these details, to have an early warning aircraft capable of participating in actual combat, one must cram enough communication and command equipment into the tight aircraft space and train personnel capable of operating this equipment and executing command and control.

Generally speaking, small countries can't even comprehend how to operate an early warning aircraft, and not even mid-level powers can genuinely harness a high-performance early warning aircraft.

The reason the Great Tang Empire can deploy the Hawkeye early warning aircraft on carriers is because of the relatively low sea-clutter and the appropriate development level of the Great Tang Empire's electronic technology.

After deploying the early warning aircraft, the striking power of the navy's fighter jets and attack planes immediately increased several fold. This thing acts as an amplifier for existing weapons, allowing the Great Tang Empire Navy's carrier-based aircraft to perform at their best.

...

Near a southern coastline of the Laines Empire, Brunas, export-model Stuka Dive Bombers are practicing flying close to the sea surface.

This is a project newly established in the past two months because, theoretically, flying in this manner can reduce the enemy radar's detection range on the aircraft.

Since the speed of the Stuka Dive Bomber isn't particularly fast, the difficulty of flying such an aircraft close to the sea surface isn't very high.

Nevertheless, seeing so many aircraft flying in formation at such low altitudes still looks spectacular. Each Stuka is carrying a torpedo, which are completely imitated replicas of torpedoes originally imported from the Great Tang Group.

There's no choice; in training, they are reluctant to use the imported original, so they have to use their own replicas for practice first.

In actual warfare, they'll certainly use the original torpedoes from the Great Tang Empire to ensure sinking the targets.

"Perhaps the people of the Great Tang Empire would never guess that the torpedoes they sold would eventually be used against their own warships." By the shore, a Laines Empire naval commander looked proudly at his fleet, already feeling invincible.

In fact, it's not just him; even the Navy's Supreme Commander, Blomayer, believes that as long as the operation is executed properly, the Laines Empire Navy could achieve some results in a surprise attack.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have proposed such a plan during the meeting. Realistically, considering the Laines Empire's technical level, the probability of a successful sneak attack is quite high.

"The test for aerial bombs has been successfully completed; the 500kg bombs carried by the Stukas can easily pierce 100mm thick armored plates!" A nearby officer smiled, as if victory was already theirs.

"For the first wave of attack, as long as we can cripple the airfields, the victory will belong to us." The naval commander observing this training nodded approvingly, evidently more confident than before.

The Stuka is adequate as a dive bomber, capable of carrying a 500kg bomb, presenting a significant threat to warships with such bombs. However, in terms of horizontal torpedo attacks, the Stuka's performance, cobbled together, isn't outstanding.

"In reality, the difficulty of the entire attack plan lies in ensuring our fleet can approach Dragon Island undetected..." A young officer offered his opinion: "Based on the intelligence they sold, it's certain that the Great Tang Empire possesses some unknown ultra-long-range reconnaissance methods."

Previously, the Great Tang Empire sold satellite photos to countries worldwide, providing very valuable intelligence and more accurate maps and surveying for each empire.

This also led nations to confirm one thing: the Great Tang Empire has an invisible 'Heavenly Eye,' a terrifying eye that can overlook the earth.

If nothing can escape the Great Tang Empire's sight, wouldn't a surprise attack be nothing but a farce? Once they detect traces of your fleet, wouldn't the assault turn into walking into a trap?

"I don't believe those photos are real-time; we've verified some of them. Compared to construction progress, they are generally two to three weeks behind our actual progression." Another officer offered his differing opinion.

"That could very well be the Great Tang Empire deliberately providing delayed photos to confuse us!" the young officer immediately questioned. From the start, he did not favor the surprise attack plan; it was merely an instinctive reaction.

In reality, he had once studied at the Great Tang Empire's military academy, which is why he became an important naval advisor at such a young age.

In his view, such a massive and complex plan should not be executed, just in case of the Great Tang Empire's pervasive espionage.

Come on, an entire large-scale fleet, refueling and gathering at the port, then heading out... As long as the Great Tang Empire receives correct information from just one spy, the surprise attack would almost certainly fail.

Unfortunately, his correct assessments as an advisor were seen as cowardice by other Laines Empire Navy commanders, viewed as being scared witless by the Great Tang Empire.

Those advisors who had studied at the Great Tang Empire and learned more about naval warfare techniques were also unable to gain substantial roles for the same reason, unable to hold sway in the Navy.