Chapter 296: Breaking Through, Heading for Deep Space!
With a resounding naval whistle, the fleet entered Level 1 combat readiness.
Everyone donned their fully enclosed spacesuits in advance, and the air inside the ships was evacuated.
"All units, heed my command! Form a column formation, led by the Dragon Tiger! Speed 8000!"
"Received!"
Communication restrictions were lifted, and the five warships skillfully changed formation and course, heading directly for the wormhole at a relative speed of 8 kilometers per second.
"Launch warp missiles! Quantity 60!"
Two "Wuyi" class warships successively launched a total of 60 heavy warp missiles. The missiles drew beautiful, petal-shaped arcs above and to the sides of the warships. After a brief acceleration, they enveloped themselves in warp bubbles and vanished amidst the ripples caused by spacetime distortion.
Just two-thousandths of a second later, they "jumped" to the front of the wormhole, continuing their flight towards the target at the conventional spacefaring speed they had before entering warp travel.
It sounds a bit abstract.
Since there was no strong gravitational field near the wormhole, the warp engines in the missiles could finally function normally and were no longer a burden. This was the first time players had seen such advanced weapons approach an enemy at warp speed.
It was so cool!
After the jump, the missile swarm's speed relative to the mine blockade network in front of the wormhole reached 14 kilometers per second, with a distance of only 4 kilometers.
Within a mere 0.3-second time window, the two Imperial warships guarding nearby intercepted 21 of them with ultraviolet lasers.
This reaction speed astonished the players.
So fast!
As expected of a power at the current "Extraterrestrial Demon" level!
The remaining 39 missiles each released multiple rocket-boosted sub-warheads.
Ultimately, a large number of medium-yield nuclear warheads struck the mine array, and the extreme heat directly detonated these even higher-yield nuclear bombs.
Immediately, hundreds of nuclear fireballs merged into a single expanse.
On the Taibai, the large curved holographic screen used to simulate the forward view could now only display at less than one ten-thousandth of its true brightness.
But from the bridge, looking towards the wormhole, it was still as dazzling as a star.
The mine blockade network was cleared.
Along with the intense light came a torrent of neutron flux and gamma rays.
The neutron flux was not strong and was completely neutralized by the anti-neutron lining in the warship's armor; however, the gamma rays had some impact on the sensing equipment, causing a large number of speckles to appear on all external monitoring screens.
Immediately after, amidst the booming sound of gunfire, the forward view of the Dragon Tiger, positioned at the head of the formation, was once again engulfed by blue-violet light. Both the sound and the light effects were simulated to help humans quickly grasp the battlefield situation; these blue-violet lights were, in fact, invisible ultraviolet rays.
"Enemy laser cannon volley!!"
Within the cone of light, all is fate.
Due to the lack of faster-than-light scanning capabilities, Cangyuan could not provide early warning or early evasion against laser weapons.
Before being hit, there was no way to observe the laser beam heading towards them; they could only endure the impact!
This was a limitation imposed by the laws of physics.
"Counter-maneuver!"
"Received! Initiating counter-maneuver, everyone brace yourselves!"
During inertial glide, the Dragon Tiger ignited its attitude control engines and began a roll at nearly 7G overload, simultaneously changing its hull's azimuth angle.
This allowed the laser beams directed at him to be as evenly "painted" as possible across the entire front and side armor, avoiding prolonged concentrated attacks on a single point that would eventually burn through the anti-laser coating.
This was an advantage brought by the large size.
Combat aircraft could also perform this maneuver, but the effect would not be as good.
The fleet continued to advance 150 kilometers under the laser beams when suddenly, the laser illumination stopped.
"The enemy has realized that lasers are difficult to be effective."
Lu Yuan stood up.
As long as the opposing side wasn't foolish, after observing the light scattering just now, they would surely realize that Cangyuan warships possessed very strong defensive capabilities against full-spectrum lasers.
"The enemy is likely conserving energy for later interception and simultaneously charging their electromagnetic kinetic weapons. Prepare for it!"
Xian Yu spoke rapidly, making the correct judgment in the shortest possible time.
"Change formation! Prepare for impact!"
Cao Yuan shouted.
At his command, the fleet transformed from a defensive single-file formation into an offensive and defensive V-formation.
The five warships were arranged in a 45-degree diagonal line, gaining a forward firing arc.
The carrier-based aircraft squadron, which had been closely clinging to the warships, also dispersed into an attack formation.
"Open fire!"
Intense artillery battle began.
Two fully charged heavy electromagnetic cannons and 12 medium electromagnetic cannons, all aimed at the same Imperial warship, fired in a volley.
The two opposing Imperial warships still demonstrated extremely fast battlefield analysis and reaction capabilities.
They faced the enemy head-on and, in less than 6 seconds, intercepted all the slower medium electromagnetic cannon shells and one heavy electromagnetic cannon shell with high-energy lasers.
However, the last remaining shell, despite nearly a third of it being vaporized by lasers, still stubbornly penetrated the enemy ship's frontal armor.
To be fair, this warship was quite sturdy.
Although it didn't explode on the spot like Cangyuan's previous opponents, it immediately fell silent.
Afterward, to the cheers of the players, explosions continuously occurred throughout the ship, leaving its hull riddled with holes, and flames spewed from the damaged areas.
"Transfer target!"
Clearly, it had lost its combat capability and would sink shortly.
However, it was too early to celebrate.
The enemy had also opened fire just now, not only launching a large number of missiles but also firing a full volley from its axial main cannon and turreted secondary cannons, holding nothing back, as if determined to stop Cangyuan here at all costs.
The firepower of Cangyuan's carrier-based aircraft unit could only ensure the interception of all the more threatening missiles; the interception rate for cannon shells was less than one-fifth.
After a wave of exchanged fire, on Cangyuan's side, the kinetic shield overload rate of all five warships exceeded 60%.
The two Imperial warships had very strong firepower. Although their size was similar to Cangyuan's frigates, their reactor energy output was at least twice as high as ours!
The only relatively fortunate thing was that they were not equipped with kinetic shields, a technology lost after the apocalypse.
This also became Cangyuan's greatest reliance for survival in this battle.
"Allocate 200GW of power to the shield, let it overload and operate at its limit! Maximize survival capability!"
Realizing that the remaining enemy ship also had enough strength to sink his own warships, Lu Yuan decisively ordered.
"Do not aim for full charge with artillery fire; rapid-fire at a rate of one shot per second! Aim as precisely as possible at the enemy's artillery! Prioritize neutralizing the enemy's combat capability!"
"Yes!"
Under the Executive Officer's on-the-spot command, the Cangyuan Fleet adjusted its strategy, beginning to fire a large number of projectiles rapidly at a lower muzzle velocity.
At this point, the distance between the two sides had closed to less than 50 kilometers.
Although the lower projectile flight speed made it easier for the Imperial warship to intercept them, Cangyuan's change in artillery tactics resulted in an overwhelming number of projectiles.
When the single-shot power dropped to 5%, the projectile speed only decreased to 22%, which increased the enemy's interception time window for a single projectile to 4.5 times, while simultaneously requiring them to deal with more than 4.5 times the number of targets.
Although Cangyuan's overall artillery system energy output was directly halved, the Imperial warship, which had previously been able to barely intercept the vast majority of projectiles, was now completely overwhelmed and drowned by the saturated attack.
This is the charm of exponential functions!
A famous general once said that war is mathematics; if you get all the numbers right on the battlefield, you naturally win the war.
Now, watching the Executive Officer's superb operation, Cao Yuan truly understood this statement.
The Imperial warship was continuously hit, struggling like a trapped beast in its final resistance.
Boom!
This time, the sound was not simulated by the system.
"Ship hit!"
On the Taibai, Jubian shouted.
"Our shield has been penetrated! Currently, it can still reduce 99.93% of the enemy projectile's kinetic energy! It's rapidly decreasing!"
"Hold on!"
Boom!
Another shot.
"Frontal armor penetrated! Radar stopped working!"
"Hurry up and deal with it! Gunners, stay calm and aim before firing!"
【Warning, hull breach!】
Accompanied by the alarm, the Taibai shook violently.
When the kinetic shield was overloaded, projectiles with a kinetic density exceeding a certain threshold could penetrate it, but they would be dragged by the shield during penetration, causing a significant reduction in speed after passing through.
As the shield sustained further damage, the speed of projectiles after penetrating the shield would increase, eventually becoming completely unaffected.
At that point, no matter how thick the armor, it wouldn't be able to withstand electromagnetic cannons, whose single-shot power could easily be hundreds of tons of TNT.
"Those being focused on, hide behind other warships! The rest, continue firing!"
Fortunately, thanks to the valiant efforts of the players, the tragedy of ship destruction and crew loss did not occur.
The second Imperial warship finally couldn't withstand it any longer; its electromagnetic cannon turrets were destroyed one after another, and the muzzle of its axial main cannon had long been wrecked.
"Enemy ship no longer firing! But we can still detect energy reactions from internal charging!"
"Good, don't bother with it anymore."
Lu Yuan had no intention of prolonging the battle, nor was he greedy for the more advanced technology on the enemy ship.
"Pass through the wormhole as quickly as possible, then proceed at full speed to the next Jump Point, performing emergency damage control en route!"
"Understood!"
Swish!
On the bridge's main screen, the external starlight instantly transformed into countless thin lines, then quickly returned to normal.
In the distance, the sun's position had changed, and its color had shifted from bright yellow to dark red, indicating that this was already another star system.
The fleet successfully traversed the wormhole, escaped the Imperial blockade, and officially embarked on its journey.
"Immediately initiate warp travel. The Imperial Navy already knows our movements, and their warp speed during pursuit may very well be higher than ours. We must shake off the pursuers as quickly as possible!"