Chapter 169 Sensors, maybe it will be better if we wait (3k)

Gao Zhendong cleared his throat and said, "There are two types of smoke. One is to block the sighting system of ordinary weapons, and the other is to block infrared sighting equipment. The latter is very troublesome. At this stage, there is no way to solve it, so we will not consider it for the time being."

Most people nodded. Most people knew this principle. Infrared rays can penetrate smoke, but visible light is more difficult.

This does not mean that infrared rays have stronger penetrating power than visible light, but that infrared rays have a long wavelength and a strong diffraction ability in the fine particles of smoke. After diffraction, refraction and reflection, the attenuation is smaller than that of visible light. Of course, the longer the wavelength is not the better. As for the ability to penetrate smoke, long-wave infrared is obviously inferior to short-wave infrared and near-infrared.

In short, there is always a section of the infrared band that can penetrate various types of smoke, while the infrared rays emitted by everyday objects have a fairly complete wavelength, so there is always a certain band of infrared rays that can penetrate and be captured.

There was smoke that could basically block infrared rays in all bands. Before Gao Zhendong traveled through time, he had seen some people claiming that they had done so, but the actual effect was not clear. In this era, it basically didn't need to be considered.

"Blocking visible light is easier. Any ordinary smoke will do. It just needs to meet two conditions: simple and easy to use, and flexible to use. Think about it, how can we achieve these two points?"

Gao Zhendong did not give a direct answer, but asked everyone to think about it, since they were taking a break and had time.

"With a cigarette can?"

"Smoke canisters are disposable. We can't tie a bunch of them to the tank."

"The directionality of the smoke canister is not very good. It is blown by the wind and may not guarantee that the smoke will form in the intended direction."

"It doesn't matter if the directionality is not good. It's for cover, so it doesn't need to be so precise."

"Get some smoke bombs?"

"Smoke bombs seem to work, but won't they take up too much ammunition? The caliber of tank guns is getting bigger and bigger, and we can't carry that much ammunition anymore."

"Smoke bombs are not good. Apart from squeezing out the number of shells, they are okay for planned use, but I'm afraid they can't be used flexibly. From the decision to use to loading and firing, it takes too long."

"One smoke bomb doesn't cover enough angles, how about multiple ones? That's a joke. If we fire them one by one, it will take forever. The ones in front will fall apart before we even fire the ones in the back."

"Well, I'll have to think about it again."

"."

Everyone contributed their ideas and came up with many solutions, but in the end no comprehensive one was found.

So everyone turned their attention to Gao Zhendong.

Gao Zhendong said: "Everyone's ideas just now are all good. Some of them are very close to my ideas. I will also bring out two of my ideas for you to discuss."

Two? That's Director Gao's style.

To increase the power of the artillery, he proposed electroslag remelting and self-tightening of the barrel.

To improve the armor's defense, he took out composite armor and explosive reactive armor.

To solve the problems of fire extinguishing and explosion suppression, there are thermocouple and electromagnetic wave signal detection.

It seemed as if he would feel uncomfortable if he didn't come up with two solutions to a problem, so everyone was all ears.

"The first one is to use the tank's own resources, diesel."

Hmm? Diesel? As we all know, diesel is used by most tanks in this era due to tactical requirements such as high torque. Of course, there were some that used gasoline, such as the Sherman, which was nicknamed "Lighter" by the Americans. Although it had many advantages, it was only a wrong name, not a wrong nickname.

But what does diesel have to do with smog.

Seeing everyone's puzzled looks, Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Diesel is not flammable, which is its advantage. So you can give it a try. Take a heated iron plate and drop some diesel on it, and you will know what I mean."

A researcher was the first to react: "Mr. Gao, do you mean to directly heat the diesel to generate smoke?"

"Hey, that's interesting. This is another way to use the smoke canister, and it's more convenient than the smoke canister, and there's no problem with the number of times it can be used. There are plenty of them on diesel tanks. Just find a warm place and spray it on it, and it will naturally produce a lot of smoke."

"Where to spray?"

Gao Zhendong pointed to the rear of a tank next to him and said, "The exhaust pipe and the heating belt spray are done at the same time. The exhaust pipe has a high pressure, so there is no need to worry about smoke being sucked into the engine." Everyone thought about it carefully and applauded. It was simple, convenient and low-cost. Seeing this, Gao Zhendong waved his hand and said, "Don't praise me. This is just a clever idea."

President Guan said with a smile: "Vice President Gao, you don't have to be modest. Anyway, you were the first to come up with this clever idea. Haha, as long as it can solve the problem, it's fine."

At this point, he remembered what Gao Zhendong had just said: "Is there another way?"

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Another way is what you just told me, Mr. Guan. Tanks have built-in smoke bombs."

"I did say that, but we just discussed it, and it's not that great."

"Why must we use a cannon to fire? Install two sets of smoke grenade launchers on both sides of the turret and fix the firing angle in advance. Then, when you press a button inside the vehicle, the smoke bombs fired will naturally form a smoke screen at the preset angle."

When General Guan heard this, he thought this was a good idea. There was no need to adjust the angle. He clapped his hands and said, "Yes, General Gao, this is a good name. Smoke bombs are not smoke bombs. They form a smoke screen, not just simple smoke. These two sets of smoke bombs are facing the attack direction of the tanks, which is also the main direction of the enemy's firepower. It is enough to use them once or twice during a tank's assault."

When everyone heard this, they all thought that these two methods were good. They would not increase the cost much, but they would effectively improve the survivability of the tanks on the battlefield.

Mr. Guan was satisfied with having made another profit. He arranged for relevant personnel to deepen the two ideas and continued to take Gao Zhendong around.

At this time, Gao Zhendong thought of the guy who was in charge of fire extinguishing and explosion suppression, and asked, "Boss Guan, how is the fire extinguishing and explosion suppression system now?"

Speaking of this, General Manager Guan was also very happy. This was also a matter in his area: "Well, I really have to thank Director Gao for this. You made suggestions and coordinated your factory to produce a batch of special thermocouple wires. After that, they repeated the experiments many times according to your suggestions and finally selected a more suitable thickness. Now the reaction speed of the thermocouple is controlled at the order of tens of milliseconds."

The reaction speed of thermocouples is tens of milliseconds, but that does not mean the reaction speed of the entire system is also as short as tens of milliseconds.

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "I just made some suggestions. The main experiments are still done by your comrades themselves."

General Guan shook his head and said, "Your suggestion is much more important than the following experiment. Our comrades are not unable to walk, but they don't know which way to walk."

"There should be no problem putting out the fire now, right?" Gao Zhendong asked. He knew that suppressing the explosion might still be a bit of a stretch.

Mr. Guan nodded. "Now it's basically as you said. Automatic fire extinguishing is completely fine. Explosion suppression depends on luck. Although we have tried our best to arrange the thermocouples, if the penetration point is far from the sensor, then it will probably only be able to automatically extinguish the fire. If it is close, it can barely be considered explosion suppression."

"Well, to suppress explosions, it's still too late to wait until the fire is at hand. This thermocouple is the eyebrow. We still have to rely on observation. Although infrared detection is still not so mature, we can work on the principle first."

Speaking of this, General Guan became excited. After all, this really reached the level of "explosion suppression": "I really have to thank you for recommending them to the Institute of Guidance and Research. They are also very supportive and have provided infrared sensors. We have tried it and found that its reaction speed is very fast when it sees an open flame. The efficiency is very high. The fire extinguishing agent you mentioned is also good."

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Among these fire extinguishing agents, if available, bromotrifluoromethane is better."

Monobromotrifluoromethane, Halon 1301, is one of the last halon fire extinguishing agents to be replaced. The main reason is that its safety and fire extinguishing efficiency are very good. The main reason for its replacement is not the poor overall performance, but mainly due to environmental reasons. This thing will destroy the ozone layer.

Guan Zong took note of Gao Zhendong's words and talked about the problem: "It's just that the sensitivity of lead sulfide is indeed poor. Unlike missiles, our tanks are not cooled once and for all. We must cool them continuously, which is very troublesome. In addition, false triggering is quite serious. Strong sunlight or even light may cause it to explode."

If sunlight can be solved to some extent by adjusting the installation position and orientation, then lighting is really a headache.

"There is this problem, so I said at that time that this technology is not yet mature, but it is the best development direction. Let's study the principles first and figure out the system. As for the sensor, let's wait and see. Maybe it will be fine after a while." Thinking of the line-scan infrared thermal imager he had extracted and the single crystal furnace he was working on, Gao Zhendong comforted himself.

To be truly reliable, infrared alone is not enough, we need to rely on both infrared and ultraviolet colors.

Hearing Gao Zhendong's vague but ambiguous words, Mr. Guan's eyes lit up, but he held back.

Mr. Gao has only said so much, so I guess that’s all I can say for now. It’s just the confidentiality regulations, I’m familiar with them.

In fact, what he didn't know was that the reason why Gao Zhendong was vague was actually because he couldn't quite grasp the progress of the implementation of the technical sub-items related to the line scan thermal imager at hand.

As he was speaking, he heard a soft "bang" sound coming from an open test field in front of him, followed by a "hissing" sound.

Guan pointed in that direction and said, "Haha, that's what I was talking about. This is the test site for fire extinguishing and explosion suppression. Considering the fire extinguishing agent, it is usually tested in an open area. Let's go and take a look."

The two walked over, and Liu Wenwu saw them and came over to greet them: "Boss Gao, Boss Guan, you are here to inspect our work, haha."

Mr. Guan laughed and said, "Yes, yes, come on, report, what's the situation?"

(End of this chapter)