Chapter 552: Blast? Attack?
The next morning, Gao Zhendong sat in the meeting room of the Defense Work Committee with a serious expression.

This is a big job today!
People coming and going were all wondering in their hearts when they saw Gao Zhendong's expression. Everyone who knew him knew that Gao Zhendong rarely had such a serious expression, but was often cheerful, or at least smiling.

Soon, everyone arrived and the meeting continued.

Since the matter of the early warning and command aircraft has been basically finalized, we will not talk about this matter anymore today. Instead, the topic will be expanded to a broader area, which may not even be related to the U-2. This is exactly what Gao Zhendong wants.

However, yesterday afternoon, I went to a separate meeting venue with my comrades who were working on radar. I didn’t hear a lot of things in the main venue, so Gao Zhendong decided to listen first to grasp the situation at the main venue yesterday.

Anyway, as long as everyone is present, even if there is no time left, he can stand up and say that he has something important to discuss with everyone, and then both the Defense Work Committee and the Air Force will definitely give him time.

After listening for a while, everyone's focus was still on the air force equipment. We heard a lot of things here, including many secrets that we didn't know in our previous lives.

Gao Zhendong has been in a state of similar emotions: "Ah, so this is the root of the matter" and "I have never heard of this matter before, how can this be done?"

After the meeting went on for a while, Gao Zhendong felt that the time was right and raised his hand.

"Comrades, I have something to say."

The Defense Work Committee had an expression of "as expected", but the other comrades who knew him only then realized that Chief Engineer Gao seemed to have a lot to say, no wonder he looked so serious.

The leaders of the Air Force and the Defense Work Committee looked at each other and realized that they had finally waited for something. They knew that you were planning something big.

"Well, Comrade Zhendong, please go ahead."

Gao Zhendong shocked everyone as soon as he opened his mouth.

"I would like to share my thoughts on the composition of the Air Force's main combat weapons in the next ten years."

Wow, that's quite a big tone.

However, the Air Force and the Defense Work Committee had different ideas. From P-2V to U-2, apart from Gao Zhendong's mastery of equipment technology, he also had very creative ideas on the use of equipment, and subsequent developments proved that his ideas were damn reliable.

The Air Force comrades smiled and said, "That's great. We are all ears."

Gao Zhendong opened his notebook and said, "My idea is this: let's talk about the main combat aircraft first. The existing aircraft will be used normally, but among the newly produced aircraft, fighters will be divided into three levels and three types, bombers will only retain one type, and attack aircraft will only retain one type."

No one reacted to the first half of Gao Zhendong's words. If the three levels and three types of fighter jets were not explained one by one, it would be impossible to evaluate them for the time being. However, the attack aircraft and bomber aircraft could be figured out at once.

Attack aircraft are easy to deal with. Apart from the old Il-10, the Gong-5 is currently being developed, and this is the only new type.

But retaining only one type of bomber will make it very difficult for the Air Force. Not to mention the old Tu-2 and Tu-4, as for the new ones, we have the Il-28 and its copies, as well as the Tu-16 and its copies. The two form a set of light and heavy bombers. Are you going to cut them in half right away?
"Comrade Zhendong, attack aircraft are easy to deal with. The Gong-5 model is currently under development, and there is only this model. However, for bombers, we need to focus on matching light and heavy aircraft. As a light bomber, the Il-28 has lower mission flexibility and flight costs than heavy bombers such as the Tu-4 and Tu-16, which is very important to us."

The Tu-16 is a medium bomber, but in our sequence, it undoubtedly exists as a heavy bomber.

Those who remain in the meeting today are all comrades with relatively high confidentiality levels, and they can talk openly about many things, including existing equipment and planned equipment.

As a result, Gao Zhendong's next sentence made him know what it means to be caught off guard. Attack aircraft is easy to deal with? The most powerful thing I can do is attack aircraft!

Gao Zhendong smiled and said: "My idea is to stop the development of Gong-5 as an attack aircraft, improve the Il-28 and its imitations, and use them as attack aircraft. In addition to reusing old equipment, the new bomber will only retain the Tu-16 bomber."

This immediately shocked the participants. What the hell is this noise? It's too loud!
If it were someone else, the comrades in the Air Force would probably be furious, angrily call it "ridiculous" and start to drive the person away.

But Gao Zhendong is different. His past achievements are real. The technology and equipment he has used, as well as the suggestions for improvement he has put forward, have always been successful.

Dozens of enemies were killed by his mouth alone, which gave the comrades in the Air Force reason to listen to his comprehensive explanation of his ideas.

The comrade from the Air Force frowned and said, "Comrade Zhendong, your suggestion involves too many aspects. Let me first tell you why we need to use the Z-5 to transform it into an attack aircraft and terminate the development of the original Gong-5 as an attack aircraft."

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Okay. Our interest in attack aircraft should come from the performance of the Il-10 in joint sea and air operations, right? It has thick skin and strong muscles, and can directly provide direct fire support to the front-line army."

"Yeah, almost."

"Then please think about it. With the speed and ammunition load of Gong-5, can it perform this kind of mission well? It is developed based on a supersonic fighter, so it is a bit small and too fast. Even if it is given the task of directly attacking the enemy's assembled and marching armored forces, can it do this job well with its foundation?"

Gao Zhendong's question immediately silenced the comrades in the Air Force. Thinking carefully, this seems to be the case.

To support the front line, all we need are a few things.

First, the ammunition load is sufficient to launch multiple attacks as needed.

Second, the hovering time must be long, and it must be able to stay above the battlefield for a sufficient period of time.

The third is to hit accurately, at least not hit your own people on the head.

The Attack-19, which is based on the MiG-5, has none of these three qualities.

With a maximum payload of 1.5 tons and an internal fuel range of about 1200 kilometers, it cannot be compared with the Z-5.

The maximum bomb load of the Z-5 is 3 tons, and its internal fuel range is 2400 kilometers, which is exactly twice as much.

As for the third item, it is even more troublesome. The fast flying speed of this thing is actually its disadvantage. The swept-wing Attack-5 cannot compare with the straight-wing Z-5 in low-altitude and low-speed performance.

After thinking it over, the Air Force comrade said: "But an aircraft based on the Il-28 cannot penetrate at low altitude and high speed."

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "What do you want, low-altitude high-speed penetration or low-altitude penetration? Think about the P-2V, and then think about the MiG-17 at the time. How big a difference can there be between a low-altitude penetration speed of 800 and a low-altitude penetration speed of 600 in actual combat?"

Gao Zhendong did not say that close support on the front line did not require low-altitude penetration capabilities, as that would have changed the Air Force's original idea too much. Instead, he directly told the other side that this thing was also good for low-altitude penetration. It was a little slower, but not much slower. Under the current conditions, they were actually the same in use.

This made the Air Force comrades even more confused. It seemed that the slow-moving P-2V had better low-altitude performance than the MiG-17? Its penetration success rate was not low either.

Gao Zhendong added: "Moreover, the Z-5 has a larger fuselage and a larger load capacity, and can be equipped with terrain radar, which is more conducive to low-altitude penetration. At least the pilots don't have to be so tired, and the requirements for flying skills are not that high, which can greatly improve the average combat capability of the entire model."

Uh...it seems to be the case? The comrades in the Air Force were confused again.

I couldn't figure it out for a moment, so I just decided not to think about it: "So, Comrade Gao Zhendong, can you tell me about your idea for modifying the Z-5 modified attack aircraft?"

Regarding this, it is actually very simple. Just follow the path of the American A-10 and the Russian Su-25.

"First, the internal bomb bay was removed and replaced with a fuel tank to further increase its range and loiter time."

"Then the internal and external bombs will increase the resistance." Other comrades are also familiar with this plane.

"Yes, it will increase, but the drag of the Z-5 itself is large, so the impact is not too great, and the increase in range is worth it. In addition, there is a necessity for external plug-ins, that is, with the popularization of precision-guided weapons, that is, various types of missiles and guided bombs, external plug-ins can greatly reduce the difficulty of mounting, searching, and locking these guided weapons, and reduce the difficulty of designing the entire weapon system."

To put it simply, if it is hung outside, various optical guidance heads can directly see the target, but it will be troublesome if it is hung inside. For precision ground attacks, the optical guidance head is the most common guidance head.

The F-22 and F-35's close-range infrared air-to-air missiles must be fired with the cover opened, and the various internal magazines rarely carry optically guided weapons. That's how it is.

Guided bomb? What the hell is this? The comrades attending the meeting were a little confused, but now, this issue is not the most important. At least the Air Force has learned from the experience of infrared-guided air-to-air missiles and knows that this type of missile really cannot be hung in the bomb bay.

Well, Chief Engineer Gao does have far-sighted thoughts.

"Well, that does make sense."

"Yes, no matter how accurate a free-fall bomb is, it is not as accurate as a missile."

"Will this further increase the combat radius of the light bomber? Regardless of whether it is an attack aircraft or not, this benefit alone is worth a try."

Gao Zhendong added: "Moreover, in this way, there are no major restrictions on the size of the mounted ammunition. There are two very large spaces between the engine and the fuselage of the Z-5, which are perfect for heavy-load hanging points. Originally, the bomb bay could only hang one thing due to size issues, but now it may be able to hang two or even more, as long as the hanging points and racks are well designed. In addition, the bomb bay may not be able to cope with the length of future missiles."

The Defense Committee and the Air Force looked at each other and decided that this was worth a try! Originally, the Z-5 had external attachment points, but they were only for auxiliary purposes. If it were regularized, perhaps it could do more.

Seeing that no one was completely opposed to this suggestion, but was listening and thinking about it, Gao Zhendong came up with a second suggestion for improvement.

(End of this chapter)