Empire Conquest-Chapter 809 - 76: Temporary Change

After the fighter came to a stop and the engine was turned off, Li Tianling finally took a long breath of relief.

Even for the Empire’s Air Force’s most exceptional fighter pilots, recalling the initial situation, Li Tianling felt extremely terrified.

When ascending to the maximum altitude, to give the missile a better launch angle, Li Tianling risked pulling up the fighter.

This maneuver almost caused the fighter to enter into a spin.

Fortunately, Li Tianling was well aware of the challenges he faced, and knew how to handle them, without panicking in extreme situations.

During the training in the past two days, Li Tianling mainly taught the key points of operation before and after missile launch.

To put it simply, the key actually boils down to one point.

The actual flight envelope of the "War-11B" is slightly larger than what’s specified in the flight manual, leaving about 5% of safety redundancy.

Launching missiles at the edge of the flight envelope won’t encounter danger.

As for challenging the "War-11B"’s actual flight envelope, that’s not a wise behavior.

When the ground crew came up to help Li Tianling out of the cockpit, the second "War-11B" had returned and landed smoothly on the runway.

After disembarking from the fighter, Li Tianling did not rush to leave.

Subsequently, the other three "War-11B" returned one after another.

Seeing the last pilot come out of the cockpit, Li Tianling finally felt completely at ease.

Anyway, these squadron leaders and teams are elites with over 3,000 hours of flight time and have all been tested by the fires of war.

Anti-satellite missions are challenging, but compared to air combat, they are fundamentally not considered perilous.

Once the other four pilots arrived, Li Tianling had the attendants drive them to the pilots’ lounge to change out of the bulky anti-G suits.

These things look like spacesuits, only much heavier than spacesuits, completely non-breathable.

In just over an hour, Li Tianling was already drenched in sweat, weighing at least 3 kilograms less.

Not because of fatigue, but because of the heat!

After casually taking a cold shower, Li Tianling went to the base’s command center.

The interception results were already available, with 5 XKT-1 missiles destroying 2 satellites. Additionally, 1 satellite was intercepted but did not deviate from orbit, so it was impossible to determine if it was destroyed. Two missiles missed the target entirely, to be precise, they did not detonate the warhead at the predetermined location.

To speak plainly, this is also the key reason why the XKT-1 has not passed acceptance despite being developed for nearly 10 years.

Just like the KT-2, the XKT-1 also uses a high-explosive warhead, depending on the fragments produced by the explosion, as well as thermal radiation and shock waves to destroy satellites.

Using a high-explosive warhead on the KT-2 is not considered an issue.

The reason is simple, the KT-2’s payload capacity reaches 500 kilograms, even when dealing with satellites at an orbital altitude of 2000 kilometers, it can still reach 200 kilograms, allowing for enough explosives and fragments to be loaded, with an explosion damage range large enough to pose a significant threat to a satellite.

As for the kinetic warhead intended to deal with satellites operating at an altitude of 5000 kilometers, it has not been successfully developed to this day.

But the problem is, the XKT-1 is much smaller!

Although its launch weight is close to 3 tons, the payload for the warhead is less than 50 kilograms, even with reduced performance requirements, it only reaches 100 kilograms.

Precisely for this reason, at the time of project initiation, the Air Force firmly required the use of a kinetic warhead.

This is also the key reason why the KT-2’s latest improved model, the KT-2C, limits the warhead to 100 kilograms, to share the warhead with the XKT-1.

Because the development difficulty of kinetic warheads is too great, the supporting guidance system is too advanced, and there remain many technical challenges that cannot currently be overcome, so the KT-2C has been stuck at the planning stage, and the XKT-1 had to temporarily switch to using a high-explosive warhead.

In the previous live-fire tests conducted, all were equipped with high-explosive warheads.

As for the test results, they were far from ideal.

The reason is simple, the 100 kilograms high-explosive warhead is simply too small, with a very small kill radius. If the guidance accuracy is not high enough, the missile is likely to miss the target.

To put it in perspective, comparing this 100 kilograms of warhead to modern long-range air defense missiles; for example, the "Divine Archer" DK-10A, which has been deployed to Saudi Arabia, has a warhead of more than 100 kilograms. Some, like the 5V55 series of missiles used by the Western Luosha’s S-300 system, have a total warhead mass approaching 200 kilograms.

In cases of insufficient guidance progress, to enhance the missile’s lethal effect, one can only increase the warhead’s power.

Whether by increasing the explosive charge, loading more fragments, or employing a more complex destruction mechanism, the warhead will inevitably become heavier.

But the problem is, a missile’s warhead cannot be unlimitedly heavy.

Influenced by this, the Empire Air Force has long since shifted its focus to kinetic warheads.

According to the Empire Air Force’s plan, not only the XKT-1 and KT-2C but also the next-generation "Divine Archer" air defense and anti-missile system will use interceptor missiles equipped with kinetic warheads. Once technology further matures, especially as miniaturization advances in electronic components, the Air Force will also consider employing kinetic warheads in air-to-air missiles, giving them greater range and power.

Because high-explosive warheads are indeed not good enough, the XKT-1 has never passed the tests, and thus has not yet entered mass production.

After obtaining the results, Li Tianling immediately made arrangements to conduct the second interception in the afternoon, although a more detailed report is needed to determine the exact strategy.

The key factor is whether the third satellite was destroyed by the missile.