I can upgrade the shelter-Chapter 808 - 706: Launching a Missile in the Tunnel

The missile, pushed into the tunnel, slid all the way to the depths of the tunnel with the flatbed’s assistance.

Although it is a missile, because the tunnel is not completely a sideline, the flatbed is needed to transport the missile to the appropriate position, and it can’t just ignite at the tunnel entrance.

However, the military had made preparations when designing the tunnel. The tunnel is over four thousand meters long, with a vertical depth of fifteen hundred meters. Although the last small section wasn’t entirely completed, it already meets the initial design requirements and can guarantee the use of nuclear bombs.

As for the military seeking Chen Xin’s modifications to the missile, the goal was to penetrate the last hundred meters of the earth’s crust to achieve the purpose of directly detonating the nuclear warhead inside the alien nest.

Though launching a missile inside a tunnel sounds quite incredible, as long as the tunnel is straight and long enough, and the missile can maintain stability after ignition, launching a missile inside a tunnel is not impossible.

Although it’s as dangerous as flying an airplane through a tunnel, where any change in airflow or turbulence could cause the missile to deviate from its intended trajectory and hit the tunnel walls, affecting its impact, there is still feasibility.

The missile, upgraded and modified by Chen Xin, has been specially optimized in this aspect to ensure it can smoothly reach the bottom of the tunnel, penetrate over a hundred meters of earth, and deliver the nuclear warhead into the alien nest.

The speed of the flatbed was continuously increasing. Although there was no driver, the remotely controlled, modified flatbed was gradually approaching its speed limit.

"Booster rockets ignition!" In the remote control room on the other side, observing that the flatbed had reached the predetermined depth, the booster rockets mounted on the flatbed for acceleration began working to further increase the flatbed’s speed.

Everyone in the remote control room was extremely tense. It was their first time doing this; they hadn’t conducted any rehearsals before. Everything was derived from computer-simulated plans, only run a few times in Chen Xin’s virtual system for simulation tests.

This was the first live operation.

However, this first live operation was actual combat.

So no one dared to guarantee sure success this time.

But likewise, everyone knew that the launch of this missile must not fail.

The reason is simple, they were launching not just any ordinary missile but a strategic nuclear missile with a megaton-level yield. If the explosion location deviates, failing to complete the mission is a minor concern; any other consequences would be an unbearable responsibility.

However, with Chen Xin’s upgrades and adjustments to the missile, and the launch process having gone through numerous simulation tests, theoretically, there should be no problem.

Just when everyone was holding their breath in anxiety, the staff responsible for reporting suddenly shouted, "The missile is about to enter the horizontal section!"

"First-stage booster rocket separation!" The person in charge of this launch also loudly issued their order.

This order was executed accurately. As the missile entered the horizontal section, the first-stage booster rocket, which had completed the acceleration task, smoothly separated from the flatbed. Simultaneously, the second-stage booster rocket also ignited successfully.

According to the plan, the first-stage rocket booster allowed the flatbed carrying the missile to pass through the first downward-sloping tunnel. After entering the horizontal section, the second-stage acceleration took place, after leaving the horizontal section, the missile itself would begin ignition, heading all the way down to the tunnel’s bottom.

The arrangement was due to the fact that no one had launched a missile inside an underground tunnel before. A section of the tunnel intended to be expanded into a logistics base for better combat readiness could not simply allow the missile to ignite and fly on its own.

However, once the missile left the horizontal section, it would separate from the flatbed upon ignition, further increasing its speed.

This was to maximize the missile’s speed because in the tunnel, due to various limitations, it was impossible for the missile’s speed to break the sound barrier. Therefore, to maximize the missile’s speed, the approach was to use multi-stage rocket acceleration.

The missile’s own engine was adjusted, and although it wouldn’t accelerate the missile to break the sound barrier, it would get as close to sonic speed as possible, giving it more kinetic energy.

As for how a missile that does not reach the speed of sound could penetrate more than a hundred meters of earth, that was Chen Xin’s modification goal.

In fact, the missile’s armor-piercing warhead principle is similar to an armor-piercing bullet, both of which use softer materials to make the outer shell. Upon hitting the target, the hard inner warhead, encased in the outer shell, uses strong kinetic energy to penetrate armor or the earth’s crust.

However, Chen Xin used a creative design on this missile. When hitting the target, the hardened armor-piercing warhead carrying the nuclear bomb would be ejected like a cannon shell, allowing it to break the sound barrier and gain sufficient kinetic energy to penetrate over a hundred meters of earth.

Such a design wouldn’t be found on a conventional missile; it was purely a product of Chen Xin’s brainstorm and forcibly upgraded through the system’s upgrade functions.

After all, no missile would normally consider launching inside a tunnel, much less consider how to penetrate over a hundred meters of earth and detonate a nuclear warhead over fifteen hundred meters underground.

As for why, despite possessing a warhead capable of penetrating more than a hundred meters of earth after Chen Xin’s modification, the missile still needed added acceleration, it was to allow the missile’s body to penetrate through the dozens of meters of accumulated corpses at the tunnel bottom.

These corpses weren’t as hard as earth, but the gaps between the large number of corpses and the softness of the corpses themselves served as excellent cushioning material. Without accelerating the missile to a certain speed, forcefully penetrating these corpses would cause it to get stuck among them.

If that happened, even though Chen Xin’s upgraded warhead could penetrate the earth, it would still be affected, losing considerable kinetic energy, and it might even fail to penetrate the earth.

With these measures in place, the missile finally plowed deep into the pile of corpses at the tunnel’s bottom, and with powerful thrust, pierced through the layers of bodies, reaching the tunnel’s end.

"Bang!" A steel needle-like armor-piercing warhead, much thinner than the missile, shot out from the missile’s tip and instantly burrowed into the earth.

Then... everyone in the remote command room felt the ground beneath them shaking.