Zhu Jingyuan gave his decision, and the ministers headed by Zhu Zhaoxie solemnly agreed.
Then Zhu Zhaoxie saw that Zhu Jingyuan did not raise any more questions about the report, so he raised a question that had been brewing for a long time:
"Your Majesty, Habayashi Zuoe is planning to apply for a batch of old warships to be used for nuclear testing in a marine environment to test the impact of fission weapons on warships."
When Zhu Jingyuan saw this question, his thinking obviously paused for a few seconds.
Zhu Jingyuan is a little sensitive to marine nuclear tests.
Under normal circumstances, after the bench and air-dropped nuclear explosions, ocean testing should be carried out.
As the Ming Dynasty had its own powerful navy and had to participate in naval operations, this kind of experiment was certainly necessary.
In Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, the United States, after the end of World War II, conducted two at-sea nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in order to determine the lethality of fission weapons against the navy and warships.
A bomb of the same type as the Fat Man was detonated in the air and underwater to observe the impact of nuclear explosions on surface ships.
This was Operation Crossroads, which naval fans are very familiar with.
A total of ninety-five ships participated in the test, among which the more famous ones in later generations include the Japanese Nagato, the German Prince Eugen, and the American Saratoga.
The fleet flagship for the observation experiment was located on the aircraft carrier Shangri-La.
Zhu Jingyuan happened to be very interested in naval ships in his previous life, so he also understood the causes and consequences of this matter.
Judging from the test results, the direct destruction effect of air explosions at a certain distance above the water surface on the battleship itself does not seem to be significant.
"Only" five battleships were directly sunk, one light cruiser, two destroyers, and two transport ships.
The farthest distance between the directly sunk warship and the explosion point was 690 meters.
Fourteen battleships were severely damaged.
Most of these warships are concentrated within one thousand meters of the explosion point.
At the same time, most of the battleships located within one thousand meters of the explosion point were severely damaged.
Only the Nagato battleship remains basically intact——
It means that the steel on the surface looks like a wax statue that has begun to melt, but the structure and interior of the ship are basically intact.
Regardless of the people inside...
The closest to the explosion point was the Saratoga, which was 1,800 meters away, and its ammunition and fuel were ignited by photothermal radiation.
On the other hand, even air blasts used to attack buildings and personnel can cause warships within a radius of one thousand meters to lose their combat capabilities and suffer serious damage.
For the navy, a battleship losing its combat effectiveness on the battlefield is actually the same as sinking.
In other words, the direct damage radius of a 20,000-ton nuclear bomb to a traditional warship is about one kilometer.
For carriers carrying large amounts of fuel and bombs, the range can be extended to two kilometers.
In a sense, the lethality of air blasts to the fleet can be regarded as soft "soft kill."
The killing effect on shipboard equipment and personnel is very significant.
If the steel battleship itself is strong enough, it can even remain basically intact within one kilometer.
The underwater nuclear explosion in the second experiment had a completely different effect.
The landing ship responsible for dropping the nuclear bomb vaporized and disappeared on the spot after the explosion.
The battleship one hundred and seventy meters away was directly overturned by the explosion, and then was sucked into the sky again.
A total of ten warships of various types, including two battleships and an aircraft carrier, were sunk one after another in the following hours.
The Nagato, which was basically unscathed by the first air blast, sank within a day after the second nuclear blast.
Warships within a radius of one kilometer suffered more direct damage than the air blast.
The hull may be twisted and deformed at worst, or it may be directly torn apart and sank.
Based on the experience of these two nuclear explosions, when using nuclear bombs to attack ships and naval vessels, air explosions and underwater explosions have their own merits.
Underwater explosions are more effective at directly destroying warships, and the probability of direct sinking is of course higher.
The killing range of air blast is larger, the killing effect on personnel is better, and the effect of disarmament and combat effectiveness is better.
Although a warship that was directly hit by an explosion is actually not worth repairing, it can be towed to a suitable place for disposal after the war.
Generally speaking, if a nuclear bomb is used to attack a warship, even if the attack error is as large as one kilometer, it can sink and paralyze several warships with one nuclear bomb.
With a huge error range of one kilometer, even if a traditional bomb without guidance is used, it will be difficult to miss with a traditional aircraft.
If hit within a hundred meters by a nuclear bomb, even a battleship of tens of thousands of tons will be directly overturned by the shock wave and water column, or even thrown directly into the sky.
Once a modern steel battleship capsizes, it will basically enter a countdown to sinking, and those who are thrown away will have no chance of survival.
If it is hit directly by a nuclear bomb, the entire battleship will be directly shattered or even melted.
When guided weapons mature, anti-ship missiles with nuclear charges will be the best weapon to attack large surface ships.
For the traditional fleets of World War II, when they maintained a dense formation and sailed, there was even a chance that a nuclear bomb could destroy the entire fleet.
By this time, the offensive and defensive capabilities of modern weapons and naval vessels were completely out of balance.
No matter how powerful the warship is, it cannot withstand the attack of a nuclear explosion.
According to the idea of Red Lucia's Corn Emperor in the previous life, if nuclear weapons are used as conventional weapons, any large surface ship will be a living coffin on the sea.
Navy ships only need to be able to sail across oceans and be able to carry and project such weapons.
Therefore, the Corn Emperor gave up aircraft carriers and battleships, and only retained cruisers and nuclear submarines.
It's just that Red Lucia always shouts loudly, but she doesn't dare to use nuclear weapons as conventional weapons.
Until the moment Red Lucia disintegrated and died, not a single nuclear weapon was fired in the war.
At the same time, the United States has never used nuclear weapons since the end of World War II.
Red Lucia and the United States, rivals in the Cold War era, restrict each other to some extent.
The existence of one side makes the other side afraid to easily expand the war.
Early fission weapons were too heavy and could not truly destroy all the opponent's native cities and military facilities. They would only make the relationship between mortal enemies clear.
In the later period, the nuclear arsenals of both sides were too large, perhaps not enough to kill the entire population of the other side, but enough to destroy the other side's court.
Therefore, neither side has the courage to launch a full-scale nuclear war.
However, these past life experiences cannot be directly used as Ming Dynasty's code of conduct.
Because the situations in the two worlds are completely different.
Ming Dynasty must consider more seriously how to use nuclear weapons in conventional warfare.
But when it comes to the specific marine nuclear test, Zhu Jingyuan does not want them to do it immediately.
Zhu Jingyuan is very worried about the nuclear pollution of the ocean caused by early nuclear explosions...
The American ocean nuclear tests were all conducted in the Western Pacific, at least 6,000 kilometers away from the mainland of the United States.
Zhu Jingyuan was also deeply impressed by the incident of a certain country in later generations discharging nuclear sewage into the ocean.
The fuel utilization rate of early nuclear weapons was very low, and most of the fuel used in experiments would be thrown directly into the ocean.
In his previous life, Zhu Jingyuan did not know what impact the United States would have on the ocean by conducting dozens of nuclear tests in the ocean.
But it is conceivable that there must be a certain degree of pollution.
What the Americans bombed was enriched uranium.
Although seawater is actually the sewer of the world, the elements in the ocean are very rich, and of course uranium is indispensable.
It's just that uranium in seawater mainly exists in the form of compounds or oxides.
Throw enriched uranium directly onto ships at sea, and you don’t know what will happen.
Therefore, in Zhu Jingyuan's view, it is best not to conduct marine nuclear tests immediately.
Even if you want to do it, you have to go to the place farthest from your homeland like Americans in previous lives did.
But Ming Dynasty now has coastlines on the four oceans of the world...
The farthest oceans from the Ming Dynasty seem to be the North Sea and the Baltic Sea in northwest Thailand.
Go to these two places to conduct experiments?
This approach is too outrageous, and there is definitely no way to hide it when conducting experiments.
At least there is no way to do it now.
What's more, Zhu Jingyuan had the idea to turn the mainland of the European and Western countries into his own vassal states.
It would not be good to conduct experiments with high radiation levels in the offshore waters of western Thailand.
It would be best to wait until Ming's technology becomes more mature and the reaction can be as complete as possible, and then find as remote a sea area as possible to conduct experiments.
So Zhu Jingyuan directly replied to Zhu Zhaoxie:
“It’s better to put things on hold for the time being regarding ocean nuclear testing.
“The seawater around the world is connected, and nuclear fuel that cannot fully react will definitely fall into the seawater.
"Most warships that have been directly blown up by nuclear explosions will sink into the sea or drift around.
“We still don’t know what the specific consequences of this will be…
“Let the relevant craftsmen continue to optimize the design of the bomb, improve the reaction efficiency of nuclear fuel, and thereby reduce pollution.
"At the same time, in-depth research will be conducted on the impact of nuclear pollution on oceans and land.
“When we have a relatively accurate and comprehensive understanding of the other side’s situation, we can then consider ocean nuclear testing.
“The impact cannot be completely avoided, but we need to keep it as low as possible.
"Land-based nuclear tests will only be conducted in the interior of Tiannan Continent for the time being, and other places will not be involved for the time being."
Zhu Zhaoxie was a little surprised, but after thinking about it, he felt that Zhu Jingyuan's words made sense.
After Zhu Jingyuan's advance instructions and various early irradiation experiments, the relevant generals and craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty became very familiar with radiation.
Unlike the Americans in history, when they conducted nuclear tests at sea, their understanding of radiation was very superficial.
Even after the nuclear explosion, Navy personnel boarded the sunken warship again to carry out fire-fighting and decontamination work...
Some Geiger counters used by American soldiers could not even detect the radiation response of plutonium.
The result, of course, was that a large group of soldiers were contaminated with radioactive residue.
Of course, today's Ming Dynasty cannot avoid nuclear pollution at all, and it will certainly not be completely avoidable in the future.
But the pursuit of reducing pollution is entirely the right direction.
So Zhu Zhaoxie bowed down and agreed honestly.
Zhu Jingyuan also put down the report documents on the two nuclear tests and picked up the overall report on the atomic energy industry system.
In fact, Zhu Jingyuan was more concerned about this report.
Regarding the situation related to the nuclear test, the main thing is to know that it was successful.
All subsequent usage arrangements can be considered ready-made.
The development status of the entire industry, as well as future development plans and directions, are what you need to continue to pay attention to and continue to pay attention to and guide.
This report by the atomic energy industry is longer, more detailed and accurate than the reports on the two nuclear tests.
Because the content itself is very large, Zhu Zhaoxie also took longer to prepare.
The first part of the report is about the production system of fission weapons.
Daming's new element project started at the end of the second year of Ankang and has lasted for thirteen years.
The scale of the facilities and industries prepared and constructed will definitely be much larger than that of the Manhattan Project, which took more than three years in total.
First of all, from uranium mining to the refining of enriched uranium, the entire nuclear fuel production chain has been built into two complete sets, which serve as backups and replacements for each other.
The production efficiency of the scale of each of the two sets is estimated to be comparable to the complete sets prepared by Americans in previous lives.
Daming has also built two completely separate independent mining areas in Tiannan Continent.
In addition to the earliest large mining area in the south, the northernmost mining area in Tiannan Continent was also completed and put into production two years ago.
In other areas ruled by the Ming Dynasty, a full round of uranium mine exploration was also carried out, and basically all the major uranium mines in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life have been discovered.
Daming can continue to expand its uranium production capacity at any time.
When the Manhattan Project began, it took a lot of trouble to obtain enough uranium ore, and Ming Dynasty was fully prepared from the beginning.
On this basis, Ming Dynasty also directly skipped the early gas diffusion uranium enrichment method and directly followed the centrifugal uranium enrichment route of the Cold War era.
The actual production efficiency is five to ten times higher than that of the gas diffusion method.
With the same power supply, Ming Dynasty can produce enriched uranium several times faster than the United States in its early days.
Sixteen production and reprocessing reactors used to produce weapons-grade plutonium 239 have been built, and sixteen more are under construction.
After all are completed, the total number will reach the sum of similar reactors built in the United States and Lucia in history.
The accumulated weapons-grade enriched uranium and plutonium are enough to produce more than two hundred fission bombs.
This was accumulated through long-term maintenance operations before the successful test explosion, when the industrial chain and production reactors were not working at full speed.
Now that the test explosion experiment has been successful, the relevant production lines and reactors will shift from maintenance to full-speed production.
Subsequent production speed will be greatly improved.
The finished fission bomb assembly factory also shifted from trial production to full-speed production after the successful nuclear explosion experiment.
The current production rate is four fission bombs per month.
It is expected that by the beginning of next year, the speed will increase to more than ten coins per month.
If there are no restrictions, by the end of next year, it can be increased to more than 100 coins per month.
At that time, Zhu Jingyuan will have to consider whether to limit the production speed.
Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty would have been able to build tens of thousands of atomic bombs within ten years.
Now Ming Dynasty needs to produce atomic bombs, but there is no need to build so many.
In the future, when they are eliminated, the atomic bombs will be dismantled, and the nuclear fuel will be pumped out to build nuclear reactors.
The reactors in the United States in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life were still enriching weapons-grade uranium until the new century, which resulted in path dependence.
Enriched uranium from the atomic bomb dismantled by Lucia must be imported to be used as fuel...
(End of chapter)
