Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

#521 - Adding

Faced with this new situation, both Dongda and Rolls-Royce were initially unsure of the landscape.

Seeing their competitors ambitiously launching their own civilian airliners, Chen Hanyuan and Robert were actually a bit panicked.

Although Airbus was swamped with orders, it was only for one type of aircraft. They couldn't foresee how the future of airliners would evolve. The sudden emergence of two tri-jet short-to-medium range airliner proposals from across the ocean made them wonder if they were on the wrong track.

Should they also jump into the tri-jet bandwagon? After all, with ample power, tri-jet airliners could significantly increase their cruising speed, by roughly 100 kilometers per hour. If future passengers were more sensitive to time, faster airliners might gain an advantage. Moreover, greater power allows for a larger fuselage to carry more passengers, as well as increased internal fuel capacity for longer flights.

Stronger than twin-engine, more economical than quad-engine – theoretically, it seemed perfect. However, Ren Zhong knew this was just a pipe dream. History had proven that tri-jet airliners were a dead end, even though the Boeing 727 achieved unprecedented success, it couldn't change the reality that tri-jets were a detour in the long river of history.

With his historical insight, Ren Zhong responded to Chen Hanyuan's questions with unwavering certainty: future intercontinental airliners researched by Dongda and Airbus would adopt a quad-engine configuration, while the twin-engine configuration for regional airliners would remain unchanged.

The next steps involved finalizing a new 100-seat long-range model and continuing the research and development of the four-engine, 250-seat A320, using the RB211/WS11 engine currently being jointly developed. With the detailed RB211 data provided by Ren Zhong from the prime world, the engine's research was progressing much more smoothly than originally planned.

Because essentially all the pitfalls had been avoided, everyone was heading straight for the destination. Therefore, after the research plan was proposed, the design方案 quickly emerged and was successfully verified.

Essentially copying homework, Rolls-Royce was riding Ren Zhong's cheat code express this time. According to the prime world's tortuous history, the RB211 started in 1961 and wasn't commercially available until 1972. The long development process and constant budget overruns dragged Rolls-Royce to the brink of bankruptcy. If the company hadn't been so critical that it couldn't be allowed to fail, forcing the UK government to take over, the company might have been directly wiped out by the massive pit of this engine research in the prime world.

Now, Ren Zhong chose the design of the RB211-06 engine that Rolls-Royce provided to Lockheed for the L-1011 TriStar aircraft in the prime world. This engine could provide a rated thrust of 33,260 pounds (147.9 kN) and employed several new technologies to increase thrust for the 1960s.

According to the main design provided by Dongda, the RB211-6 prototype completed its preliminary design in 1960. Four prototypes were manufactured separately at Rolls-Royce and Dongda Aviation Power, with plans to complete preliminary high-altitude tests at their respective gas turbine research institutes in early 1962. If the tests went smoothly, aircraft installation tests and airworthiness certification would be conducted in 1963, with commercial delivery achieved in 1964.

For Rolls-Royce, this was a huge advantage. Therefore, Ren Zhong had Dongda Aviation Power sign a supplementary agreement with Rolls-Royce, stipulating that Dongda Aviation Power would send 1,000 engineers to Rolls-Royce's factory to participate in the prototype manufacturing process from beginning to end. At the same time, Rolls-Royce would transfer the process flow developed during the prototype manufacturing process to Dongda Aviation Power free of charge, driving the rapid growth of Dongda Aviation Power's technical level. Of course, this wasn't how it was presented to Rolls-Royce. Instead, it was framed as training engineers and ensuring the standardization and unification of production processes, making all parts in both factories interchangeable.

Rolls-Royce certainly never imagined that Dongda Aviation Power, which could come up with such an amazing RB211 design, wouldn't have the ability to directly produce it. There was still a huge gap in process capability between design and engineering implementation.

However, even knowing this, Rolls-Royce wouldn't say anything. After all, the three-spool design was too advanced. In the prime world, they spent more than a decade figuring it out. Both the time cost and the R\u0026D investment were enormous and unbearable!

Now, Dongda Aviation Power directly took this out and both parties jointly tackled the manufacturing process difficulties. For them, this reduced the investment by more than half! The current joint research and realization of this engine by the two companies would save at least two-thirds of the budget compared to their original historical timeline!

In addition, since the manufacturing costs of the prototype were shared by the two companies, this savings would be reduced by another half, which was equivalent to developing a revolutionary three-spool engine at one-sixth of the cost in their original historical timeline.

Moreover, it was released seven or eight years earlier. This was another huge advantage for the sales of this aero engine.

Because whether it was the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s, there might not be an aero engine that could be more competitive than this one.

Therefore, even though Dongda Aviation Power retained the patent rights to many new technologies, it opened up the licensing of the RB211 and subsequent series of three-spool engines, in exchange for a 25% sales revenue commission from Rolls-Royce for the sales of this series of engines. For both parties, this was a win-win situation.

In contrast, Dongda Aviation Power didn't need to pay anything to Rolls-Royce for the sales of its own WS-11 engines. In the future, the sales of this engine, in addition to the Airbus jointly developed by both parties and the Dongda CAC series, would be based on their own abilities for sales to the global aviation industry, sold at a uniform price.

Ren Zhong controlled the deep development of aviation and electronics. From the current point of view, the situation was excellent and had begun to generate huge commercial value. The annual sales of the personal computer industry began to break through the ten million unit mark. After the 286 came out, the performance of computers increased dramatically, further improving their practicality to a new level. For finance and office personnel, computers began to become indispensable efficiency tools. As a result, the personal business computer sales market began to increase dramatically, especially in North America and Europe. After several years of cultivation, this market began to grow explosively. Now, the IT industry had begun to show the potential of becoming a new pillar industry in the future.

With so many market advantages, Ren Zhong knew that it wouldn't be easy to keep the upstream of the industry in Dongda.

To reach the top of the world, technology alone was far from enough.

Truth only exists within the range of artillery. To ensure that interests are not harmed, the only way is to make oneself stronger!

Ren Zhong had no doubts about this.

The next generation of weapons selected for the Dongda military were being developed in full swing.

First, at the Army Weapons Research Center, tanks, as the main armored force of the army, were constantly being upgraded.

Based on the successful experience of the MBT2000 tank, Ren Zhong listed the improved performance parameters for the next-generation tank of Dongda, the Type 60 new tank. In terms of power, the newly developed WP-880 diesel engine was selected, with an output power of 650 kilowatts. Driving the 45-ton Type 60 heavy tank, the road speed exceeded 60 kilometers per hour. Regarding the tank's main gun, Ren Zhong did not choose the 125mm caliber of the MBT2000, but instead opted for the more practical 120mm caliber, with armor penetration exceeding 550mm at 2000 meters. Compared to the 105mm main guns commonly used by opponents in the current Bright Sword world, although the number of shells carried was reduced significantly, with a standard ammunition load of 45 rounds, it completely crushed opponents in terms of armor penetration attack effectiveness, such as the newly equipped M60 tanks and T-64 tanks of the Rogue Eagle. Even though the T-64 tank took the lead in adopting a 125mm smoothbore gun, its maneuverability and fire control system were far from matching the Type 60 tank, which had achieved laser rangefinding and a vehicle-mounted computer-assisted aiming system.

Considering the flexibility and quality of tank operations, Ren Zhong did not consider placing a mature automatic loader on this tank, but instead continued to use manual loading.

The weight of the currently used 120mm fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) rounds is basically stable at 22 kilograms. Even if the HEAT rounds are heavier, they are only about 25 kilograms, which is not a big problem for tank loaders. However, the elimination of the automatic loader not only reduced the weight on the tank but also reduced a frequently failing system unit, leaving the remaining space for ammunition storage.

In terms of armor, composite reactive armor was standard on the original design. With a full load of fuel and ammunition, and the addition of explosive reactive armor, the combat weight was 48 tons, but the frontal main armor's anti-penetration capability reached 600mm, and the average protection of the tank's glacis plate reached 450-470mm. This comprehensively exceeded the composite armor of the T-64, whose actual frontal armor defense was between 400mm and 500mm.

In this way, at a distance of 2000 meters, the Type 60 tank could crack open the T-64's turtle shell, but the T-64 had no way to penetrate the Type 60's composite armor with a single shot.

Not to mention that the T-64, a showpiece that completely exceeded the industrial base of the Great Bear, had so many failures that it was hopeless.

Not only that, but in dealing with tanks, Ren Zhong not only considered the Type 60 tank, but also found a natural nemesis for tanks, preparing Zhi-5 attack helicopters for them!

After several years of improvement, the Zhi-5 was finally equipped with powerful firepower, including rocket nests, Hongjian anti-tank missiles, and a heavy machine gun.

Four Hongjian anti-tank missiles, when fired from the air, had a hit rate of over 80% at 4000 meters, making them a tank killer relative to current tanks!

This Zhi-5G attack helicopter, derived from the Huey helicopter, has now surpassed it in terms of power and avionics. In the future, it can be equipped with an attack helicopter battalion for elite combined arms brigades or combined arms divisions (6 for a combined arms brigade, 9 for a combined arms division), working with the Type 60 to take on the main task of hunting down the opponent's armored forces.

In terms of research, with the support of the Dawn Research Institute system, everything went relatively smoothly, and now these two heavy pieces of equipment have been finalized.

However, to achieve a full-army refit, it is not an easy task under the current conditions. It is not that it cannot be produced, but that the cost is too high to bear.

The newest novels are first published at 69shuba.com!

To put it bluntly, the only aircraft carrier and its supporting carrier-based aircraft are supported by the Dawn Group's companies earning money to support research funding!

This is also the reason why the expansion of the aircraft carrier will be postponed to the next decade. Not only is the external pressure not enough, but more importantly, there is no money! The funding required for an aircraft carrier formation is not a small amount. Even in the current era of the Bright Sword world, it would cost at least tens of billions to build.

Similarly, the Type 60 tank currently being researched is powerful, but its cost has also soared. According to the current price system, the cost would have to be at least about 1 million. Replacing the entire army with tens of thousands of vehicles would cost tens of billions! This is simply not something that the current military expenditure can support.

The Zhi-5G attack helicopter is even more expensive, with each costing at least 6 million or more. An attack helicopter battalion of 6 would cost 36 million, and a strengthened attack helicopter battalion of 9 would cost more than 54 million. A full refit of more than 100 army units would cost more than 4 billion, which is obviously also unrealistic.

At this stage, after these weapons are researched, at most only a few elite combined arms brigades and combined arms divisions can be selected for demonstrative equipment, to explore combat tactics and conduct training. According to Dongda's current establishment, at most a combined arms division will be equipped with a strengthened attack helicopter battalion, and the airborne brigade, marine brigade, and rapid reaction force will each be equipped with an attack helicopter battalion. For the field combined arms brigades, 2 to 3 demonstration units will be selected for construction.

Even with such a configuration, plus the tank upgrade, the required funding would exceed 1 billion, which is a very headache for Staff Officer Ye.

He even had to temporarily borrow from the Dawn Group through research and trial production. Fortunately, after so many years of interaction, Staff Officer Ye knew that Ren Zhong really had no interest in money. He was wholeheartedly devoted to the great cause of national rejuvenation, so Staff Officer Ye did not feel much pressure in using the Dawn Group's financial resources. It is also because of this that the huge Dawn Group, so far, no matter what aspect it wanted to reach out to, has been decisively cut off by the higher-ups!

As the most profitable business cluster in Dongda, I don't know how many people coveted these money-making enterprises, but no matter how awesome the person is, if they make a mistake in this area, the higher-ups will not consider any lenient treatment for first-time offenders, and will directly deal with them with the most severe and thunderous means!

Of course, Ren Zhong is also very clear about what the higher-ups need to explain, so the Dawn Group has never hesitated in supporting national defense development!

Even so, Ren Zhong is gradually transferring some mature industries out. For example, in the steel industry, the special steel production enterprise originally established based on the achievements of the Materials Research Institute of the Dawn Research Institute has grown into a large-scale enterprise with a capacity of ten million tons after ten years of development and has embarked on a stable development path. Ren Zhong handed over the control of the shares of this enterprise to the Mechanical Industry Department to realize the state-owned and private-operated model. The management was recruited from the society to realize the employment-style performance appraisal model, continue to maintain the vitality of the enterprise, and at the same time, the profits of the enterprise can be legitimately turned over.

Ren Zhong's model is to prevent these Dawn Group industries from being directly seized by some people after an accident occurs to him.

After being handed over to state-owned assets, at least no one dares to reach out again.

Of course, the follow-up move of retaining 20% of the bonus rights for the management team, which was left behind at the beginning, has now become 15% of the bonus belonging to the Dawn Research Institute's patent rights, supplementing the research funds of the corresponding departments of the Dawn Research Institute, and the other 5% of the bonus is distributed throughout the company as an all-employee performance reward model.

Due to the growth and expansion of the enterprise, even 5% of the bonus is a very large number, which is already strong enough for the motivation of managers and employees.

Of course, the 15% bonus retained by the Dawn Research Institute is also very considerable, which can fully support the next research work.

If there is no support from these bonuses, the Dawn Research Institute will not be able to continue to research new products. After all, from the current point of view, the Dawn Research Institute is just a private research institution established by Ren Zhong, and has not obtained a single penny of financial allocation opportunity, and all must be responsible for its own profits and losses.