Tom had originally thought that after entering a truly "modern" interstellar battlefield, weapons like cannons and missiles would have lost their effectiveness.
Take cannons, for example. In the era of gunpowder weapons, they indeed played an irreplaceable role.
Their power was imnse, their range was sufficient, and their status was indispensable.
Missiles, needless to say, had their own propulsion, could fly much farther, and could automatically lock onto targets.
But in the era of interstellar warfare, they had an insurmountable flaw: they were too big and too slow.
The larger the target and the slower its speed, the easier it was to intercept.
New high-speed radar interception systems could even intercept tiny electromagnetic cannon projectiles, let alone shells that were tens of centiters and interstellar missiles that were several or even tens of ters long.
Moreover, their speed was not even as fast as electromagnetic cannon projectiles. Even an interstellar missile would be impressive if its speed reached a few kiloters per second.
Cannon shells were even slower.
However, Tom discovered that their "ecological niche" in the war system was indispensable.
How to deal with long-range, high-mobility, high-defense targets?
Relying on electromagnetic cannon projectiles to slowly chip away at them?
That was not realistic.
How to deal with even more distant targets?
Aside from interstellar missiles and cannon shells, there were almost no suitable weapons.
Tom believed that the exposure of this problem was the greatest gain from conducting such a large-scale live-fire combat exercise and expending so many resources.
If a problem was exposed, then a way to solve it must be found.
How to solve it?
Firstly, cannon shells and interstellar missiles that still used gunpowder for propulsion were definitely not viable.
To make them truly effective in a modern interstellar battlefield, they had to be sped up.
Only by increasing their speed could the effectiveness of interception systems be reduced and the probability of their own penetration be increased.
For cannon shells, the speed had to be at least 25 kiloters per second—faster than the fastest electromagnetic cannon projectiles currently fired by Tom.
For interstellar missiles, the speed had to be over 40 kiloters per second to truly have tactical significance.
How could they achieve such high speeds?
Tom embarked on extensive experints and prolonged contemplation.
Ultimately, Tom clarified two things.
For cannon shells, he could likely solve it using the sa electromagnetic acceleration thod as electromagnetic cannon projectiles.
That is, previously, projectiles weighing only a few grams were launched; now, electromagnetic cannons capable of launching shells weighing from several kilograms to tens of kilograms needed to be developed.
As for interstellar missiles...
They were too large to be launched by an electromagnetic cannon. Since that was the case, he would follow the previous idea and try to install secondary pressurized thrusters inside the missiles, allowing them to possess sufficiently efficient propulsion capabilities themselves!
Based on these two ideas, Tom imdiately began his research.
Finally, after a year of continuous research, a new type of electromagnetic cannon was born.
The barrel of this electromagnetic cannon was about 30 ters long and about 30 centiters in diater.
The projectile adapted to it was a small rocket-style cannon shell, about 50 centiters long and 10 centiters in diater.
The maximum muzzle velocity of this cannon shell could reach approximately 25 kiloters per second, just eting Tom’s previous requirents.
The reason this was possible was because the rocket itself was large enough to have a sufficiently large force-bearing area.
After being launched, it also had a certain amount of self-contained power.
Adopting a chemical propulsion mode—Tom simply couldn’t fit a secondary pressurized propulsion module into such a small cannon shell, so he could only use chemical propulsion. It could also adjust its trajectory to a small extent after launch to track targets more accurately.
Such a cannon shell had a total mass of 10 kg, with 2 kg of chemical propellant stored internally, 2 kg of warhead explosive, and the rest being the weight of its own equipnt.
To match the destructive power of this cannon shell, Tom specially developed a new type of high explosive.
Using azides as precursors, Tom synthesized all-nitrogen anions through chemical reactions in a high-pressure environnt equivalent to tens of thousands of tis Earth’s atmospheric pressure. Through a series of crystallization and extraction thods, Tom finally produced this high explosive.
All-nitrogen anion salt!
Due to the presence of nurous high-energy nitrogen-nitrogen chemical bonds, this explosive had extrely high energy density, and its explosive power could even be more than ten tis that of TNT explosives!
Once this 2 kg of all-nitrogen anion salt was detonated, the energy released would be over 80,000 kilojoules, equivalent to more than a hundred tis the power of the most powerful electromagnetic cannon projectile.
But this was not the full extent of its destructive power.
In addition to the extrely powerful warhead explosive, it also possessed powerful kinetic energy due to its extrely high speed.
Even if all the fuel was consud and its mass decreased to 8 kg, at a speed of 25 kiloters per second, its kinetic energy would be over 2.5 billion joules, even greater than the power of the explosive.
Such energy, if it could hit a critical part of a battleship, one shot could destroy a battleship!
Even if it didn’t hit a critical part, one shot could severely damage a battleship.
Although the power was so imnse, launching one such cannon shell also consud a huge amount of energy, approximately 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Furthermore, these 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity had to be released completely within a re fraction of a second.
Fortunately, all of Tom’s spacecraft were now equipped with fission reactors as their energy source, which allowed them to sustain such massive electricity consumption.
"The electromagnetic cannon that previously launched projectiles, from an ecological perspective, was actually more akin to firearms of the gunpowder era. Its na should not have been electromagnetic cannon, but rather electromagnetic gun.
However, in human tis, people had already conventionally nad it an electromagnetic cannon, and I was also influenced by that and nad it an electromagnetic cannon. Now, this true electromagnetic cannon can only be given a different na. Let’s call it an electromagnetic artillery."
At this mont, with the successful developnt of the electromagnetic artillery, Tom imdiately began to modify the battleship design blueprints, incorporating the electromagnetic artillery.
Because the electromagnetic artillery was too large, rcury-class battleships could not install it; at least a Venus-class battleship would be required.
However, the rcury-class battleship’s positioning was already for small-mass targets, so such a powerful weapon was not needed anyway.
As for how to integrate the electromagnetic artillery as perfectly as possible into the Venus-class battleship to give it greater destructive power and reliability, Tom had dozens of plans, but he did not yet know which plan was best.
But that didn’t matter. He would just build so Venus-class battleships with each plan and let them truly fight in the battlefield; he would naturally know which plan was the most excellent!
Having completed the developnt of the electromagnetic artillery, Tom’s attention once again turned to another extrely important weapon.
The new interstellar missile!
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