Chapter 172: Everything Is According to Qin Miao's Calculations

During the Cold War, to counter the Soviet torrent of armored forces, the West independently thought of helicopters; the US first developed the AH-1, a professional attack helicopter, but European countries were still making do with whatever they had.

The British used their Lynx helicopters with TOW anti-tank missiles, the French used Gazelle helicopters with HOT anti-tank missiles, and the West Germans used MBB Bo-105 helicopters with HOT anti-tank missiles.

In short, none of them were professional!

In 1975, the Federal Republic of Germany and France launched a cooperative program to develop a professional attack helicopter; both sides had their own agendas, and negotiations dragged on until 1983 before a preliminary agreement was reached, with the helicopter slated to enter service in 1992 and the prototype first flying in 1991. Unfortunately, with the Soviet Union's dissolution, the imminent threat vanished, development stalled again, and the initial production contract was not formally signed until 1999.

During that period, the French could only use the military version of the Dolphin helicopter, namely the Black Panther helicopter, as a stopgap; now the French are still researching this variant, though progress remains slow, and the first military Black Panther did not make its maiden flight until 1984.

Now, with us in the East providing funding and the French joining the project, it's absolutely the most cost-effective move—how could they possibly pass it up?

One year's time—Ha Gong Da couldn't finish it alone, but with the French on board it would be enough!

"Well, this project doesn't seem like a castle in the air either." Director Tao said: "What about the missile launch vehicle project? We at Ha Gong Da don't even have an automobile factory!"

"Missile launch vehicles are specialized equipment with low demand; we can build them by hand." Qin Miao said: "If we construct a new workshop on the vacant lot at the boiler plant, that will meet the production demand for these vehicles."

An automobile assembly line could roll out a car every few seconds, but there's no way we'd need that many missile launch vehicles!

Getting an order for ten or twenty vehicles a year would be quite good, so we can completely fulfill production by hand!

"Well, even if we had the site, what about the technology? Engines, transmissions, axles—we at Ha Gong Da have none of these! Our whole country lacks light industry and is short on heavy industry."

Back then, in Jilin Changchun, the First Automobile Factory was established, producing a copy of the Soviet GiS-150 truck; the GiS-150 itself was a copy of the KR11 automobile from the American Universal Tractor Company, representing WWII-era technology, and it has continued to be produced right up to the present!

This five-ton-class truck may be technologically backward, but at least it solves the problem of having or not having one; compared to lighter vehicles, domestically there are pitifully few, which we can only build by hand, and compared to heavier ones, domestically we also have to build them by hand.

Therefore, in the 1980s the state carried out large-scale imports—Isuzu light trucks in the light-duty segment, Steyr heavy trucks in the heavy-duty segment—so the national automobile industry finally achieved comprehensive coverage.

Even so, in the 1980s no one considered building a missile launch vehicle with an off-road chassis; the technical difficulty was too high for any domestic automaker to tackle.

"Yeah, no need to say more—such a heavy off-road vehicle would need an engine of at least eight hundred horsepower, and that immense power would have to be distributed by the transmission to each wheel, with the wheels requiring locking and interlocking mechanisms…"

The Mechanical Engineering Department's Director Lu, also frowning beside him, said: "This project's difficulty is great enough to give every engineer a headache; even if we got the project, Ha Gong Da couldn't handle it!"

Qin Miao smiled and said: "That's right, there's indeed great difficulty here, but… we only need to overcome the chassis system's bottleneck; the engine, transmission, and even the steering mechanism—we can procure those directly from the West."

In the 1980s, one major advantage was the easing of relations with the West, making many things purchasable—like the monkey-version F-16 and Mirage 2000… if the state had the money, our Eastern forces might have had many more Western products.

Now, our side actually has two hundred million dollars in R&D funding—we can buy back anything available abroad!

"Currently I favor the German MTU396 diesel engine, which comes in six- to sixteen-cylinder versions with broad power coverage; we'll use the twelve-cylinder naturally aspirated version, giving eight hundred horsepower and a very long life—installed in a vehicle it would basically need no major overhaul for ten years."

Speaking of the 396 diesel, countless people praise it, the most famous being the submarine diesel; the Germans feared our submarines would steal their business, so they refused to supply this advanced diesel—at the time, the sixteen-cylinder diesel used in submarines already output over two thousand horsepower.

However, that was already the era of turbocharging and intercooling.

In the 1980s, when Eastern railways increased speed, the eight-cylinder diesel imported from MTU Company—specifically the MTU8V396TC13—had only 567 horsepower and was mainly used in the carriages of air-conditioned trains to drive their onboard air-conditioning systems.

And the twelve-cylinder version also only puts out eight hundred horsepower.

No turbocharging, no intercooling, no pushing the power output—its lifespan is very long.

Looking at the Soviets again, they crudely used tank engines, requiring a major overhaul every five hundred hours—one could say they're either overhauling the engine or on their way to do so. For this reason Qin Miao also had no intention of selecting the Leopard 1 tank's engine; once stuffed into a tank, its lifespan wouldn't be high either.

"As for the transmission, ZF Company in Germany has a model used in engineering machinery that would match perfectly, with a torque converter and automatic shifting, reducing the operator's burden… and the steering mechanism should also be a ZF product."

Who said Qin Miao was just blowing hot air off the cuff? He had already worked out the technical route!

"I think, with Ha Gong Da's capabilities, we should be able to research the chassis for this missile vehicle within a year without major problems—high-strength steel, high-precision CNC machining… we have all those technologies; as for the drawings… we'll organize a team to specialize in R&D, and I can pitch in too."

We don't have it now, but in the future we will—Wan Shan and Tai An, the two major companies, one introducing Er Mao technology and the other pursuing independent R&D, competing with each other, ultimately produced the DF-41 missile launcher, which is even more advanced than the Soviets'!

As for this chassis, Qin Miao from his previous life has encountered it before! He could simply draw it from memory, if it weren't for the era's poor electronic control technology—we would build an electric-driven platform and max out its performance!

Even for seawater desalination technology, Qin Miao has a backup plan—it's just that the Materials Department is so capable that there's no room for him to contribute.

At the same time, the guesthouse of Ha Cheng Aircraft Factory.

"Good news, good news—we just received word from Ha Gong Da that Sha secretly came over, intending to jointly develop an attack helicopter with the Easterners!"

This was spoken in French with a Parisian accent, and everyone present was a blonde‑blue‑eyed Frenchman; at this moment they all had stars in their eyes.