Chapter 474: Two Battlefields (End)

The group walked quickly, and before long, they entered a dry dock.

The Severodvinsk naval base is located within the Arctic Circle; because the winter is exceptionally cold and long, the severe cold and blizzards affect the shipyard's production.

Therefore, most of the dry docks at the Severodvinsk Shipyard are indoor docks built with steel roofs.

The dry dock that Sun Cheng and his group arrived at was one such indoor dock.

This place had already been renovated beyond recognition; the equipment originally inside the dock had long since been dismantled completely.

The Decepticon Engineer currently in charge of managing the shipyard clearly looked down on the equipment inside the dock, which had been in use since the 1970s and 80s with only minor updates; shortly after taking over the shipyard, he packed them up and sent them onto a cargo ship, letting the Russians, who were surprised to find they had gotten a bargain, haul them away.

After dismantling the old equipment in the dock, this indoor dock, like the other docks in the shipyard, underwent a series of renovations and became one of the processing plants for the Sub-base.

Should one say it is truly worthy of being renovated by the Decepticons?

Because Sun Cheng was too lazy to concern himself with such trivial matters, the dock had now been renovated with a distinct sci-fi aesthetic; from the original steel-frame roof beams to the walls and floors inside the dock, everything had been replaced with a new type of alloy, and ordinary shells and explosions could not cause much damage to the dock at all.

Sun Cheng did feel it was a bit wasteful at first, but after seeing it for a long time, he was now completely used to it.

As he learned more and more about the Decepticons and Autobots, he roughly understood the reason.

Cybertron is a planet rich in various metals, and because of this, whether they are Autobots or Decepticons, their architecture contains a large amount of metal.

Iron ore has decent reserves on Earth, and in the universe, there is even more.

This is a common and extremely abundant type of metal ore; in the memories of Jetfire, Cybertron had a small iron satellite in its early years that was only slightly smaller than the Moon, but during the era of the Council of Ancients, it was completely excavated along with Cybertron's external expansion, and its final remains left some craters on the planet Cybertron following a meteor shower that lasted for several years.

Upon entering the dock, the group soon saw five combat vehicles neatly lined up inside.

Against the wall on one side of the dock, there were also dozens of long ammunition crates stacked together.

Only after Vasiliyevich Colonel and the others had all entered the dock did Sun Cheng walk a few steps to one of the combat vehicles, reach out to gently pat the vehicle that was not yet as high as his waist, and take the initiative to introduce it.

"Colonel, your country previously proposed the hope that we could specifically design an electromagnetic shell compatible with your country's BM-30 Rocket Launcher... through the efforts of my engineers, it has currently been successfully designed..."

"Colonel, please look here!"

A blue light flashed slightly in Sun Cheng's eyes, and a Heavy Transport Robot waiting on the side stepped forward, picked up a heavy, long ammunition crate, walked quickly to their front, and then placed it gently on the open ground.

The BM-30 Rocket Launcher is a subsequent improvement designed by the former Soviet Union's Alloy Precision Instrument Design Bureau in the 1980s after summarizing the shortcomings of the BM-21 Rocket Launcher; it is the largest caliber rocket launcher currently equipped by the Russian Army and has also been exported to many countries.

Although since entering the 21st century, Russia has gradually been surpassed by its former students in the field of rocket launchers, the BM-30 Rocket Launcher can still be considered one of the most powerful and advanced rocket launchers on Earth today.

From the former Soviet Union to Russia, various types of rockets were designed for this BM-30 weapon platform, such as the 9M55K fragmentation warhead, 9M55K1 submunition, 9M55K4 anti-tank mine-laying rocket, 9M55K5 shaped-charge fragmentation rocket, 9M55F detachable explosive fragmentation rocket, 9M55S thermobaric rocket, and 9M528 explosive fragmentation rocket, etc.

The Russians have always been very satisfied with their own self-propelled rocket launchers, and their Smerch System remains one of the best "multiple launch rocket systems" to this day.

However, when the Autobots previously invaded Severodvinsk, although the Russian Army eventually repelled the invaders, because they failed to capture a single invader, the Russian Army conducted a detailed investigation lasting more than a month after the war.

Based on satellite imagery and field surveys, they reached a conclusion that kept Moscow from sleeping or eating in peace.

Once the Russian Army goes to full-scale war with Mechanical Life, their own squad-level heavy firepower poses almost no threat to Mechanical Life.

And although the heavy land and air firepower equipped by the Russian Army can severely damage Mechanical Life, the accuracy of their missiles, cannons, or rockets is not quite enough.

Mechanical Life are not rigid robots; they also constantly use their own speed to dodge attacks during combat, and the Autobots who once attempted to invade Severodvinsk proved this point.

Over ninety-nine percent of the missiles launched by Russian fighter jets and the shells and rockets fired by the heavy artillery and rocket launchers in the rear missed their targets.

Unable to accurately hit the Autobots, the shockwaves of the explosions and the shrapnel from the shells did not cause as much damage to the surface armor of the Autobot bodies as they did to humans.

After the Russian Army's post-war investigation report was sent to Moscow, it thoroughly shocked the Kremlin.

Sent along with this report were the test reports of some electromagnetic weapons that the Russian Army had previously purchased from Sun Cheng.

The Russian Army's weapons test experts were pleasantly surprised to find that although these electromagnetic weapons were expensive to build, their power was truly impressive.

That batch of electromagnetic weapons was specifically selected by Sun Cheng for trading with Moscow; he never considered the issue of practicality from the very beginning, building them solely for maximum power, so there were quite a few problems.

For example, after testing, the Russian Army discovered that the batch of electromagnetic weapons he brought out for trade had a coverage area of at least three to five square kilometers, with power comparable to small tactical nuclear warheads, capable of causing devastating strikes to electronic equipment among all weapons, yet they had little harm to the human body.

Consequently, the Russians became even more attentive to electromagnetic weapons.

Because the previously purchased electromagnetic weapons were expensive and quite powerful, the Russian Army, besides keeping some to guard against further Mechanical Life invasions, sent all the rest to various weapons research institutions, attempting to reverse-engineer the relevant manufacturing technology.

Originally, if they had continued their research step by step, in four or five years, it is hard to say whether they might have figured something out.

However, after the Russian presidential transition last year, when their iron-fisted President Vladimir clearly stated in an interview with Western media that he would not violate the constitution to run for president again, NATO began to play little tricks.

Georgia kept sending troops to stir up trouble on the border with South Ossetia, killing a few patrol soldiers today, blowing up a guard post tomorrow, and shelling across the border the day after; while constantly tweaking the tiger's whiskers of Russia, several major NATO member states, such as the US, UK, and France, plus a Poland that fears no chaos in the world, sent military observers and even special forces to Georgia in the name of military exchanges.

Seeing that something was about to happen in the Caucasus region, Moscow could not sit still either; they could not be sure whether NATO just wanted to test their strength in South Ossetia or was preparing to probe Moscow's bottom line.

The former would be fine; at most, crushing Georgia's arrogant spirit would be enough.

But if it were the latter, then Moscow would have to make full preparations.

As for backing down, Moscow never considered it.

The planner of the war against Georgia was none other than Russia's new Prime Minister—Vladimir; although this iron-fisted strongman had just stepped down from the presidency, he had already begun to methodically plot for his own re-election as president four years later, and he also needed a great victory to prove himself; this war was a certainty from the moment Georgia started its provocations.

The batch of electromagnetic weapons ordered from Sun Cheng and his group was merely to ensure there were no mistakes.

After all, Moscow did not know before that there were extraterrestrial visitors like Decepticons and Autobots on Earth, but Sun Cheng's appearance, and the fact that Severodvinsk was invaded twice, meant the Russian Army had personally experienced and realized the power of Mechanical Life as a combatant.

Although Sun Cheng repeatedly guaranteed that as long as they did not appear on the battlefield, the Autobots would not interfere in wars between humans.

But being prepared for danger in times of peace is not something only the Chinese understand; as the main battlefield of modern wars, European countries' understanding of national and military strategy has caught up.

The long ammunition crate was soon opened, but what appeared inside were cylindrical warheads that looked no more than half a meter long; they were precisely the matching electromagnetic shells designed by the Decepticon engineers for the BM-30 Rocket Launcher.

Through the internal network, Sun Cheng had already learned all the information about this batch of electromagnetic shells in advance, so he personally introduced them to Vasiliyevich Colonel and the others.

"... These electromagnetic shells can be launched through your country's BM-30 Rocket Launcher platform; the coverage area after each shell detonates is 280,000 square meters, which can destroy all electronic equipment within the coverage area..."

This was already quite remarkable; Vasiliyevich Colonel had clearly learned about it in advance and also knew that a single salvo of cluster fragmentation warhead rockets from their own BM-30 Rocket Launcher could only cover an area of 600,000 to 700,000 square meters.

Moreover, there were several Russian military industry experts with him; after whispering a few words in Russian with him, Sun Cheng saw him nod with satisfaction, look up, and ask: "The power is sufficient, but what is the cost per warhead?"

In modern warfare, small countries generally dare not use heavy weapons; "when the cannons roar, ten thousand taels of gold" is not an empty phrase; for big items like the BM-30 Rocket Launcher, a single rocket costs at least 20,000 to 30,000 USD at the cheapest, and 70,000 to 80,000 USD is not uncommon; this is still the price for domestic use, and there are plenty of countries willing to be slaughtered when it comes to exports, such as a certain South Asian power.

The cost for the Decepticon engineers to manufacture one electromagnetic shell was not high, about 30,000 USD.

However, this price only passed through Sun Cheng's mind before it instantly climbed more than twenty times.

"The cost is about 800,000 USD; because you needed them quite urgently, we have only rushed to produce five hundred for now. If Moscow needs more, we can continue to manufacture them under the same conditions!"

Four hundred million USD is roughly 24 billion Rubles, which is definitely not a small sum for the Russian Army, whose military budget is tight, but Sun Cheng asked for it with a clear conscience.

He is dark, and the hearts of the Russians are not red either.

The price Moscow sold the uranium ore used for trade to them was several times higher than the selling price of uranium ore on the international market.

Both sides were well aware of this; Moscow was simply bullying them for having no other channels to obtain uranium ore.

In any case, Sun Cheng and his people had plenty of means to earn it back through other transactions, so while it seemed like a loss, neither side cared to clarify it.

The price of eight hundred thousand dollars per unit only caused a slight change in the expression of Vasiliyevich Colonel.

However, this quote was clearly within Moscow's estimated range, so he did not propose contacting Moscow to negotiate, but instead directly requested to go to a former military drill ground in the suburbs to test the weapon's power.

To this, Sun Cheng agreed immediately.

What he did not yet know was that just as he had finished negotiating a deal with Moscow, his name was appearing frequently in a heated discussion over the Yindu Yang.