Homo Sapiens

The artillery battle was over.

More than five hours had passed.

On the Tianzhu Army’s side, cries of misery filled the air, and the area around the twenty-one large craters was a complete mess.

Inside the river valley base.

Thunder Dragon No. 1 had already secretly returned to the base’s submersible port. A large team of technicians was inspecting its hull and cannon bore.

Guli looked at the reconnaissance report in his hand. He wasn’t too surprised by Thunder Dragon No. 1’s combat results, but he still offered a word of caution:

"Thunder Dragon No. 1’s movement speed is still too slow. Once the enemy figures out its capabilities, they will definitely use saturation strikes."

But Aleksey, Thunder Dragon No. 1’s designer, smiled and said, "No need to worry, General Guli. This is just the first-generation model. I’ll be upgrading and modifying it next."

"Upgrading and modifying? Aren’t ground effect ships already close to their maximum flight speed?" Guli asked curiously.

"Yes. Even with our relatively powerful engines, Thunder Dragon No. 1 has reached its limit. 480 kilometers per hour is its maximum speed."

"Then how will you increase its speed?"

"We won’t be increasing the speed. Instead, we’ll shrink the size and build a batch of ground effect ships equipped with 150mm self-propelled artillery. Leveraging our material advantages, we can reduce the weight to about 80 tons, maintain a flight altitude of around 15 meters, and reach a flight speed of 650 kilometers per hour."

’Heh, you Russians and your wild ideas,’ Guli complained inwardly.

Aleksey continued, "The improved Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship can operate as a ground strike group and can also hide underwater. Even if the enemy has artillery-tracking radar, it would take them several minutes after acquiring a lock to launch a counterattack with rockets and missiles."

"Furthermore, the modified Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship can fire a shot and immediately fly away. At 650 kilometers per hour, it can move over ten kilometers in two or three minutes. Combined with its ultra-low-altitude flight, which makes it impossible for radar to lock on, its battlefield survivability will skyrocket."

’Thank God the Homo Sapiens Company’s material production costs are so low,’ Guli thought to himself. ’Otherwise, with the crazy designs from you eggheads, any ordinary faction would have gone bankrupt long ago.’

A gunship like Thunder Dragon No. 1 has various stealth designs and can even be cloaked with an optical camouflage layer, making it invisible to satellites.

When using extended-range shells, even its 150mm caliber projectiles can reach a range of 60 to 70 kilometers.

Of course, the Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship won’t just serve as self-propelled artillery. It can also be modified into a transport platform for rocket artillery, anti-aircraft guns, or missiles.

The reason they don’t use missile trucks is mainly because the vehicles are too slow. Against modern artillery-tracking radar and early-warning aircraft, their battlefield survivability is too low.

Moreover, within the Assam Branch’s control zone, there are only a few highways, making them obvious targets, and the road conditions are terrible.

Therefore, at some of the Assam Branch’s previous bases, people were already pondering how to solve this problem.

Aleksey, who had come from Lucia and previously worked at the Caspian Shipyard, had seen large ground effect ships like the Caspian Sea Monster, which led him to propose the ground effect ship plan.

Thunder Dragon No. 1 was one of his experiments.

Thanks to the Homo Sapiens Company’s vast technological reserves, Aleksey’s Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship project progressed very smoothly.

For example, problems that had previously plagued ground effect vehicles—such as low-altitude flight control, ground obstacle avoidance, mountainous terrain navigation, high engine energy consumption, and hull structural integrity—were all solved one by one.

For the Assam Branch, which had no intention of populating the ground, operated in relatively complex terrain, and had poor road infrastructure, this thing was a powerful tool.

After all, this new type of ground effect ship didn’t need roads. Its parking requirements weren’t demanding either; it could be stationed on water, swamps, grasslands, or farmland.

It could also serve as a platform for various weapons, moved faster than an attack helicopter, and was capable of ultra-low-altitude flight.

Unless the Tianzhu forces kept early-warning aircraft circling the area 24/7, there was really no way to counter the Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship.

Guli even considered ordering a custom batch of Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ships as transports to rapidly move field troops.

He suddenly thought of a question: "Engineer Aleksey, what’s the operational range of the Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship?"

Aleksey thought for a moment. "Thunder Dragon No. 1 has a range of about 5,000 kilometers. The improved version of the Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship will have a range of about 2,000 kilometers."

"2,000 kilometers? That’s enough. If it’s converted into a troop transport, it could carry about 30 people, right?"

Aleksey raised an eyebrow. "A troop transport? If we remove the heavy equipment and replace it with a 30mm autocannon, then yes, it could carry 30 fully armed soldiers."

"What if we use Thunder Dragon No. 1 as the base?"

"Thunder Dragon No. 1? That could transport 200 fully armed soldiers."

Guli rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Is it possible for the ground effect ship to attack while in flight?"

"Oh? General Guli, your thinking is the same as mine. Tackling that very problem is my next step," Aleksey said happily.

The reason the ground effect ship’s self-propelled artillery has to stop to fire is because of the recoil. For weapons like rocket artillery and missiles, the sudden reduction in weight can easily cause a loss of flight control.

But with the Homo Sapiens Company’s bio-chips and intelligent technology, it was actually possible to solve these issues.

The two talked for over half an hour, and in the end, Guli agreed to help Aleksey apply for dedicated resources for the Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ship project.

Guli already planned to apply to the branch for the construction of 200-300 Small Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ships and 50 Large Thunder Dragon Ground Effect Ships.

As for the manufacturing base, it definitely couldn’t be located in the Siliguri Corridor. Even the Darjeeling Region wasn’t suitable.

Only the more enclosed areas of Zuyu and Manipur were suitable for a ground effect ship manufacturing base.

After watching Thunder Dragon No. 1’s demonstration battle.

Guli bid farewell to Base Commander Mang Feilong and Engineer Aleksey, then secretly led his subordinates to Darjeeling Base.

In recent days, things had been anything but calm between the Assam side and Tianzhu. They were in a constant state of conflict, with aerial combat occurring almost daily.

However, in the air, the Assam side generally held the upper hand.

This was mainly due to the advantage of their magnetic field radar and the harassment from their drone swarms.

Even Mirage fighters couldn’t gain any advantage when facing hundreds of drones.

In the latter half of the night following the artillery battle, the Tianzhu Air Force’s retaliation came.

Three Mirage fighters, plus five MiG-25s pulled from storage, rapidly approached the Siliguri Corridor.

The very instant these planes took off, the magnetic field radar at Darjeeling Base immediately locked onto their positions.

Then, three small airfields hidden inside mountains quickly opened their gates, and 60 fixed-wing drones equipped with rocket engines swiftly took off.

It would be more accurate to call them loitering munitions than airplanes.

The drones, flying close to the ground, were not detected by the Tianzhu Air Force’s radar at all.

The moment the two sides’ aircraft met over Siliguri City, the drones revealed their ferocious nature.

Their rocket engines instantly fired at full power, and their speed shot up to Mach 2.5.

One Mirage fighter didn’t have time to react before it was pincer-attacked by three drones from the front, back, and below.

"Damn it!" the terrified pilot slammed the cannon button, unleashing a torrent of fire at the drone rushing toward him.

But he was too naive.

The drone simply exploded, spraying a multitude of steel needles in all directions like a celestial maiden scattering flowers.

The desperate pilot could only pull the ejection seat lever.

But his body was pierced by several steel needles. The intense pain caused him to pass out immediately, and he plummeted toward the ground.

The other planes scrambled to pull up. In the chaos, another two MiG-25s were taken down by a dozen or so drones.

The two sides fought for over ten minutes. In the end, only two MiG-25s and two Mirage fighters managed to retreat safely.

The Tianzhu Air Force was utterly helpless against this kind of drone ambush. The main reason was that the drones were fearless. When low-cost drones traded blows with expensive fighter jets, even at a 10-to-1 exchange ratio, the fighter jet side was still taking a loss.