Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords! - Chapter 441

“The radiation signal source is passing directly in front of our ship.”

“Drive into the gas cloud next to it, and the torpedoes begin to warm up. Torpedoes No. 1 and 2 are equipped with thermal energy tracking seekers.” Horatio walked onto the observation bridge, raised his telescope and looked into the still calm void.

I thought that my first battle with the Epic was to use wolf pack tactics to attack the Tau Empire cargo ship, but I didn’t expect that I actually encountered a Tau destroyer ship during the escort battle.

The ferocious and bloodthirsty wolf has not yet had time to reveal its terrifying claws and ape fangs. Instead, it first has to play the role of a shepherd dog escorting the sheep.

It’s really ridiculous, but this is the embarrassing dilemma of the Imperial Navy in the 41st Millennium – even if you are an attack ship, you have to take on the escort mission of a few transport ships before leaving.

“The alien ship has activated its active detector!”

“Stop the ship and push back! Hide in the gas cloud and shut down the engine!” Horatio sent an order to the power department.

Although he subconsciously wanted to use communication to coordinate the battle position, he still resisted the urge to let the Epic send communication signals to the other attack aircraft as he was not yet exposed and the enemy was right in front of him.

Didi!

As a silent scanning wave roared from an unknown model of alien warship, the entire Imperial escort fleet was instantly exposed on the display screen of the Tau Empire’s destroyer.

Thanks to the performance of the shadow field, among the six attack ships, only the E47 attack ship, which was too close to the enemy, was successfully detected by the enemy.

Other attack ships have escaped detection by the detection wave. Unlike the transport ship next to it, which was detected and positioned, the technology with unknown principles caused it to be ignored by the detection wave.

Horatio’s Epic was closer to the enemy ship than the E47 attack ship, but because it hid in the gas cloud after turning on the shadow field, and its speed was less than 5 void knots, it was within the optimal concealment threshold of the shadow field, and it also escaped. This wave of detection.

“1/3 power, drive forward slowly, don’t rush.” ​​Horatio stared ahead and gave the order to the power department to move forward.

Soon, the two small red balls on the war bird’s augury revealed their true bodies under the observation of Horatio, who was on the observation platform.

After comparing the Tau warship manuals, he determined that these were two ‘Fortress Lord’ class frigates.

The Tau Empire’s Escorts and the Human Empire’s Frigates are two completely different types of ships.

The former is similar to a frigate smaller than a destroyer during World War I and II. They have poor firepower and are much smaller than the smallest class ships in the empire. They need to rely on larger battleships for combat, or they are only responsible for raids and breaking ties.

The term “Frigate” for the human empire’s escort ships originated in the Age of Sail. It refers to those ships with six-tier (20-28 guns) to four-tier (50 guns) that have less firepower and volume than third-tier battleships (64-80 guns). class cruiser.

Therefore, the human empire’s escort ship, which can also be called a cruise ship, is a type of ship that is larger than a destroyer but smaller than a battleship. (Light cruisers are also battleships)

The smallest escort is 1.6 kilometers long, and the largest, such as the Voss Scimitar class, is nearly 2.2 kilometers long, half the size of the Dreadnought-class light cruiser. It can operate independently or participate in fleet operations. It is better than the Titanium The clan frigate is a more powerful all-rounder.

Two Fortress-class frigates sailed side by side, with a distance of less than 20 kilometers, and Guigui Chongdi appeared in front of the Epic.

Their active detectors filtered out the knife attack ships with extremely small frontal projections as debris even though they had sailed out of the gas cloud.

This is a commonly used filtering setting to filter meteorites and space junk floating in the void from the battle map. Otherwise, the battle map will be filled with red dots, and commanders will not be able to distinguish which ones are enemy ships. .

The Tau Empire also did not receive information that the Empire had this new type of warship without the Skyhawk, so it did not adjust the search wavelength.

“Captain, the enemy ship has opened the torpedo silo!” Louise, who was attentive, discovered the movement on the two Castle Masters.

“Open torpedo wells No. 1 and 2!” Horatio held the telescope, held his breath, and whispered softly: “Start calculating the launch advance for targets 7001 and 7002.”

“Open torpedo wells No. 1 and 2! Targets 7001 and 7002 start calculating launch advance.” Louise loudly implemented the captain’s order to the Operations Department and Weapons Department. “Yes, targets 7001 and 7002 start calculating.” Launch advance. The No. 1 torpedo well is locked on target 7001, and the No. 2 torpedo well is locked on target 7002! “As a torpedo officer, Fidio directed his team to quickly perform ranging calculations using the torpedo launch calculator (TDC).

This is a purely mechanical calculator that uses trigonometric functions to measure advance. It does not have any electronic components, but it is still reliable and accurate, and it is also very simple to use.

The officers first determined the enemy ship’s class, size, length, and speed level through the detailed parameters of the Tau Empire ships stolen by Human Empire spies in the battleship manual.

Then use the scale in the lookout glass to calculate the time it takes for the enemy ship to pass a scale.

This is used to calculate the Phobos speed of the enemy ship, which is the value that accelerates from 0 to the Phobos average orbital linear velocity in one quarter of an hour (900 seconds).

Then, calculate the attack angle between the enemy ship and the Epic.

Finally, enter the parameters into the mechanical torpedo calculator to get the precise advance amount.

The two Fortress Master-class escorts still thought they were concealed and kept approaching the Human Empire transport fleet.

The escort boats in the fleet have begun a warning cruise, protecting the transport ship in the middle.

The Astartes’ strike cruisers also sent out Thunderhawk gunboats to guard together with the Fury interceptors released by the Imperial Navy’s attack ships, but they also failed to detect the enemy in front of the Epic.

Horatio did not want to break the state of silent sailing and alert the enemy, so he decided to deal with the two imminent threats first.

The two Castle Lords were still sailing forward at a constant speed.

“Torpedo salvo!”

Whoosh!

The first Helios nuclear detonation torpedo equipped with a thermal energy seeking guidance head was fired from the Epic’s black hole torpedo well.

This is a weapon designed to destroy the Merchant-class cargo ship in one shot. Since it can destroy the light cruiser-class warship,

then it is no problem to blow up the Tau frigate in one shot.

When the Imperial torpedoes were fired, the Tau Empire warships also fired their heavy Seeker salvo missiles.

From a distance, the heavy missiles emitting a faint ion blue light trail formed a beautiful two-color right angle with the torpedoes emitting golden flames.

“Kan # Bong! (Captain in Tau language) Hostile torpedoes!”

“Where are they coming from?! Turn now.” An Air caste captain was still observing the missiles fired at the Imperial transport fleet. When he heard the torpedo approaching, he looked to the side.

The two Castellan-class frigates immediately accelerated. Their ion flames became extremely dazzling under the afterburner, and were instantly discovered by the Imperial warships that turned on the active detection radar.

The two Space Marine Gladius-class escorts immediately chased after them.

Of course, such a dazzling tail flame was also the only template they wanted to pursue in the dark in the eyes of the wetware of the thermal energy tracking guidance head.

The torpedoes immediately began to turn at a speed of 2° per second and chased them directly.

“Hostile torpedoes turn!”

When the Air caste observers who were observing the rear found that the torpedoes chasing them were like heavy seeker missiles,

turning and catching up, everything was too late.

As two bursts of flames flashed before everyone, followed by a dazzling ray of light, the Castle Lord-class escort was torn into countless dust in a ball of expanding fire.

Nuclear explosion torpedoes pierced their fragile bodies, and the nuclear reactors in the warheads started fusion reactions under the preset control of the Thinker, and the power of the stars instantly tore the entire ship from the inside.

“They have another mothership! Enable the towed fortune teller detector! At the same time, use the ‘Secret Keeper’ to send encrypted signals to the surrounding warships! Find her out!”

The ‘Secret Keeper’ code machine is the result of Lina’s practical research based on Yin Shuyao’s mechanical assisted encryption code book in the previous Abyss Port incident.

With the special resources invested in the research by the Military Intelligence Command, this code has been further improved, and a set of code encryption equipment similar to a typewriter has also been developed.

Every time a mechanical key is pressed, the mechanically linked imitation Luban lock will rotate once, and mechanical assisted encryption will be performed according to the established logic.

What is finally sent out will be a set of completely incomprehensible telegrams after mechanically assisted encryption.