Volume 8 - Chapter 22 – Railgun (1/2)
08-22 Railgun
The third day of full-scale operations.
“Now then, what to do after the Quinta?”
Jin personally wanted to quickly start on the power suit. However, Ann said,
“Hourai Island could be said to be a maritime nation, right? An aircraft carrier ought to be built to work as a frontline base.”
She had apparently got the idea of an aircraft carrier from Jin’s knowledge.
“Having the air war potential be dispatched from Hourai Island takes too much time. Don’t you think that an aircraft carrier equipped with a Warp Gate large enough to transmit planes is needed?”
“I see what you mean.”
Each and every detail of what Ann said was reasonable.
“Alright, shall we build one then?”
Jin started planning with Laozi.
It would be a 200 meter-class one. Because it would have a Warp Gate, it wouldn’t need to carry any more planes than necessary.
Movement would be with Magi Water Jets. Rather than having a single large one, it would use six small ones. It would then also be able to change directions just by adjusting the machinery’s output.
The deck would have a two-layered structure. The whole lower portion would be for the use of planes that need to make a takeoff run, while the top portion would be for the use of VTOLs.
Three Warp Gates large enough to accommodate all of the current plane models would be installed.
It would be armed with laser artillery. The main battery would have six cannons, and the secondary battery would have six cannons. There would be a hundred mounted small guns each capable of individually burst firing. All of them would have separate Control Cores. Well, that was just something similar to computer controls.
It’d have ten [Water Jet] cannons as a supplement. Jin also wanted live ammunition but that hadn’t been developed.
The crew would be the Navy golems, the Marines. 100 golems seemed to no longer be enough and so the plan was to increase the amount by another 100. The number of Air Force and Army personnel would be similarly increased.
The plan was naturally for the Air Force golems to man the VTOLs, while the Army golems were to be on duty at the advance base and work as combat engineers.
The structure material would be Adamantite on top of which five layers of steel would be affixed, with the surface coated Mithril. The ship’s displacement would be about 20,000 tons.
The crew would number 30. In theory the cruising range would be infinite, but that was only limited to areas where there was Ether. The cruising range with the loaded Magic Energy would be around 10,000 kilometers.
Improved versions of high-speed boats were also planned to be built and loaded on the ship.
Jin decided to build three ships with the above-mentioned specifications and gave them the names ‘Hotaka’, ‘Myoukou’, and ‘Asama’.
As one would expect, it wasn’t something achievable in one or two days, and so with Laozi taking the lead the manufacturing was done without rushing. Jin checked every important detail and manufactured the new equipment himself.
Now to what Jin would do after that.
“First of all, please produce small arms that can fire live ammunition.”
Ann said to Jin. She was acting like quite the manager.
“Hmm, I want to make something that could at least destroy Gigantes with just kinetic energy alone, you see.”
By now not even a shred of self-restraint could be found. Now that it had come to this it was almost a refreshing change.
“But it seems like the recoil would become terrifying, huh…”
There probably wouldn’t be a problem if it was mounted on an aircraft.
And so Jin began constructing what was fundamentally a slingshot. It would shoot shells with the power of Magical Muscles made out of a Sea Dragon’s leather
By now it was a variant of the catapult.
It had the flaw that the shot would fall off if it faced downwards, but that was resolved by adding a function that would hold the shot in place to one end of the Magical Muscles. Ordinarily it would keep hold of the shot but at the moment of shooting out it would release the shot.
Two separate rails above and below would work as the gun barrel, and the Magical Muscles would move the shot between those two rails to launch it.
“Alright, the prototype is complete.”
The prototype model with a length of about a meter was complete just before noon.
As Jin had been invited for lunch by Elsa, he thought that he’d have a single go at test firing and then go to Kunlun Island.
“Reiko, please try shooting this as a test.”
As he wasn’t sure of the recoil he ended up asking Reiko.
“Yes, Father.”
The Magical Muscles could be extended by circulating Magic Energy through them so setting the slingshot was easy unlike with a regular slingshot. The shot was a steel ball with a diameter of 2 centimeters.
“It’s a test so please use it at its full strength.”
“Understood.”
Reiko turned to aim horizontally towards the sea.
“Firing!”
She pulled the trigger. The Magical Muscles made out of a Sea Dragon’s leather unleashed their absurd force.
The bullet, accompanied with a bang, flew out not in an arc but in a straight line. In an instant after being shot out it was no longer in sight of Jin. However, the clouds vanished after the shockwave. It felt like the air was ionized and shining.
“Ah, right, that sound seems to have come from surpassing the speed of sound. But as I thought it probably wasn’t able to free itself from the gravitational pull. Or so I’d like to think. …It didn’t, right?”
Jin was shocked by the power. On the other hand, Reiko who had done the shooting had taken a small step back because of the recoil after all.
“Reiko, how was it?”
“Yes, it was my first time so due to the recoil I unintentionally took a step backwards, but starting from the next shot I’ll do fine.”
After hearing that, Jin thought that after some small revisions the prototype model could be made to be one of Reiko’s personal weapons.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Yesterday, I saw a boat that looked like Marcia’s one.”
After lunch on Kunlun Island, Elsa brought up the topic.
“There were several catamarans like hers floating in the harbor.”