The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master.

At about the same time, across the ocean in Arlington County, Virginia.

The new Defense Secretary William Cohen, who has gradually straightened out his work, received another piece of news related to the previously shot down MiG-25.

bad news.

This time, the intelligence came from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

About twenty minutes ago, DIA Director Lieutenant General Therese Henrion knocked on the door of the Defense Minister's office in a hurry, and then handed a document with an encryption stamp to the latter.

What Cohen had been most worried about happened.

According to reliable intelligence, the Chinese side found the wreckage of the downed MiG-25, and then seized the core part of it, the active and passive radar reconnaissance/jamming pod belonging to the CIA, and transported it back to the country.

"About a month ago, General Shalikashvili assured me that considering the speed at which it was shot down, this plane, as well as all the equipment and pilots on it, would be shattered into pieces, and it would be impossible to search and search them completely. recovery."

Mr. Minister of Defense felt that his temples were pounding, and he took several deep breaths before calming down a little——

In the past few months since he took office, he has not only been wiping the butt of his predecessor, but also of his colleagues. Almost every day he has encountered all kinds of things that make people's blood pressure rise.

But this time the limit was exceeded.

Although Cohen had previously successfully put all the blame on the CIA for its incompetence through a subtle blame-shifting operation, if the relevant technology is really leaked, it will be the military that is most likely to suffer.

No one wants to face an enemy they can't lock on to during a dogfight.

And once such a situation arises where he is unable to deal with the enemy, he will be the one who ends up being scolded and questioned.

This is why CIA acting director George Tenet is also sitting in Cohen's office at this time.

"Regarding this point, our analysis result is that considering that it is impossible for the Chinese side to overcome our radar jamming equipment, the final downing of the MiG-25 may have been a very close and long-lasting visual range battle. The final attack is accomplished by cannon or infrared-guided missiles."

In this era where things are not right enough to cause chaos, Henrion was able to become the first female director in the history of DIA and work steadily for three years, and her professional skills are naturally unparalleled.

She has already prepared answers to the questions these ministers may ask:

"So the Indian MiG-25 pilot had enough time to reduce the flying altitude and speed. When it was finally shot down, the aircraft was probably not in the high-altitude, high-speed state as previously speculated by General Shalikashvili."

Henrion, who was born in the navy, is not specialized in this kind of air force knowledge, but she still asked experts in the field to give her a few lessons before coming here, which was enough for her to deal with the more layman civilian defense minister.

"All right……"

Although he had the urge to blow the head off the Tenet dog in front of him, Cohen still endured it.

Now that things have happened, all he can do now is try to stop the loss:

"Is there any way to save it, such as asking our insiders to find a way to steal the pod wreckage?"

This question almost caused the blood pressure of the two intelligence chiefs on the opposite side to explode:

"First of all, Mr. Minister, our informant is not omnipotent. He can only confirm that the pod wreckage has entered China, but he does not know where it is currently stored."

Henry explained to his whimsical boss with a helpless face:

"Secondly, that pod..."

She looked at Tenet, who was called over by Cohen and didn't speak for a long time because of some reasons.

The latter also took advantage of the situation and continued:

"The pod is nearly 10 meters long and weighs almost a ton. Even if it has been smashed, it would be difficult for one person to steal it out."

"..."

Cohen actually realized that the idea was a bit outrageous just now, but now he is in control after all, so his momentum is not weak at all:

"Okay, then let's assume that the Chinese have obtained a relatively complete pod, and then they should imitate a similar model?"

"Well...we at the CIA are willing to provide some remedial measures."

Tenet also knows that the trouble his department has poked is a bit big. If the defense chief in front of him really insists on this matter and refuses to let go, then he may never be able to get rid of his nickname as acting director, so his attitude is quite good. :

"The CIA can provide the jamming signal pattern of that jammer and pay you for targeted upgrades. In this way, even if the Chinese imitate an identical thing, it can ensure that our radar will be almost unaffected."

"It sounds good, but what if the Chinese change the interference signal pattern?"

Because of his past work experience, Cohen is very good at bargaining in negotiations, and he pointed out the problem with Tenet's approach almost to the point.

"In that case, the DRFM circuit on the jammer needs to be reconstructed. According to the judgment of our radio experts, the Chinese people should not have this capability within a few years. Their semiconductor and information industries have been in decline for about 10 years. They were destroyed by their own people before and have not recovered yet.”

Naturally, Tenet cannot let Cohen continue to open his mouth. He has made a lot of concessions this time:

"In fact, it is almost impossible for the Chinese to copy the original. There are some semiconductor devices in that pod that only Texas Instruments can produce, and their export is completely prohibited. The Chinese have no way to find substitutes."

Having said that, Cohen also knew that he was unlikely to take advantage of anything more.

However, being able to get funds from the always stingy CIA to give the navy and air force planes a small upgrade was a good thing worth having two more drinks when he went home at night.

"Okay, but our military still needs to think more long-term. Upgrading radars must still be done, and the funds must come from your CIA. Everyone knows that you have your own small treasury and can bypass Congress. .”

"make a deal."

Although he felt that the other party's request was still a bit outrageous, Tenet had no other choice at this time. After all, his control was still in the hands of others.

Fortunately, the CIA's funding sources are extremely complex. Even the IRS cannot fully trace them. It is not impossible to extract hundreds of millions from them.

……

In fact, Tenet's confidence is not without reason.

In about a week that followed, Chang Haonan and Xu Yang led engineers from the 14th Institute to complete the entire analysis of the electronic warfare part of the captured pod.

According to the plan, the next step should be to build a prototype and test the effect.

However, the progress happened to be stuck at this step.

"Other parts are easy to say. Most of the components can be found in the civilian market. We only need to repackage them according to military regulations. The remaining ones can also be replaced with Russian or domestic products with poor performance. It will not cause any problems. Fatal impact."

Xu Yang held the completed circuit design diagram in his hand and said to Chang Haonan in an extremely annoyed tone:

"However, as we analyzed on the first day, this pod uses quadrature dual-channel amplitude quantization DRFM, and its core part is an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with an extremely high sampling rate. I briefly checked , and found that Texas Instruments should be the only one in the world that can produce it, and there is no record of exporting it to the outside world.”

"If we don't use this high-speed ADC, the response speed of the entire pod to radar waves will become very slow, and even bugs will directly occur and must be restarted. Considering that it often takes less than a minute for anti-air missiles to lock to launch and hit. , this is absolutely unacceptable."

Obviously, this feeling of having gone through all the previous processes but being unable to take the last step due to hardware reasons is not a good feeling.

"Can you consider not using orthogonal dual channels?"

Guo Lin next to him wanted to settle for the next best thing.

"In that case, the effect on broadband radar signals will be very bad, and it will have almost only laboratory value."

Xu Yang's answer was equivalent to a death sentence for this idea.

How could they spend so much effort just to create a technical verification device?

"In fact, it is not necessarily necessary to use a single high-frequency ADC."

An idea gradually formed in Chang Haonan's mind, and after systematic verification, he found that it was feasible.

"What can you do?"

Xu Yang raised his head and his tone became excited again.

"It's at least worth a try."

Chang Haonan said, pulling a piece of paper from the side and spreading it on the table in front of him.