137: Chapter 137 The Warthog Joins the Fray, the Avengers Take Their Positions

Olov's efficiency was remarkably high once the money was paid. In less than a week, the disassembled A-10 Warthog attack aircraft were delivered to Fu Haoran's private hangar.

Olov rubbed his hands together, a greasy smile plastered on his face. "Sir, you've inspected the goods. If you need anything else, just find me. I have plenty of good stuff."

Fu Haoran climbed up the boarding ladder and into the cockpit. With just one glance, his expression darkened instantly.

The cockpit was empty. Aside from the engines and basic fuselage frame, the avionics systems, flight control computers, and even the basic instrument panel had been completely stripped, leaving only a bare cockpit shell.

He turned and stepped off the plane, making no effort to hide his displeasure. "This is different from the prototype I saw at the boneyard. Aside from the weapons, why were the avionics and flight controls all removed?"

The smile on Olov's face didn't fade in the slightest. He unhurriedly pulled a Department of Defense document from his briefcase and pointed to a clause. "Terribly sorry, Sir. The higher-ups required the removal of all classified equipment. This is all we could give you in the end."

Fu Haoran knew perfectly well that this old fox was talking pure nonsense.

As a relic from the 70s, even with several upgrades, the A-10's core technology was common knowledge. Because the autocannon was so heavy and large, the original factory didn't even install fire-control radar. As the US Army's cheapest ground-attack aircraft, what classified equipment could it possibly have?

Olov simply wanted to sell the stripped avionics and flight controls separately. He had pegged Fu Haoran as a 'Fifth-Tier Major General' who received no funding from Congress and had no other channels besides scavenging from the aircraft boneyard.

Fu Haoran didn't bother to expose his lies, merely giving him a cold look. "Don't worry. This is the first and last time I'll buy anything from you."

Olov burst out laughing. "Hahaha, Sir, don't be silly. Aside from me, you have no other channel to buy combat aircraft. Are you going to build them yourself?"

Olov wasn't worried at all. In his eyes, this penniless Major General had no choice but to come to him.

What he didn't know was that from the very beginning, Fu Haoran had planned to follow a path of self-development and self-use.

...

Looking at the assembled A-10 attack aircraft, Father Kallen's mechanical bionic eye scanned the fuselage, quickly deriving a full set of parameters.

"Top speed 833 kilometers per hour, service ceiling 13,700 meters..."

Kallen had to admit that in some respects, this 'indigenous' aircraft indeed had its merits. Based on the data alone, it was quite excellent.

One had to realize that the top speed of a Land Speeder was only 350 kilometers per hour; this aircraft was only a notch below a valkyrie gunship.

Considering this was technology from a 'remote' planet, Kallen still gave his approval.

However, he had an even bolder hypothesis.

"Perhaps this isn't a remote planet at all, nor some unknown Garden World, but a world that still retains some of humanity's Golden Age technology?"

Doubt was just doubt; Kallen didn't pay it too much mind.

During the Great Crusade, it wasn't as if they hadn't encountered such planets before.

Kallen put away his analysis and spoke. "My Lord, the performance of this aircraft is indeed excellent, but it is only a single unit. It cannot solve Cole's iron army."

"I never expected to win the whole war with one plane." Fu Haoran smiled. "What I want is a weapon platform that can be modified and repaired at any time."

Lucifelle's emerald eyes scanned the fuselage, her tone flat. "This planet has more advanced stealth fighters that are faster and better protected. Why choose this antique?"

"I don't need the most advanced; I just need the most suitable." Fu Haoran tapped the external hardpoints under the wing. "The A-10A has 11 hardpoints with a maximum payload of 7 tons. Its fire continuity and mission flexibility are superior to the valkyrie gunship."

"The valkyrie is not a dedicated ground-attack craft. Its main weapons are machine guns and rocket pods. It can only carry two missiles, four at most. It can't handle the 'ground-licking' work," Fu Haoran continued. "This thing is different; it was born to crack open tanks."

"Besides, we don't have the STC for the valkyrie gunship. We can't mass-produce them. If one breaks, we lose one. We simply can't afford the attrition. We can only buy them from Forge Worlds, and distant water won't put out a nearby fire."

"Mainly because you're broke, right?" Lucifelle added bluntly.

Fu Haoran: ...

Fu Haoran admitted his pockets were a bit clean, a bit poor... but please don't state the obvious so bluntly.

Fu Haoran glared at her. "What do you know? This is called careful calculation. I'm increasing income and reducing expenditure!"

As a competent subordinate, Father Kallen hurried to change the subject. "My Lord, actually we have better choices. The Stormbird gunship would be the optimal choice."

Fu Haoran shook his head. "The Stormbird could handle the job, but it's our strategic trump card. Using it occasionally is fine, but as a conventional weapon, it's too wasteful. If it were lost in battle, the cost would outweigh the gain."

Fu Haoran looked at the A-10 attack aircraft again and said with satisfaction, "So this antique is the most suitable for our current situation—low price, large quantity, and reverse engineering it is very simple."

Of course, Fu Haoran was also aware of its shortcomings.

Although it was called a 'flying tank,' the armor level of its aluminum alloy fuselage was worlds apart from a real tank.

Any anti-aircraft weapon in the Warhammer World could easily destroy it.

But that didn't matter.

No matter how advanced a weapon was, it would become a consumable in the face of the impending Horus Heresy.

Even in the 41st Millennium, facing Chaos invasions, Orks, Necrons, and Tyranids, all weapons would eventually be consumables.

"My Lord, if I may be blunt, the biggest problem right now is the lack of suitable weapons," Father Kallen said, looking at the empty weapon slots.

Fu Haoran took out a data pad and handed it to him. "Take a look at this weapon. Does it look familiar?"

Kallen took the tablet and found it was a seven-barreled Gatling autocannon. The entire system weighed about 1.8 tons, with dimensions, mounting points, and center of gravity data clearly marked.

But based on this data alone, in Kallen's view, it wasn't enough to pierce the armor of a leman russ main battle tank. He couldn't rely on those pitifully few missile slots to solve the problem, could he?

Wait.

Kallen's mechanical eye scanned the blueprints, performing frantic calculations and filtering. Finally, he reached an answer. "My Lord, you intend to replace it with the Avenger Gatling Cannon used specifically by Knight Mechas?!"

"Exactly. That's the one."

That's right. From the beginning, Fu Haoran never intended to use the original 30mm autocannon.

Using a 2K World autocannon to attack a Warhammer World main battle tank would yield dismal results.

What Fu Haoran had his eye on was the Avenger Gatling Cannon, a massive assault cannon that used devastating large-caliber shells. A single simple volley could shatter defensive lines, suppress charges, or destroy vehicles.

From the start, Fu Haoran was looking for a platform for the Avenger Gatling Cannon.

He had also considered equipping his own Knight Mecha with this cannon to deal with Kallen Cole's iron flood.

But a Knight Mecha wasn't powerful enough to take on hundreds alone. Its Ion Shield only projected an energy field to deflect or weaken attacks, providing extra defense; it couldn't ignore attacks like a Void Shield.

Besides, Void Shields could also overload and fail.

But mounting the Avenger Gatling Cannon on an A-10 attack aircraft was a different story.

Good books and good stories accompany you every day.

The A-10 attack aircraft could fully rely on its high speed to employ 'hit and run' tactics.

Fu Haoran had people bring out the Avenger Gatling Cannon exchanged from the system. Father Kallen was already somewhat immune to this.

If the Governor he served could obtain a complete Knight Mecha, what was so strange about one more Avenger Gatling Cannon?

He stepped forward, his mechanical eye scanning the cannon's dimensions and mounting positions, then comparing them with the A-10's cannon bay data. He was somewhat stunned.

The dimensions were a perfect fit. He wouldn't even need to make any extra modifications to the fuselage; he just had to remove redundant armor to fit it right in.

Even better, after removing the armor from the Avenger Gatling Cannon, it weighed only 1.2 tons—lighter than the original 1.8-ton GAU-8.

Kallen quickly tapped on his data pad, recalculating the fuselage's center of gravity. He soon reached a conclusion. "My Lord, the center of gravity matches perfectly. No extra ballast adjustment is needed. The weight saved can even allow for an extra four hundred rounds of ammunition!"

"Based on my calculations, this Avenger Gatling can melt through the front armor of a leman russ from 2,000 meters away."

Fu Haoran was very satisfied with this.

Kinetic weapons from tens of thousands of years in the future had extremely high structural integration. Lightweighting was the norm. Although the principles were the same, the ammunition was a completely different system.

What Fu Haoran didn't notice was that Kallen, looking at the cannon and then at the A-10 before him, had completely solidified his judgment.

"It seems my conjecture was too conservative. This place might be humanity in the budding stages of the Golden Age; they already designed the adaptation logic for this kind of weapon platform!"

"The Governor brought us here precisely to recover the sacred technology of humanity's lost Golden Age!"

Kallen even recalled the scenes he saw earlier at the Davis-Monthan boneyard: hundreds of attack aircraft of the same model, neatly parked in the desert, just abandoned like that.

Kallen had frozen in place at the time.

Omnissiah be praised!

In the Imperium, even a retired valkyrie would be stripped for parts to recover holy relics. This world could actually abandon Golden Age aircraft in batches. If this wasn't the budding stage of the Golden Age, what else could it be?

"Don't just stand there." Fu Haoran patted his shoulder and thrust the modification plan into his hand. "You're responsible for the cannon's adaptation and installation. Do a full set of modifications on the fuselage."

"Strip all the original factory armor. Without increasing the total weight, replace the fuselage skin with Plasteel and Ceramite. Replace all the armor in the cockpit's 'bathtub' with the best Ceramite."

As the primary armor materials for humanity 30,000 years in the future, Plasteel and Ceramite were far beyond anything 2K armor could compare to.

After a simple calculation, Kallen concluded: After the modifications, the total weight of the fuselage would actually decrease, while the defensive performance would theoretically double, pushing the original model's 'tough' advantage to the extreme.

"Just changing the armor isn't enough." Fu Haoran tapped the cockpit glass. "I originally looked down on this antique avionics set. Now that they haven't left it for me, let's just be direct and swap in something new."

Fu Haoran thought for a moment and felt that he couldn't rely on the Americas here. For now, he could only find replacements from back home.

Fu Haoran quickly finalized the upgrade plan: install domestic low-altitude penetration radar, terrain-following systems, and add infrared/radar warning and automatic chaff/flare dispenser kits. This would give this old Warthog a battlefield survivability an entire era ahead of the original.

The underwing hardpoints were also reserved with modification interfaces for melta missiles and rocket pods, allowing for future firepower upgrades at any time.

"As long as the results of this combat test are good, I can fully consider opening my own production line later to assemble a Warthog ground-attack squadron. Then I'll see who still dares to parade armored clusters in front of me!"

...

At the same time, on the other side in the Imperial Capital, in a secure National Security Bureau meeting room.

Professor Qin Zhengfeng was hunched over a table covered in component blueprints obtained from various suppliers, with thick stacks of calculation papers.

He had been pulling an all-nighter for two full days and nights, his eyes bloodshot.

Old Zhou from the Third Bureau of National Security pushed the door open and handed him a cup of hot water. "Old Qin, how is it? What exactly are these blueprints for?"

Qin Zhengfeng took off his reading glasses and rubbed his aching eyes. "It's not going well. So far, I can only confirm that this is definitely not some industrial cutting equipment!"

"This convergence chamber is used to focus high-energy jets!"

"But there's one point I completely can't figure out."

Professor Qin pointed to the chamber structure on the blueprint and explained, "At the moment of firing, this chamber has to withstand temperatures exceeding ten thousand degrees and pressures of hundreds of megapascals!"

"Our country's top military-grade steel would melt instantly at this temperature, let alone the civilian processing plants he's using with ordinary alloys!"

"To put it bluntly, if this thing ever fires, it's guaranteed to explode. The person firing it would be blown to pieces on the spot. It's no different from suicide!"

"Are you sure?" Old Zhou was a bit confused. All that effort just to build a suicidal weapon?

"I've been calculating all night! I can't be wrong!" Qin Zhengfeng slapped the calculation papers on the table. "The core technology of this directed-energy anti-armor weapon is far beyond our current level. Forget civilian materials; even the top aerospace materials couldn't handle it!"

Old Zhou's expression grew even more grim. "But the problem is, he's already mass-producing this. Dozens of factories in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong are working three shifts. The order volume is staggering. Our intelligence shows the target has already sent out inspectors."

Qin Zhengfeng froze in his chair. He had spent his life in the defense industry and had never seen anything like this.

Knowing it would explode, yet still mass-producing it?

He frantically flipped through all the blueprints like a madman and finally discovered an even more terrifying fact: all the factories had only received peripheral parts like casings, heat sinks, and brackets. Not a single factory was producing the most core components: the fusion chamber and the focusing crystal.

"Unless... the core components are all prepared by the client themselves?"

"Yes, that must be it!"

Hearing this, Old Zhou felt a chill run down his spine.

Just how many secrets was this Fu Haoran hiding?

Just as Qin Zhengfeng was about to write a report, Old Zhou's phone suddenly rang.

After hanging up, Old Zhou's expression became even stranger. "Old Qin, there's a new development. Fu Haoran just signed a multi-million dollar contract to find a top domestic avionics team to do a full avionics upgrade for a retired US Army A-10 attack aircraft."

Qin Zhengfeng was also stunned.

First, he's making suicidal anti-armor weapons, and now he wants to upgrade the avionics for an ancient retired attack aircraft?

What on earth is he trying to do?

Qin Zhengfeng stared at the table full of blueprints and said through gritted teeth, "Unless he has material technology in his hands that we completely cannot understand, which can withstand this level of high temperature and pressure, otherwise, putting these things together creates a mobile arsenal that will explode at a touch!"

Just then, Old Zhou thought of something and added, "Oh, and one more thing. He just hired a fresh graduate to do inspection and follow-up, named Cheng Beixiao. Clean background, just an ordinary English major. Our people are already on him. Do you want to go take a look?"

Qin Zhengfeng was immediately interested. "Let's go. An ordinary fresh graduate going to inspect a batch of parts for 'suicidal weapons'—there's definitely something fishy here."

"I want to see what exactly Fu Haoran is having him do."