Republic of China: Ace Pilot

Chapter 832 Improved Cyclotron Accelerator, Germany Declares War on the Soviet Union

Fang Wen discovered the problem inside the cyclotron accelerator through his supernatural abilities.

He had a preliminary solution in mind for solving the problem.

By compensating for the electric field phase at three locations, correcting the magnetic field uniformity at five locations, and calibrating the trajectory at two deflection zones, the uranium-235 collection efficiency of this 60-inch cyclotron can immediately soar from less than 8% to over 40%, directly crossing the threshold of laboratory verification and entering the stage of engineering-ready mass production.

The isotope separation progress of the Manhattan Project will be significantly accelerated, even reaching the level of equipment used in the years following the war.

But Fang Wen had no intention of revealing the whole story.

What time is it now?

Before the flames of war even ignited at Pearl Harbor, the United States remained aloof, watching from the sidelines.

Taishan itself did not possess the trump card of nuclear weapons.

If the United States had developed the atomic bomb ahead of time and Japan had found out, causing Japan to back down and abandon the Pearl Harbor plan, the consequences would have been dire.

That's absolutely unacceptable.

Fang Wen's goal was never to help the United States build an atomic bomb ahead of schedule, but to use this world's most advanced nuclear physics platform to thoroughly understand all the core technologies of uranium isotope separation, accelerator design, and nuclear product purification, so as to completely grasp the most advanced industrial and scientific research achievements of this era in his own hands.

Having figured this out, Fang Wen calmly looked at Lawrence, whose expression was grave:

“Mr. Lawrence, I can optimize it. I can improve the beam stability and collection efficiency to solve the current problems of scattered trajectory and insufficient purity, but the inherent structure of this equipment has its limits and may not be able to achieve your target effect.”

Lawrence's eyes lit up. The team had been struggling for more than half a year, and countless experiments had failed. Achieving a stable purity of 8% was already the limit. Fang Wen could optimize and improve it as soon as he opened his mouth, and it could still run stably. This was a breakthrough they had been longing for.

Scientific researchers never achieve their goals overnight; they are already quite satisfied if they make some progress.

"Are you sure?"

“Yes.” Fang Wen nodded, his tone firm. “I need to see the engineering drawings for the entire set of equipment, the dimensions, materials, coil parameters, and circuit design of all components. I need complete information. Only with that information can I make adjustment plans and optimize the details of the components.”

Lawrence hesitated.

As the scientist who invented the cyclotron, only he had access to the engineering blueprints of the device, which were also considered the core secret of the project.

But he also knew that without blueprints, outsiders would have no way of making targeted modifications.

"Are you sure you can optimize it?" he asked.

Fang Wen said confidently, "I'm sure. I've found some problems, but once I've seen the engineering drawings, I can make the corresponding optimizations. As for my engineering design capabilities, you don't need to doubt them. I was in charge of designing the fighter jets and tanks for Taishan Military Industry."

Yes, besides being a pilot and businessman, he was also an outstanding engineer.

Lawrence immediately took Fang Wen back to his office, unlocked the closet with a key, and took out a large pile of documents.

"These are the engineering drawings for the cyclotron and all the data records from each experiment. You can look at them, but only here; you can't take them out."

"no problem."

Fang Wen sat down and picked up the drawings and documents to read them carefully.

His powerful memory allowed him to memorize everything he read, forcibly memorizing the contents during the reading process.

For two consecutive days, Fang Wen spent his time in Lawrence's office reviewing documents.

In the evening, he would leave the school and head to a hotel near the school gate.

In this cozy temporary home, his wife would take off his coat and prepare a delicious Chinese dinner.

"father!"

The two children immediately dropped their toys and rushed over with their short legs.

The son hugged his leg, looking up at him with a smile; the daughter timidly tugged at his clothes, her eyes sparkling as she looked at the unfinished drawings in his arms.

Fang Wen placed the blueprints on the table beside him, bent down, picked up both children, kissed their foreheads, and spoke gently.

"Are you two being good at home?"

“Good girl, my sister and I listen to Mommy very well,” the son replied.

The daughter was fiddling with the hem of Fang Wen's clothes.

His wife, Kuang Mingzhu, brought over some clothes for the family and said softly, "The food is still warm, let's eat first. The children have been waiting for you for a long time."

In this temporary little home, she never pried into Fang Wen's work, maintaining her own boundaries. She knew her husband was destined for great things, and she never wanted to hold him back; she would only protect their home and their children.

After dinner, Fang Wen played with his children for about half an hour. After watching the two children fall asleep on the sofa, he gently carried them back to the bedroom and tucked them in.

When he returned to his study, closed the door, spread out a huge sheet of drawing paper, and took out a pencil and ruler, his gentle gaze instantly returned to calm.

What he needs to do is to optimize for future needs.

He corrected the frequency synchronization deviation of the alternating electric field, patched up the phase delay loophole, and made the energy more uniform during ion acceleration, so that the beam was no longer scattered.

This is an obvious optimization that directly improves the purity of the collected material, making the effect visible to everyone.

He fine-tuned the parameters of the correction coils at the edge of the magnetic poles, optimized the magnetic field uniformity, and corrected the trajectory deviation caused by relativistic mass increase, making the deflection trajectory of the ion beam more precise and significantly reducing the loss of ineffective bombardment.

This is a core optimization that allows the equipment to operate stably and the purity to be steadily increased to 18%-20%, far exceeding the team's previous limits, which is enough for Lawrence to regard him as an indispensable core member of the team.

However, at the same time, he did not make any changes to the three key parts of the drawings that should have been optimized: the deflection zone collection port structure, the high-frequency power supply closed-loop compensation, and the deep magnetic field calibration of the magnetic poles.

He didn't damage the equipment or leave any hidden dangers. He simply perfectly matched the existing components' processing precision, material limits, and power load capacity, firmly locking the equipment's upper limit at the threshold of significantly improved efficiency without reaching the level of high-efficiency data collection.

The efficiency improvement was impressive enough to amaze everyone and allow him to firmly grasp the core discourse power and thoroughly understand all the technical details; however, it could not reach the mass production efficiency and ultra-high purity required for weapon-grade uranium purification. No matter how many parts Lawrence's team replaced or how many parameters were adjusted, without his complete final solution that broke through the limitations of materials and structure, they would never be able to cross that final threshold.

The pencil traced fine lines on the drawing, marking dimensions accurate to the millimeter, parameters to two decimal places, and the step-by-step debugging sequence.

The only sound in the study was the scratching of the pen on the paper, and the light shone on his focused profile.

After an unknown amount of time, the door was gently pushed open a crack.

My daughter, carrying a teddy bear, quietly walked in barefoot and stood by the desk. She looked up at the dense lines and symbols on the paper that she couldn't understand at all. Her little brows were slightly furrowed, full of curiosity, but she didn't dare to make a sound to disturb her father.

Fang Wen put down his pen and was about to reach out to hug his child when footsteps sounded behind him. Kuang Mingzhu tiptoed in, said nothing, but gently shook her head at her daughter, put a finger to her lips, and made a gesture for silence.

She bent down, hugged her daughter, patted the child's back, turned back to Fang Wen with a gentle smile, said "Don't stay up too late," and then left with the child, quietly closing the door behind her.

Fang Wen looked at the closed door and felt a warmth fill his heart.

The motivation from home invigorated him. He lowered his head, picked up his pencil again, and drew all the optimization details, step-by-step debugging plans, and parameter correction comparison tables on the blueprint. Every step was written clearly and concisely, enough for Lawrence's team to implement smoothly, and enough for him to thoroughly understand this world-leading nuclear separation technology through each debugging and each round of experimentation.

When the drawings were finalized, the sky was already beginning to lighten.

On the very night that Fang Wen was working on improving the blueprints, across the entire Atlantic Ocean, a momentous event that would shake the entire landscape of World War II officially broke out.

The next morning, Fang Wengang walked into the laboratory with the complete set of drawings and debugging plans he had prepared, and immediately felt an atmosphere completely different from usual.

The researchers, who usually only focused on instruments, data, and equipment, all gathered together, clutching the morning newspaper, discussing in hushed tones, their expressions both excited and solemn. Even Lawrence, who was usually solely focused on scientific research, stood in the middle of the crowd, his brow furrowed, talking to everyone.

As soon as Milliken White saw Fang Wen enter, he rushed over and shoved the still-smelling morning paper into his hand, his voice filled with shock:

"Mr. Fang, something terrible has happened. Germany has broken the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and invaded the Soviet Union."

Fang Wen took the newspaper; it was the Washington Post, delivered from the East Coast via domestic mail plane.

The headline on the front page, in bold boldface, reads "NAZIS LAUNCH ALL-OUT ATTACK ON SOVIET UNION; 2000-MILE BATTLE LINE ERUPTS," which translates to "Nazis launch all-out attack on the Soviet Union; fierce fighting erupts along a 2,000-mile front."

The subtitle is Hitler Breaks Pact; Forces Strike At Dawn; Russia Calls To Arms.

Fang Wen read the report carefully.

At 3:15 a.m., the German army launched an attack without warning, with three armies (Army Groups North, Center, and South) simultaneously breaking through the Soviet-German border.

The first round of air raids destroyed more than 1000 Soviet aircraft (most of which were destroyed at airfields), paralyzed communication systems, and quickly led to the loss of air superiority.

Both sides issued statements to the international community.

German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop declared that "the Soviet Union was assembling troops in preparation for a surprise attack on Germany, forcing Germany to launch a preemptive strike."

In a radio address, Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Minister of Foreign Affairs) Molotov condemned the German army for "betrayal" and announced "the start of the Great Patriotic War, and the whole nation's resistance against the aggressors."

The newspaper also mentioned the rapid advance of the German army, which surrounded the Brest-Litovsk fortress and invaded the Baltic states. Meanwhile, battlefield reporters claimed that the Soviet army resisted fiercely and did not collapse as quickly as it had on the European front.

Fang Wen put down the newspaper; what was bound to happen would eventually happen.

However, he would not leave the United States to participate in the Soviet Patriotic War until he had access to nuclear element purification equipment and other technologies.

But today's research seems to have stalled.

The discussions in the laboratory grew louder and louder, and even these top scientists could not remain uninvolved.

The war has swept across Europe and has now finally dragged into this largest continental country. No one can predict the outcome.

"The German army defeated France in less than two months. No country on the European continent could stop their armored forces. The Soviet defenses will not last more than three months. Moscow will fall by this winter at the latest." A young researcher lowered his voice and said with certainty, "Hitler's blitzkrieg was invincible. The Soviet Union simply could not stop it."

“I don’t think so.” Robert Wilson shook his head. “Napoleon also marched into Moscow, but ultimately lost to the Russian winter and the vastness of the country. Germany’s supply lines were too long, while the Soviet Union had unlimited strategic depth. They could afford to drag it out, but Germany couldn’t.”

"The Soviet Union's Great Purge destroyed their officer corps, leaving the army with no fighting capacity. How could they possibly hold off the elite German troops?"

"The Soviet Union had size, industry, and a population of hundreds of millions. Germany simply could not have swallowed such a large country completely."

The debate grew increasingly heated, with some optimistic about the German army's unstoppable advance and others convinced that the Soviet Union would replicate its victory over Napoleon. Neither side could convince the other, and just then, all eyes turned to Fang Wen.

After spending more than half a month together, they had long since realized that Mr. Fang from the East was not just some eccentric with extraordinary abilities. He had a vision far beyond that of ordinary people, a judgment so accurate it was frightening, and, more importantly, he was the only one in the entire team who had actually been on the battlefield and seen the smoke of gunpowder.

His assessment of the war was far more reliable than that of these scholars who only read about the war from newspapers.

Lawrence also looked at Fang Wen, his tone solemn: "Mr. Fang, we all want to hear your opinion. In this war, between Germany and the Soviet Union, who will ultimately prevail?"

Fang Wen looked around at the research team members and calmly said:

"Personally, I believe that Germany will definitely lose, and will lose miserably. The Soviet Union will hold on and will be the ultimate victor."

As soon as he finished speaking, the laboratory fell silent for a moment, followed by a low murmur of commotion.

Ignoring the crowd's surprise, Fang Wen continued, his next words not being mere theoretical analysis, but based on reality:

"You only saw the ferocity of the German Blitzkrieg and the collapse of the Soviet front, but you didn't understand the essence of this war."

Hitler's war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation.

He wanted more than just Soviet land, resources, and living space; he wanted to destroy the communist state. This was not a war that could be compromised or negotiated; for the Soviet communists, it was a war they had to win.

A nation with nowhere left to retreat will pay any price and display a resilience you cannot imagine.

This perspective resonated with some researchers.

However, some people feel that Fang Wen's statement is too one-sided.

In particular, the young researcher who was superstitious about the combat capabilities of the German mechanized forces.

In response, Fang Wen debunked the misconception that "blitzkrieg is invincible," which everyone was most concerned about:

"The core of Germany's Blitzkrieg was a swift victory. It used armored forces to break through the enemy's defenses, encircle and annihilate the enemy's main force, and force the enemy to surrender in a short period of time. France held out for 39 days because their strategic depth was penetrated by the German mechanized forces, their main force was cut off, and the French government had no intention of continuing the war, and even took the initiative to indicate that it could accept an armistice agreement."

But the Soviet Union would not surrender. Even if Moscow fell, even if Stalingrad was destroyed, even if they retreated to Siberia, they would continue fighting. For every kilometer Germany's supply lines extended eastward, the pressure doubled. Winter would come, fuel would run out, ammunition would run out, and the German army's logistics simply could not sustain such a long and devastating war.

Napoleon's 500,000-strong army was defeated in the Russian winter; Hitler's millions of troops would only repeat the same mistake.

The researchers fell silent; those who had been certain of a German victory were now speechless.

Lawrence stepped in at the opportune moment, saying, "Alright, our discussion will not have any impact on that war. Everyone should continue with their work and move the project forward as soon as possible."

The researchers were dismissed and returned to their respective posts.

Fang Wen took out the blueprints he had drawn overnight: "My optimization is complete." (End of Chapter)