Chapter 167 The Moon 'Counter Slope' Plan_1

The lunar surface, at the junction of the near side and far side, Apennine Mountains.

The Apennine Mountains are the largest mountain range on the lunar surface, stretching for 1000 kilometers and rising 3 to 4 kilometers above the mare level, marking the boundary between the Mare Imbrium, Mare Serenitatis, and Mare Vaporum.

The gorge formed by the two Mount Hadleys in the Apennine Mountains, like an ancient scar, is embedded on the surface of the Moon.

This was the landing site of Apollo 15 last century, where historical imprints and natural grandeur intersect.

When sunlight slanted into the gorge, huge gun barrels were revealed inside the massive wells, angled towards the sky. Their towering visages seemed like the Moon's secrets were being quietly unveiled.

This was also the Moon Base's "Anti-sloped face" plan; a defensive tactic called reverse slope defense is used in terrestrial warfare.

Put simply, it involves deploying artillery positions on the back side of a ridge; when engaged in artillery combat with the enemy, the ridge can block the enemy's shells. The enemy's shells either hit the ridge or fly over the heads of the artillery positions on the rear side of the ridge.

One's own side conducts artillery combat by having observers watch the enemy's coordinates; reverse slope defense can also combine with tactics like tunneling to make defense even more robust and difficult to conquer.

However, reverse slope defense is not feasible on the Moon. The Moon's surface itself has a curvature and a lot of mountains, which seem to offer hiding places along the line where the near and far sides meet or behind mountain ranges to bombard Earth with artillery, but in reality, it's not possible.

Firstly, this is because the exchange of artillery fire between Moon and Earth involves almost exclusively straight-line attacks.

Aiming in interstellar warfare is extremely precise; all interfering factors can be quantified. When ships are aiming, the mere waving of a hand on a ship that affects targeting must be precisely controlled.

During artillery exchanges, the Earth Alliance's fire can accurately strike Moon Base positions.

Secondly, the attack power of modern directed energy weapons is too strong. Even a mountain can quickly be penetrated; the defense of a mountain is not as strong as imagined.

In current spaceships, common directed energy weapons include high-energy laser beams and high-energy particle beams; close defense also uses high-energy microwave beams.

Kinetic weapons are decreasing in importance; they have too many shortcomings, such as large targeting errors, slow attack speed, and large acceleration areas, making them practically sitting ducks.

Kinetic weapons generally use electromagnetic railguns to accelerate metal projectiles, with current top-speed at 1% of the speed of light, and their electromagnetic rails have reached 10 kilometers in length, almost useless on the battlefield.

Another point to clarify is that while space battleships' directed energy weapons also have very long barrels, these are not for acceleration but rather for directing and containing the energy.

The Earth-Moon distance is considered close-range combat in space warfare; high-speed projectiles still take 100 seconds to reach the Moon. Moon Base can detect them within 10 seconds and retaliate; a single directed high-energy microwave beam could quickly vaporize a high-speed projectile.

The best defense is always offense, especially in space warfare, because offensive capabilities far exceed those of defense.

Regarding the Moon's "Anti-sloped face" plan, there are two versions of the plan. One is the standard version in response to the Earth Alliance fleet breaking through the "Dandelion" defense belt.

The Moon Base artillery positions hide behind the giant mountain ranges or on the far side of the Moon. It's not easy for the Earth Alliance's artillery to punch through giant mountain ranges.

If the Earth Alliance's fleet were to breach the far side of the Moon, the reverse-facing artillery would ensure their complete annihilation.

The "Dandelion" of Death is just an extension of the decoy plan and only a minor aspect of the defense strategy. Feng Zi's art of military command is about maximizing the value of every resource.

Using Flying Blades to cut through battleships; even the minimally defended Thunderstrike Fleet will have some that slip through the net.

Moreover, the Flying Blade is not invincible; at least, it is unable to cut through the nuclear fusion power engines of battleships.

But as the Thunderstrike Fleet skimmed the boundary between the near and far sides of the Moon, the vessels were almost sideways, first to attack the far side base, and second to execute the best possible turn.

It was much easier to cut laterally, and Feng Zi had calculated all this.

The second version of the "Counter Inclined Plane" plan was to create an artificial "Fold-Line Attack Effect," allowing artillery positions behind the far side of the Moon or large mountain ranges to make indirect attacks on Earth's military targets.

Above Mount Hadley's ravine, many large frames rose automatically with support structures around them, and in the middle of these structures was a special single-layer nano-membrane controlled by a force field.

This nano-membrane was an accidental discovery by the Moon Base, but Feng Zi immediately recognized its immense value.

When high-energy laser beams passed through this nano-membrane, their direction would change slightly.

Due to a special resonant coherence that existed between the fixed high-energy lasers and this force-field nano-membrane, the laser's energy decayed very little when passing through the membrane, and the increase in emission degree was also extremely minimal.

Although the nano-membrane could alter the direction of laser beams, it was not suitable for regular defense.

One, the angle change induced in the laser's trajectory by the membrane was too small; it required several layers of nano-membranes for the lasers from the Moon's positions to shift direction significantly.

Two, this special force-field-controlled single-layer nano-membrane had a tight correlation with the laser's frequency, wavelength, and polarization. The laser's color was exceptionally pure, and only fixed lasers combined with the nano-membrane could change direction with minimal divergence.

Other laser attacks might destroy the nano-membrane instantly; in fact, even a fully coherent nano-membrane would be maintained and repaired under the effect of the force field.

Despite this, after sustaining one laser attack, a new "frame" would need to be raised.

This was the artificial "Fold-Line Attack Effect," reminiscent of bullets turning corners, allowing for attacks from behind cover.

As for these "frames" getting attacked, it didn't matter— their production cost was very low. Even if the support frame was damaged, it could be lifted using drones, as it was quite lightweight.

There were a total of eight such counter-inclined position sites on the Moon.

Once war with the Earth Alliance began, these position's artillery could destroy all of Earth's military forces in space orbit.

With celestial bodies serving as cover, even the firepower of Planet-Destroyer Ships would struggle to cause real harm; they could only destroy the surface of celestial bodies, without penetrating deeper.

That kind of attack, one that would annihilate a planet in a single strike—by energy conversion calculations, there is currently no theory to support the possibility of such an attack. Even if all the deuterium and tritium on Earth were refined into hydrogen bombs, it would still be billions of times short of the power needed to destroy the Moon.

Of course, this type of attack was not without its drawbacks.

One, attack strength would diminish. Even with a very small divergence angle, the strength of the energy would greatly decrease after covering a vast distance; the Earth-Moon distance was almost at the effective lethal limit of this type of attack.

Two, aiming accuracy was reduced. Changing the laser's direction for attacks generally targeted large, fixed positions; the hit rate against small, fast-moving strike fleets was too low.

The Moon's counterattack had officially begun, and it was time for the Earth Alliance to pay the price for igniting the flames of war.

Hundreds of laser beams launched from the Moon's surface, skimming close to the lunar terrain, like hundreds of silver dragons soaring into the sky—an unprecedented and spectacular sight on the Moon.

The silver dragons crossed one "window" after another, locking onto the huge Earth Starport 380,000 kilometers away—a roaring dragon in the moonlit night.