Chapter 433: Your Missile Is That Accurate?
After the Freedom Space Station was activated, at Texas Johnson’s private ranch, the staff of the Face-to-Face program had already gathered here.
For the interview program that was about to begin.
In front of the lens, former President Lyndon Johnson sat on an old rocking chair, wearing a plain shirt, which clashed with the surrounding pastoral scenery.
There was a hint of anger on his face.
Those eyes that once issued commands in the White House and casually pressured Washington bureaucrats were now filled with dissatisfaction and disdain.
Nixon is shifting the blame to me?
I still think that if GPS had appeared earlier, I might not have lost the presidential election!
He chose to accept Walter Cronkite’s exclusive interview to defend himself.
A few words here: after retirement, Lyndon Johnson’s most important work was writing his memoir The Path to Power.
But that doesn’t mean he had no other work.
After retirement, he accepted a large number of interviews, defending his Vietnam War decision making, his own historical image, and his political career.
In the original spacetime, Johnson accepted Cronkite’s interview in 1970, where he first publicly and systematically defended his handling of the Vietnam War decisions, explaining why he believed the war was necessary.
On the day of the successful Apollo Moon Landing in 1969, Cronkite had a phone connection with Johnson, asking for his views.
Johnson emphasized on the phone that this was not the success of one person or one party, it was the victory of the American people, the victory of humanity.
At the same time, he also said that when he was a senator and vice president, he had always been the most steadfast supporter of the moon landing, and even more so after becoming president, emphasizing that he felt his years of effort and investment were worthwhile.
In short, it’s all about competing with Nixon for historical status.
Now it’s even more so.
Clearly these are all my achievements, you shift the blame to me, then claim all the achievements for yourself, is that reasonable?
The bitterness in Lyndon Johnson’s heart was overflowing; if GPS had come out earlier, if the space station had gone up earlier, if he had insisted on giving NASA a bit more funds at that time, would everything be different.
He would still be in the White House wielding supreme power, while Nixon would still be a nobody.
Lyndon Johnson felt that the trust and support he gave to the professor during his term were not enough.
He should have super-doubled the budget.
At the same time, his hate for Nixon was endless, and Nixon’s hate value was rising sharply, already second only to Fred.
“Mr. President,” Cronkite asked, “in the past few months, the Nixon Administration has successfully stabilized public sentiment by relying on new space achievements.
The successful application of the GPS system in the Vietnam War, as well as the construction of the Freedom Space Station, have given them enormous prestige.
President Nixon has attributed the past difficulties of the Vietnam War to strategic mistakes by the previous administration.”
Cronkite paused, gazing straight at Johnson: “He especially implied that the Kennedy Administration and you made irreparable mistakes on the Vietnam War issue.
What is your response to this?”
Johnson’s body leaned slightly forward; he didn’t answer immediately but picked up a cup of water from beside him and took a slow sip.
He knew this was his chance to counterattack; he needed to organize his thoughts and his language.
Speaking of this, many people might think that accepting an interview means the questions are known in advance, just reciting prepared answers?
Not really.
This is actually a performance, a performance rich in emotion.
For example, Old K’s election on Wang Qianqiu’s Thousand Autumns and Myriad Affairs talk show; this was the home field that Old Zhao prepared for Hao Baobao, he knew the questions 100% because he went to the interview with a little notebook.
But facing the questions, Hao Baobao still had to pull out the little notebook to answer, glance at it, looking like a puppet; you say you’re not a puppet, and no one believes you.
“Walter,” Lyndon Johnson put down the water cup, with the unique Texas drawl, “I’ve heard those remarks; they are like flies from Washington, buzzing but weightless.”
He stared straight into the lens, as if in dialogue with President Nixon across the air: “I want to say to all Americans here that the difficulties of the Vietnam War are not my responsibility, nor Kennedy’s.
This is the responsibility of history, the responsibility of America.
It is the inevitable result of our decades-long game with our opponents on ideology and across the world.”
His tone rose: “When President Kennedy was assassinated, what I took over was a mess full of holes.
The Vietnam War was not started by me, but it hung over my head like a huge ghost.
What could I do? Could I give up? Could I let America’s allies around the world think we were a weak and incompetent country?”
Johnson’s emotions became agitated; he pointed at the lens as if pointing at Nixon: “President Nixon can now use GPS to win victories; that’s good.
But I want to ask him, when I was in the White House, where was this GPS? When our soldiers were lost in the jungle, trading their lives for a little pitiful intelligence, where was this GPS?”
He continued: “He can now talk lofty about victory, but he forgot that everything he has is built on my sacrifices.
He forgot how much effort and resources I invested in the Apollo Program, in space exploration.
The glory he enjoys now is built under the shade of the trees I planted back then.”
Johnson said angrily: “The professor was appointed as NASA director during my term; the GPS satellite system was established under my Star Wars Program, and only then did Congress give massive extra budget to NASA.
That’s how we could restart the research and development of nuclear-powered satellites and begin large-scale promotion of the GPS system’s research and development.
He can accuse me, he can accuse Kennedy.
But he cannot accuse history.
He cannot accuse all the efforts we once made for this country.
Everything he has now is built on my sacrifices.”
After a brief pause, Lyndon Johnson said faintly, his voice carrying a prophetic power: “He can win this war, but he will never win history; history will remember who chose sacrifice and responsibility in this country’s darkest moment.”
Lyndon Johnson’s accusations were not without reason.
Indeed, after he took office, facing enormous pressure from conservatives within the Donkey Party, the conservatives in the Donkey Party’s southern states generally opposed appointing an Asian senior official to lead such an important project as the space race.
Lyndon Johnson withstood the pressure and even personally operated it, privately pressuring relevant congressmen to ensure Lin Ran could smoothly pass the Washington hearing before the appointment.
To this day, American media consider this appointment the second greatest achievement of Lyndon Johnson’s term, with the greatest being pushing the Civil Rights Act.
Some media believe the Civil Rights Act should be attributed to Kennedy, and Johnson’s greatest achievement was appointing the professor as NASA director, laying the foundation for winning the space race.
Washington was in disturbance, while changes were occurring on the Vietnam War frontline.
In summer, the rainy season in the Mekong Delta arrived as scheduled, with torrential rain turning the jungle soil into a vast ocean.
North Vietnam’s guerrilla fighters huddled in underground tunnels, the air filled with damp moldy smells and the pungent odor of diesel.
This situation had lasted for half a year.
Whether from North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, or America’s own public news in newspapers, all showed that America was frantically advancing with the satellite navigation system.
B-52 strategic bombers no longer bombed blindly but precisely locked on supply points on the Ho Chi Minh Trail like a scalpel, with napalm bombs under GPS guidance striking tunnel entrances directly, turning the entire war zone into a sea of fire.
North Vietnam’s air defense forces, mainly relying on outdated Soviet SA-2 missiles, were already exhausted in such situations.
Hit rate less than 20%.
US Military pilots were increasingly brazen; low-altitude helicopter formations used satellite signals for real-time course correction, shuttling through valleys, cutting off North Vietnam’s retreat routes.
The frontline advance was as swift as a tide.
Recently, the entire Ashao Valley positions lost three strongholds in just one week; Hanoi’s command post heard desperate cries for help on the radio: “They know where we are!”
In the past, such treatment belonged to the American army. The role of ghost was played by North Vietnam’s treants, and the wailing on the radio was from American soldiers.
Now North Vietnam’s geographical advantage was lost, leaving them with no advantages, only disadvantages.
“Comrades,” Engineer Li and his team from Yanjing brought the first batch of samples, a total of 20 gray missiles, each about 6 meters long, 0.4 meters in diameter, with surfaces covered in low-reflection coating, able to masquerade as jungle clutter on radar.
He said to the commander of the North Vietnam air defense battalion, Nguyen Van Thai: “This is the Dragon Shadow missile, different from past missiles; it specializes in dealing with those eyes in the sky.”
Engineer Li pointed to the unloaded wooden crates, inside which were the missiles.
The core of the missile is a new ground-to-air system, using China’s latest integrated circuit modules.
A palm-sized aluminum-cased circuit board, embedded with silicon-based MSI chip arrays, pulse Doppler radar processor, infrared composite seeker, and analog adaptive jammer.
Unlike the SA-2’s radio command guidance, Dragon Shadow uses semi-active mode.
After launch, the missile’s own antenna array and thermistor sensors can real-time capture the target’s heat signals and S-band echoes, with error less than 10 meters.
Targeted at America’s logistics support system, Dragon Shadow also integrates a low-power jamming transmitter, with analog circuitry generating fake satellite signals to briefly disrupt receivers.
The Chinese side had already anticipated that American airplanes would eventually use the GPS system too.
Their prediction was correct; at this time, American airplanes were already equipped with GPS navigation.
And this module could make GPS-guided airplanes deviate from trajectory at critical moments.
Even in electronic warfare environments, it could dynamically switch frequencies through the analog filter network on the circuit board to evade American electronic jamming.
Though not as precise as future digital algorithms, preset curves based on historical ballistic data could micro-adjust trajectory in flight via servo motors, specifically countering low-altitude precise maneuvers.
(US Military using computers to command war, Annam frontline, 1968)
Nguyen Van Thai squinted at these gifts.
His face was covered in scars from shrapnel, having survived the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
The past six months had been particularly tormenting for them.
Frequent frontline loss reports often kept him awake all night; America’s satellite positioning had turned guerrilla warfare into a cat-and-mouse game.
“Comrade Li, can this thing shoot down those F-4 Ghosts with sky eyes? They’re advancing too fast; our supply lines are about to be cut.”
Engineer Li smiled and took out a training simulator from the crate.
A bulky oscilloscope device connected to a vacuum tube amplifier and mechanical turntable, the size of a small radio, with a 5-inch diode display screen, requiring external battery power.
“Simple. Two weeks of training, and you’ll master it.
The circuitry has built-in feedback loops; simulation data from launches will be recorded.
We will periodically recover US Military flight data and trajectories, optimize the missiles for you in Yanjing, and improve their prediction accuracy.”
Over the next two weeks, the valley echoed with low hums and the oscilloscope’s high-frequency whistles.
North Vietnam’s warriors were divided into groups, taking turns operating the Dragon Shadow launch vehicles, a mobile platform modified from GAZ-66 trucks, with the roof camouflaged as straw piles, and the compartment installed with a simple console: the dashboard covered in toggle switches, analog voltmeters, and a small CRT display for real-time radar echoes and jamming signal strength.
Training started from the basics: Engineer Li used a blackboard to explain the missile’s design principles; though most of Nguyen Van Thai’s warriors were illiterate, he simplified with metaphors.
The reason for explaining principles is China’s style of training warriors, and also to give them sufficient motivation when collecting data.
On September 15, the first real combat arrived.
The location was Ashao Valley in Guangnan Province; the US Military’s 1st Cavalry Division’s air mobile troops were executing Operation Lancaster II: twenty AH-1 Cobra armed helicopters escorting CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters for airdropping supplies, aiming to completely cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Benefiting from GPS’s meter-level positioning, these helicopters flew low and close to the ground, real-time avoiding ridges, with advance speed 30% faster than before.
The sky was overcast, raindrops pounding the trees.
Nguyen Van Thai’s camp was hidden on the hillside, under camouflage nets, three Dragon Shadow launch vehicles ready to fire.
When the radar alarm sounded, the camp’s radio buzzed: “Enemy aircraft group, bearing 270 degrees, altitude 500 meters, speed 180 knots, heading straight for our supply point!”
On the console, the CRT screen flickered with clutter; warriors manually adjusted gain knobs, the pulse Doppler circuitry filtered noise, and the US Military helicopters’ rotor heat signals barely emerged.
“Prepare to launch!” Nguyen Van Thai said.
Locked.
Three-second countdown, the first Dragon Shadow tore through the rain curtain, its trail flashing like a meteor in the clouds.
It didn’t have the SA-2’s heavy arc but pounced on the target at Mach 1.5; the circuit board’s analog filter corrected deviations, dodging a bright decoy flare from an F-4, with slight vibration but the servo system stabilized the ballistic trajectory.
At the same time, the jamming signal took effect: on the US Military pilots’ dashboards, GPS coordinates suddenly jumped, showing deviation from Ashao Valley to airspace ten kilometers away.
“Damn, navigation failure! Pull up!” Panic came over the radio.
The explosion occurred beside the Cobra’s fuel tank; a fireball engulfed the rotor, fragments falling like raindrops.
The second missile followed, locking onto a Chinook trying to climb.
20 missiles threw the US Military formation into instant chaos; three Cobras crashed, two Chinooks heavily damaged and forced to land.
Without GPS precision, they lost direction in the rain and fog, and the advance came to a halt.
Though requiring warriors to real-time monitor the CRT, it worked; the balance of air superiority quietly tilted.
The battle lasted only seven minutes; the air troops retreated in panic, the supply airdrop turning to nothing.
“Chinese people’s missiles are this accurate?” Nguyen Van Thai thought.
