Tom had already mastered electromagnetic cannon technology.

However, electromagnetic cannons used for interception and those used for offense are two different things.

Offensive electromagnetic cannons prioritize destructive power; their projectiles must be as large as possible and as fast as possible.

As for the rate of fire, it's certainly better if it's higher, but the requirement isn't as stringent.

Conversely, defensive electromagnetic cannons require projectiles to be as small as possible—they only need to alter the trajectory of an incoming electromagnetic cannon projectile by even a single centimeter.

After a long journey, this minimal deviation will cause it to stray significantly from its original trajectory, preventing it from hitting the spaceship.

This doesn't require much kinetic energy, so why make the projectiles so large?

In fact, making them smaller allows for carrying more.

The muzzle velocity requirement isn't actually high either; there's no need to reach speeds of tens of kilometers per second or more.

A few kilometers per second, or even less than one kilometer per second, is acceptable.

After all, our side is intercepting; we just need to calculate the projectile's trajectory in advance, and even a lower speed can still accurately hit a high-speed projectile.

Defensive electromagnetic cannons have low requirements for projectile mass and muzzle velocity, but extremely high requirements for the rate of fire.

In extreme cases, a defensive electromagnetic cannon might even need to fire hundreds or thousands of projectiles within a single second.

Because in a space battlefield, who can determine how many projectiles will fly towards them in the next moment?

Following this design philosophy, Tom implemented numerous improvements to the existing electromagnetic cannon, ultimately creating a small electromagnetic cannon with a barrel only two meters long, a diameter of just 10 centimeters, and a maximum muzzle velocity of only two kilometers per second—which is even slower than some high-muzzle-velocity gunpowder gun bullets.

The projectiles fired by this electromagnetic cannon are also extremely small.

The lightest type of projectile weighs only about 2 milligrams, roughly equivalent to the weight of a small steel ball from a ballpoint pen refill.

Even if its muzzle velocity reaches 2,000 meters per second, its kinetic energy is only a mere few joules, but that's fine; as long as it can cause even a one-centimeter orbital deviation to the target projectile, it's enough.

The extremely light mass allows a single battleship to carry a massive quantity of these projectiles.

After all, even 500,000 such projectiles only have a total mass of one kilogram.

Having completed the development of various models of defensive electromagnetic cannons, Tom turned his attention to the laser cannon.

Lasers have an incomparable advantage over physical projectiles: they are much faster.

The fastest electromagnetic cannon projectile has a speed of only a dozen kilometers per second.

However, the transmission speed of a laser is the speed of light, a difference of more than 20,000 times.

Defensive laser cannons are more suitable for dealing with projectiles that have already entered close range and will soon hit one's own side if not intercepted.

At the same time, Tom also plans to develop both offensive and defensive models for this type of weapon, the laser cannon.

Such an excellent offensive method would be too wasteful if not used to attack enemy spacecraft.

A laser beam with extremely high energy can not only destroy the target's armor and hull through traditional thermal ablation but also, after rapidly heating the target, can induce a certain shockwave effect, causing greater damage.

In addition, the extremely rapid heating effect can also destroy the material's structure, directly leading to material spalling due to rapid high-temperature expansion and low-temperature contraction, thereby damaging the overall structure.

The application of lasers has a very long history, with relatively large-scale use in the early human world, but their use in the field of weaponry is relatively rare.

The main reason is that the technical difficulty is too high.

Weapon-grade laser cannons not only require extremely high-power laser generators but also have extremely high instantaneous power, which places immense demands on the power supply system, even greater than that of electromagnetic cannons.

In addition, they have extremely high requirements for the cooling system, which is fundamentally different from electromagnetic cannons.

Without a sufficiently powerful cooling system, the laser generator might melt itself in less than a second.

And another most important factor is the laser's divergence angle.

Tom must produce lasers with an extremely low divergence angle for them to have practical combat significance.

Only with a sufficiently low divergence angle will the laser beam be sufficiently concentrated.

Suppose a laser beam has a cross-sectional area of 1 when it is first emitted, and then after traveling one kilometer, its cross-sectional area becomes 2.

Then, obviously, the energy received per unit area would be reduced to half of its original value, greatly decreasing its lethality.

Similarly, decades ago, Tom had already adopted a simple, unsophisticated method: accumulating brainpower, accumulating resources, developing regardless of cost or expense, and iterating and optimizing day after day.

Finally, after decades, he has now developed a laser cannon with certain practical combat significance.

According to the previous plan, the laser cannons developed by Tom have two major series: one for defense and one for offense.

Each major series is further divided into numerous models based on laser power, wavelength, and so on.

At this moment, Tom was conducting an experiment with a high-energy offensive laser cannon.

At an altitude of one thousand kilometers from Ganymede, a decommissioned Mercury-class battleship was quietly sailing.

Although it had been decommissioned and its technology was outdated, its armor material was still relatively advanced and extremely thick.

It could even withstand sustained bombardment from high-rate-of-fire machine guns without being penetrated.

But at this moment, from a distance of one thousand kilometers, a laser beam from the surface of Ganymede shone onto its armor.

The initial cross-section of this laser beam was only about 3 square centimeters.

After traveling a distance of one thousand kilometers, its cross-sectional area had only doubled, becoming 6 square centimeters.

Although the area had doubled, and the energy received per unit area had halved, due to the sufficiently high initial energy, it still possessed extremely high destructive power at this moment.

Under the laser's irradiation, in just a few seconds, the metal material on the spaceship's armor had already begun to boil and explode.

After continuous irradiation for more than ten seconds, the surrounding armor materials were also severely affected by the changes in this area, leading to a significant decrease in performance and an extreme reduction in protective capabilities.

After half a minute of continuous irradiation, the thick armor was directly burned through.

Consequently, a large amount of internal gas leaked out, and the entire spaceship lost power due to this penetrating damage.

After a comprehensive evaluation, Tom drew a conclusion.

"The power of ship-mounted practical laser cannons cannot be this high.

Overall, the largest ship-mounted laser cannon can maintain a certain destructive power within a range of three thousand kilometers; beyond three thousand kilometers, it will be ineffective."

"Very good, not bad, three thousand kilometers, that's enough."

Even if it wasn't enough, there was nothing he could do.

This was Tom's technical limit at the moment; he couldn't achieve higher.

Having completed the inspection of the offensive laser cannon, Tom shifted his attention to the defensive laser cannon.

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