Fact is, the key issues that Roland had mentioned before, the one that followed closely after transportation was air defense.

As someone who had seen modern warfare, the importance of air superiority was almost like a creed engraved in his mind. Due to the breadth and depth of the sky, the side with the advantage could choose to attack from any direction, at any time. Before the advent of radar, such an attack was almost impossible to defend against. Without reliable air defense capabilities, building an artillery position under the eyes of the devils was nothing short of a pipe dream.

Now he was certain that after Lo Jia fled back to Neverwinter, the devils had approached the Western Region border more than once. Otherwise, they would not have been able to determine that this was a city mainly inhabited by ordinary people, and attempted to repeat the threat from the First Battle of Divine Will.

However, neither the outposts in the Impassable Mountain Range, nor the God's Punishment Witches conducting early warning reconnaissance on the forward defense line, had noticed anything at all. If Sylvie hadn't taken over the alert work, the First Army might not have reacted until the enemy appeared outside the city walls.

This had fully demonstrated that, under the existing technical conditions, the vast sky would be the biggest loophole in Neverwinter's defense line.

After all, for this era, the air force was a truly unimaginable concept.

When he learned that the devils had flying Terrorbeasts, Roland had been considering air defense matters, but unfortunately, no one had expected the devils to appear so early that the planned Impassable Mountain Range defense line, telephone network, and new weapon development had not been truly completed.

The failure of the First Army to achieve results did not surprise him. The revolver rifle, as a transitional weapon, was useful for supplementing the blind spots of artillery and machine gun fire, and for cleaning up the battlefield. However, its shortcomings were becoming increasingly prominent: the limited chamber pressure resulted in low accuracy and short range; if not equipped with a dedicated loader, the five-round cylinder made the firepower delivered per unit time very limited, which was not conducive to skirmish warfare. In addition, shooting at the air lost the usual stable support point, and it was impossible to adjust by judging the error of the impact point, so its hit rate was predictable.

It was not impossible to improve this situation in a short period of time. The simplest way was to make modifications to the following points.

Gradually phasing out the revolver rifle and replacing it with a brand new bolt-action rifle was already planned. Previously, some parts still needed to be processed by Anna, so only a small number of precision marksman teams were equipped with them. However, with the introduction of a new generation of machine tools, workers were also gradually becoming familiar with the new manufacturing methods, and processing and assembly could be achieved without relying on witches. Once the yield rate was guaranteed, it would not be difficult to increase that part of the production capacity.

However, it was a bit of a stretch to rely solely on a few rifles for air defense. Moreover, compared to the revolver, although the former would have improved accuracy and range, the rate of fire would be reduced instead. In addition, the structurally complex tracer bullets were difficult for the already fully loaded bullet production line to bear. Even if technological breakthroughs started now, by the time they could be stably mass-produced, the Evil Moon would probably be over.

Therefore, the bolt-action rifle could only be used as an auxiliary, and the First Army needed a targeted air defense weapon.

Roland estimated that the advanced fire control route was basically hopeless, so barrage coverage became his only option.

The easiest way to take effect was to modify the Mark I heavy machine gun into an anti-aircraft machine gun. This was also a common practice in history, without adding any burden to production and logistics. Only a set of high- and low-angle dual-purpose brackets and sights were needed to obtain a certain low-altitude defense capability.

When he designed the Mark I, he did not use a water-cooled jacket, but a lightweight air-cooled barrel, which was also due to subsequent modifications.

The heavy machine gun has a high rate of fire, long range, high power, and the trajectory drop is not obvious in a short distance, which is just enough to deal with the Fiends with limited throwing distance. If there were two Mark I machine guns that could shoot into the air when the devils attacked the city walls, the result might be completely different.

After announcing the end of the meeting, Roland did not immediately return to his office, but went to the Arithmetic Institute first.

This emerging courtyard is located at the southern end of the castle area, echoing the chemistry laboratory next door. Most of its members are members of the Astrology Society. However, under the halo of the Scholar, recently many citizens who have completed elementary education courses

Cheng chose to enter the Arithmetic Institute to work, and even the number of applicants joining the Alchemy Association was one or two tenths higher.

Roland speculated that this was probably because the laboratory often had explosion accidents.

Scholar Misansheng greeted him in the hall.

After saluting, this chief astrologer excitedly expressed the profundity and beauty of mathematics.

"Your Majesty, please forgive my rudeness. The "Analytic Geometry" you gave me earlier is simply the work of a god! I never thought that one day the world would be so clear. It has nothing to do with the brightness of the eyes, but with a person's way of thinking. Even if I grow old and my eyes are dim in the future, and I can no longer look up at the stars, the world will still be clear. For example, your curly hair now, in my eyes, is pure numbers and symbols, as well as your robe and boots..."

Seeing that the other party couldn't stop for a while, Roland had to interrupt him, "Have you mastered all those contents I gave you?"

"I wouldn't dare say for sure, but most of them should be fine," Misansheng restrained his emotions, "In the past six months, in addition to the calculation tasks you assigned, everyone has been busy with a huge task, which is to record all the stars observed in the past in the form of equations. To this end, we have established stellar coordinates and also determined that the Star of Extinction is also the Red Moon you mentioned, and there are no more signs of movement."

Roland used to pay attention to the Red Moon, after all, its arrival symbolized the beginning of the Battle of Divine Will, but now that the devils have appeared, it is meaningless to pay attention to this countdown star.

"I have a new calculation task that I need you to do, and the sooner the better," he got straight to the point, "But this time it's not just pure arithmetic, but also working with the First Army to solve practical problems."

"Do you mean writing artillery firing tables like last time?"

"More complicated," Roland shook his head, "You have to make a device that can predict the movement of the target with the help of the craftsmen. It is controlled by two mutually influencing equations, one describing the displacement in the horizontal direction and the other describing the displacement in the vertical direction. I have a rough design idea here, but the specific parameters need to be determined after actual measurement."

This is a prototype of a simple anti-aircraft sight. By setting parameters such as the target's heading and distance, the gun body can be given the required elevation angle and lead angle, so as to spread a rain of bullets on the enemy's flight path to complete the interception. It does not require any electronic equipment, and the structure is fully mechanical manual operation. The only thing needed is a well-calculated firing table and the most basic algebraic geometry knowledge.