Fifteen red-armored warriors, that naturally meant Phoenix.
These imperial Angels were the first batch to descend from the landing craft.
This type of landing craft, coming from the Blade Tiger, was named the Type V Landing Craft.
As a landing craft designed for orbital assaulting operations, it was quite large. A single one could carry five hundred people, along with corresponding weapons and equipment, even heavy vehicles.
It was also equipped with jamming devices to defend against anti-aircraft fire, furnished with small energy shield generators that provided some defensive capabilities, and had relatively solid armor.
Apart from lacking weaponry and not being very fast, this type of landing craft was a powerful item and costs a lot to produce, not in the same league as ordinary civilian transport ships.
On the Blade Tiger, there were only two such landing crafts.
Plus some smaller landing crafts.
If they were all deployed, they could transport a force of about two thousand men to the ground at a time, and then circulate back and forth. Taking into account the travel time, loading, and unloading, they could make a trip in six hours at the limit.
This was not a very efficient rate, but there was no helping it.
The Blade Tiger itself was not particularly large, being just an Escort Ship.
It had about ten thousand crew members, so squeezing in thirty thousand soldiers was already beyond its capacity; they even occupied a lot of other space, staying temporarily, and equipment was packed to the brim, to the extent that Yelisia even teased Gu Hang, “Blade Tiger has become a fat pig now.”
So, this was the scarce configuration of landing crafts on the Blade Tiger.
For those large-scale landing operations, it would either be a large Starship, or specialized landing starships.
According to estimates, to get all his thirty-five thousand soldiers to the ground, even if the landing craft operated non-stop, it would need around a hundred hours, over four days.
This period was actually the most vulnerable time for the landing troops.
But the problem was that the Luman Kingdom’s army was even more vulnerable.
The main forces were besieging the outskirt towns, so the troops they could send were few in number, and of poor quality.
The first wave of the Alliance Army that came down directly crushed all those enemies who had surrounded the landing zone.
Subsequently, more troops descended and began to expand outwards, building temporary positions; they were to hold this area for a while.
However, at the same time, Gu Hang also made the demand for swift military action. A Composite Camp would set out first and push ahead.
After one day’s time, when the 1st Extinguishing Wind Brigade almost finished assembling, they would complete their assembly and continue to advance, breaking through the enemy and leaving a small faction to guard the landing zone.
Then, as the following divisions and brigades arrived, they would follow the steps of the troops that had set out earlier and continue to push outward.
This was the situation that the hastily assembled interception force of the Luman Kingdom had to face.
Acting this way, of course, was not as steady as waiting four days to complete the troop assembly before engaging in combat. But it also did not give the opponent time to prepare; with the military quality gap between both sides, it really was a case of puncture upon impact.
However, all this barely mattered to the Starship warriors.
While the follow-up troops were still disembarking and assembling, they had already received the orders from the Governor-General and boarded three Wind Falcons, heading towards the target location at high speed.
Three hundred kilometers, the Wind Falcons arrived swiftly.
To avoid getting hit, the Wind Falcons flew very low. Orbital anti-aircraft cannons couldn’t touch targets flying too low, as there was a limit to the shooting angle.
As long as the Wind Falcons didn’t actually fly over the few orbital air defense positions of Pincer City, it was fine.
Low altitude flying was not easy, but in this area, it was still smooth. Mainly because the terrain outside Pincer City was quite flat, without the frequent rise of high mountains; the speedboats had strong flying performance; plus the pilots were no longer the novices they were when the air force was first established, and after a long flying time, they had honed their skills.
Their first target was to attack the artillery position of the Luman Legion, which was besieging the outskirt towns.
In the early stages of the battle, the Luman Kingdom’s artillery forces were severely suppressed. Range and power couldn’t keep up, mobility was poor, and as soon as they emerged, before they could move, they would be hit by counter-bombardment from Alliance artillery.
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However, recently they were invigorated again, mainly because the Alliance was running out of artillery and even more so of ammunition.
But now, they faced disaster.
They were not totally unprepared.
After the Luman Army observed the approaching air force and especially after they deduced their target was the artillery position, they quickly informed the frontline about the enemy situation, asking them to be cautious in response and they even mobilized troops for defense.
However, it was futile.
What could they do even if they were prepared?
The Wind Falcons couldn’t be too arrogant; they launched a round of missiles from afar and then scooted away without conducting a low-altitude strafing run, which would give the enemy an opportunity. God forbid getting unlucky and having one of those sentry Mechas take down a craft, that would be a huge loss.
As for the Starship warriors, they simply jumped out of the Wind Falcons.
Delivering Starship warriors via Wind Falcon was extremely convenient, not at all like delivering regular soldiers who would either need to rappel down or require the Wind Falcon to land on the ground.
For the Starship warriors, it might not be feasible if it were too high, but at a distance of about ten meters, jumping down was no big deal. Even better, the Wind Falcons could maintain forward flight, just not too fast.
This significantly increased the speed of troop deployment and the safety of the Wind Falcons themselves.