And right now, the Alliance isn’t just taking hits from Blackbird without fighting back; they’ve made an equivalent retaliation.
The Blade Tiger spent a whole day bombarding Blackbird City from orbit until they ran out of ammunition, and only then did they cease.
Blackbird isn’t like the missile silos the Alliance targets; they have no countermeasures against orbital bombardment. They neither possess anti-orbital firepower capable of exchanging blows with the Blade Tiger, nor the ability to deploy an elite land force to board the starship.
So, they just had to endure the bombing.
It’s a pity that it’s the Blade Tiger, not the Quintet; otherwise, the damage to Blackbird City wouldn’t be limited to the outer city. The entire core city would be blasted to ruins, and energy shields would be useless.
But it’s okay if they can’t blast it to ruins at once; they can always resupply ammunition and continue bombing a few days later.
Some of the larger shells, like the ‘Wrath of Loyalty’ and ‘Heat Hammer’ used to be on the Quintet, are beyond the Alliance’s manufacturing capabilities. But ‘Reflector’ and ‘Defender’ types are no problem at all.
Especially the ‘Reflector’—the ‘Reflector’ on the Blade Tiger is a shipborne weapon, but its technology specifications are standard. The Alliance is fully capable of supplying the Blade Tiger with high-quality energy cells, allowing them to continue the bombardment unreservedly.
What does it matter if the core area survives? There’s a Blade Tiger flying in orbit. If they detect a large-scale transport of materials going out, then bomb it; if they detect the enemy’s frontline troops amassing, then bomb it. With the orbital advantage on our side, the war becomes much easier to fight.
In fact, the war at the front lines had officially begun.
The Alliance’s army had already encountered the enemy’s vanguard in the desert.
However, up to now, the scale of the battle hasn’t been large.
The Alliance’s 250,000-strong army had already established a long, south-to-north defensive line in the desert.
The entire Western Desert Region, stretching from the sea on the west side of Green Valley in the south to the Northern Sea in the north, spans a great distance. Just 250,000 soldiers are insufficient to cover such a massive defensive line.
If they attempted to do so, spreading the forces too thinly across such a vast expanse would be disadvantageous, and the terrible roads would spell disaster for the Alliance’s logistic supply line.
Under this premise, Major General Yan Fangxu, the highest commander at the front line, adopted a “comprehensive guard, key defense” strategy.
The so-called “comprehensive guard” involved deploying a large number of dispersed small units patrolling in vehicles, along with establishing numerous outposts, which covered a decent area. Coupled with the airborne brothers piloting the Wind Falcons on all-weather patrol and reconnaissance, the hope was to prevent the enemy from crossing the defense line.
The so-called “key defense” referred to concentrating forces primarily along the Western Desert Avenue, partitioned into multi-tiered, layered defensive lines constructed by multiple divisions, controlling the area with key points.
Using this method, Yan Fangxu controlled the 3,000-kilometer-long north-to-south defensive line with 26 divisions, totaling 250,000 soldiers. The “key” points were on the main artery of the desert avenue and several north-south oases; as for the extremities and the vast desert areas of the 3,000-kilometer vertical line, they had to rely on the air force and patrol teams.
This meant the control was certainly weak, but Yan Fangxu had no other choice.
Compared to the area he needed to control, he simply didn’t have enough troops.
And more importantly, according to intelligence gathered from behind enemy lines and combined with cross-border reconnaissance by the air force, Yan Fangxu realized the enemy didn’t seem to adopt the tactics of massing heavy troops for a focused breakthrough.
Instead, the enemy was dispersed into many small units, seemingly attempting to infiltrate and interpenetrate along the 3,000-kilometer defensive line.
No matter if the Blackbird’s Mechanical Legion intended to penetrate directly to the Alliance’s heartland during their interpenetration, or if they planned to engage in surrounding and annihilating tactics in the Western Desert environment, they must not be allowed to succeed. Discover exclusive tales on My Virtual Library Empire
For this reason, Yan Fangxu had to adopt this strategy to respond, and both parties gradually began to sink into the quagmire of small-scale warfare.
By itself, the scale of the battles was not large, mainly at the squad and platoon level, with the highest going up to the company level. However, the frequency of these battles was quite high, and once real combat ensued, the loss of personnel and equipment was by no means trivial.
Yan Fangxu was getting a bit overwhelmed by the situation.
He was planning a major operation.
…
The Central Group Army Political Commissar, Mikel Nelson, who held the rank of brigadier, asked Yan Fangxu with deep concern, “Isn’t this a bit too aggressive? Didn’t the governor’s explicit orders require us to adopt a defensive stance as long as the flames of war do not reach the homeland of the Alliance?
And now you are ordering our troops to launch a full-scale offensive to the west, and you also want the Wind-Extinguishing Brigade to form an armored cluster to advance three hundred kilometers within two days?”
As Nelson questioned, his gaze never left the Phantom Sandbox that lay before him and Yan Fangxu.
This Phantom Sandbox was a high-end device, imported through the Gu Commercial Firm by the governor. After inputting parameters, multiple servo skulls computed the data and, through special imaging technology, displayed three-dimensional images of the battle map at different scales, supporting magnification and reduction.
On the Phantom Sandbox, nearly the entire Western Desert Region and the western part of the North Territory was covered, from the southern gulf to the northern cliffs of the straits. The information of the Alliance’s troops was also fully reflected here, turned into little figures, vehicles, tanks, each with the unit’s number flag inserted on top.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the formation, there were row upon row of red flags, symbolizing the enemy forces.
This information was not updated in real time; instead, it depended on the staff team summarizing various data sent back from the front line in accordance with specific technical rules and inputting them into the system. As for intelligence on the enemy, it had to be gathered using various reconnaissance methods.
It was neither completely reliable nor was it possible to know the enemy’s exact unit numbers, so it was necessary to come up with a code name and mark the approximate strength and composition of the enemy’s forces.
Currently, on this Phantom Sandbox, a dense mass of offensive arrows had already been drawn.
These arrows represented Yan Fangxu’s plan.
Almost all division and brigade-level units had orders to advance. Among them, the most extreme were the 1st Brigade, the 3rd Brigade, and the 46th and 47th Brigades, which formed an armored cluster on the Western Desert Avenue, intending to push three hundred kilometers westward through countless red flags, ultimately reaching an oasis called ‘Scorpion’s Tail.’
There, it was claimed to be a key logistics supply hub for the Blackbird Army.
The Blackbird’s cyborgs, mechanical dogs, drones, unmanned combat vehicles, unmanned artillery… these things didn’t need to eat, but resupplying ammunition was still essential. Moreover, their demand for fuel, electricity, and other energy supplies for logistics was much higher than that of human troops.
Destroying the enemy’s reserves in this respect could indeed greatly reduce the difficulty of combat, amounting to a glorious victory.
But…
The difficulty was also too high.
Nelson was somewhat hesitant.
Yet Yan Fangxu had his own set of opinions about this.
“You’re right. The governor indeed ordered us to defend, but Nelson, we need to look beyond the surface to see the essence. What is the purpose of the governor asking us to keep a defensive position?
He hopes that before the Star Realm Army arrives, we must control our losses in the independent combat against Blackbird, allowing the Star Realm Army to take over and solve the problem later, not that we should keep defending forever.”
“But now, the situation obviously does not support us doing so.”
“Those metal monsters dare not engage us in a decisive battle as a group, they have even released control of the Desert Avenue, turning to small-unit infiltration and interdiction. To stop them, our warriors have also split into small units and fought bloody battles with them in the desert, one after another.”
“This is not our strength at all. In the past half a month, we’ve lost over four thousand people. We can’t keep bleeding like this.”
“We must land a heavy blow if we are to keep defending.”