Chapter 562: Chapter 330, Is a Mountain Gun Still a Cannon?_2
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This is truly a national treasure, not to be employed lightly. Losing even one would be a catastrophe and a massive loss for the entire nation.
Currently, a total of twelve Knight Titans have been amassed within the assembled forces of the kingdom.
These kingdom generals and nobles are aware of events that occurred in the Kingdom of Stefano and understand that as powerful as the Knight Titans are, if caught unprepared by interstellar warriors using their uncanny teleportation abilities, the Titans could be destroyed in mere minutes.
Therefore, they simultaneously guarded the intelligence regarding the whereabouts of the Knight Titans with utmost vigilance, continuously repositioning them while also outfitting them with extensive security detail. Furthermore, they ensured that the Knight Titans were never left isolated. Also, pilots were not to rest unless it was absolutely necessary—even under harsh conditions, the noble-born pilots needed to remain in their cockpit at all times.
Thankfully, by the time the Knight Titan level was reached, life support pod technology had already been applied. Even without particularly advanced features, as long as it could facilitate eating and assist in excretion, the Knights could stay inside for extended periods.
Of course, they still needed to sleep. During these times, there had to be an active Knight Titan ready to protect them.
Based on such precautions, the kingdom’s generals were extremely cautious when deploying the Knight Titans.
For these reasons, even though they possessed twelve Knight Titans, their actual appearance on the battlefield was rare.
In easy and simple battles, even if the Knight Titans appeared, it made little difference—just gilding the lily. However, in particularly dangerous battles, they hesitated to deploy the Titans, as losing just one could spark a huge political crisis.
It must be emphasized again that the kingdom’s army is a military force united by a group of feudal states. Although the kings are the leaders, in essence, they are just the supreme nobles, feudal lords. The Knight Titans are in the hands of various major nobles.
This means they couldn’t follow orders like a modern military would, where upon receiving a command, they must obey, ready to charge even if the mission was known to be suicidal, embracing a do-or-die resolve to fulfill their military duty.
Such occurrences are rare in a feudal army.
Putting it bluntly, for some nobles who view their Knight Titan as their family’s treasured asset, it’s acceptable to lose a battle, but not the Titan.
As long as the Titan remains, even if they surrendered to the Alliance afterward, their status could still be preserved to some extent.
However, this time, the kingdom’s army made a significant commitment.
After a day-long closed-door meeting of multiple kings and nobles, they decided that the situation couldn’t continue like this. Otherwise, if they allowed the Rage Owl Star People to incessantly exploit their maneuverability, firepower, and armor advantage, their forces would be gradually devoured, leading to the potential loss of their entire three million troops on Heijian Star.
Once there was mutual agreement, the large-scale offensive that front-line generals had long awaited but had never materialized, finally commenced.
Twelve Knight Titans, all deployed at once!
Nine of those belonged to the Panbos Kingdom, representing their full strength. After all, the war was happening on their territory, so naturally, they were the most committed; the remaining three came from three other powerful states, with each providing one Titan.
In the entire history of Heijian Star, having twelve Knight Titans participating in a battle simultaneously was something from a bygone era.
When twelve Knight Titans advanced en masse, flanked by over a thousand Sentry Mechas, and supported by an army of hundreds of thousands, the Alliance’s front inevitably crumbled.
What was the greatest strength of the Alliance Army?
Apart from armored forces, it was their artillery.
The munitions transported to Heijian Star by the Gu Commercial Firm on Rage Owl Star ships, in addition to the weaponry and ammunition used by the Alliance’s thirty or so royal armies, primarily consisted of artillery and shells.
These weapons were then handed over to their vassal forces.
With artillery density far exceeding their adversaries’, they were able to hold their ground along the extended front line against an enemy far superior in numbers.
But in the location concentrated with twelve Knight Titans and over a thousand Sentry Mechas, no matter what, it was an unstoppable force.
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Even the elite troops of the Alliance couldn’t withstand it.
The Knight Titans fired missiles and bombarded with howitzers from a distance, while conventional firepower barely shook them; under their fire cover, Sentry Mechas charged forward through a hail of bullets, and machine guns also posed a terrifying threat to the positions of the Alliance warriors.
The regular artillery of the kingdom’s army was far inferior to the Alliance’s, but with a large enough number of mountain guns assembled and the protection of armored forces at the front, they could advance to relatively close positions to fire, a threat that could not be underestimated.
Mountain guns are still guns!
Not only was the Alliance’s position breached at a single point, but the entire defensive line spanning hundreds of kilometers began to shake significantly.
The frontline infantry units of the Alliance’s direct lineage suffered extremely heavy casualties, nearly reaching the point where they had to be reformed, and even some artillery positions were quickly overrun by the attacking enemy forces, leading to their complete destruction before they could retreat…
For seven consecutive days, the kingdom’s army had reached a climax in their offensive, pushing the Alliance’s defensive line back by a full eighty kilometers.
This was an accomplishment they had never been able to achieve since the beginning of the war.
Beyond changes in the front line, they had also caused significant casualties.
Just from captured regimental flags alone, there were six; confirmed kills of officers above the rank of colonel numbered more than twenty.
Although more specific details of the victory were hard to tally, this was undoubtedly a heavy blow to the Alliance Army.
All of this happened in just a short span of seven days!
The splendid victory even prompted the King of Panbos to personally send a letter to congratulate the Knights on their triumph.
In the same vein, this victory also led the Heijian Star People to start thinking that the Alliance wasn’t so great after all, it was just that we hadn’t given it our all from the start.
However, everything changed on the eighth day.
Could the kingdom’s army’s victory, the advance of eighty kilometers of the front line, truly be considered a ‘victory’?
In Perbov’s view, perhaps not.
While the enemy was in full force, on one hand, he commanded a portion of his troops to resist at the front, reducing the enemies’ numbers, depleting their supplies, and slowing their pace. The units that undertook these missions indeed suffered tremendous casualties, which deeply pained Perbov.
After all, when he had been fighting a blocking battle outside Pincer City with a brigade, nearly facing annihilation, there hadn’t been as many deaths as now.
But by now, he had steeled his heart.
The sacrifices being made at this moment were for a greater victory.
As the frontline troops fought for time, the Alliance’s Armored Brigade began maneuvering on both flanks.
Then, on the eighth day of the kingdom’s large-scale offensive, they moved to both sides of this eighty-kilometer-deep and forty-kilometer-wide salient.
Several Armored Brigades simultaneously charged out, breaking through the enemy attacking the Alliance positions with the support of artillery and air force.
Afterward, they moved at a speed that the enemy couldn’t react to, quickly outflanking both sides of the protrusion.
Within a day, four Armored Brigades deployed from both sides had breached the forty-kilometer supply lines of the salient, achieving a victorious rendezvous.
This meant that the salient punched out by the enemy had instead become a pocket enclosing them!