Chapter 563: Chapter 331, The Great Battle
Seriously speaking, being surrounded does not equate to victory.
When the news that their rear was cut off reached the kingdom army deep within enemy lines, they did not panic.
Although logistical supplies could not be delivered for the time being, within this encirclement that stretched sixty kilometers wide and eighty kilometers deep, with over five hundred thousand people present, a prolonged cutoff in supply could easily lead to a total, uncontrollable collapse.
But they did not believe such a situation would occur.
There’s a cluster of twelve Knight Titans here, surrounding us from behind?
It’s not yet certain who’s surrounding whom!
They did not continue the forward offensive posture but instead diverted some forces to head rearward.
Six Knight Titans and over five hundred Sentry Mechas formed the combat core, ready to recapture the lost rear positions. If possible, it would be even better to conduct one or two effective encirclement and annihilation battles.
However, at this moment, their nightmare arrived.
The Alliance Army seemed to know their plans completely, already prepared to defend staunchly.
And this time, the Alliance had resolutely no intention of retreating.
In fact, they did not opt for trench warfare based on trenches, fortfications, and the like, to hold and wear down the kingdom army.
The tank units took the initiative to strike, Windfalcon Fighters in the skies daringly lowered their altitude, beginning to provide ground fire support. Especially when detecting some enemy artillery positions in the rear, they would launch a few missiles. If they did not completely destroy the target, they would risk being hit by rocket artillery or anti-aircraft gunfire to use laser cannons to wipe out any remaining enemy artillery.
On the main battlefield, the total force the Alliance committed to the decisive battle was ten Armored Brigades.
Their numbers were the 1st Extinguishing Wind Brigade, 13th Armored Brigade, and the 35th to the 38th and 59th to the 62nd Armored Brigades.
These ten brigades, totaling just over eighty thousand troops, assembled nearly nine hundred Lion Tanks and over two thousand various types of combat armored vehicles!
Without a doubt, Perbov went all out, regarding this battle as the most critical grand decisive battle on Heijian Star.
Both sides, totaling six hundred thousand men, unfolded a fierce battle along a sixty kilometer wide front, structured around brigades and regiments!
For the kingdom army, the grand decisive battle came a bit unexpectedly, exceeding their initial psychological expectations.
Originally, at the start of the full-scale offensive, they were prepared psychologically for a major battle. However, a series of triumphs like a rampaging victory over multiple days made them complacent. Some fools thought the Alliance Army was just so-so, and others, not foolish, tended to believe that the Alliance was not ready for a decisive battle and chose to avoid the brunt.
But they really did not expect that the Alliance was not unprepared for the decisive battle, but decided to have the decisive battle when the encirclement was formed and the roles of offense and defense changed.
The situation now was also quite clear.
Either they completely crush the ten Armored Brigades gathered by the Alliance, positioned behind them and poking at their rears in one go,
Or, under the conditions of having lost all supply inside the encirclement, their entire army would be wiped out.
And at this critical moment, they flinched.
Mainly because initially, they only sent six Knight Titans to the rear to deal with the encirclement.p>
According to the intent of the kingdom army’s commanders, it wasn’t that they did not dare to fight decisively, but rather that the force they had gathered before the battle began was not yet sufficient.
First, they needed to pull back these six Titans and the main forces a bit, waiting for all twelve Knight Titans to gather before turning around to fight the decisive battle, which would increase their chances of success.
From certain perspectives, the kingdom army’s supreme commander’s thought process wasn’t wrong. However, he made one critical mistake: he severely underestimated the resolve of the Alliance’s armored forces in this battle.
In such a decisive grand battle, courage and morale are extremely important.
Whoever shows a hint of cowardice might find even a slight setback leading to a comprehensive collapse.
And this was what happened on the frontal battlefield.
Upon receiving the message to retreat and regroup with the other six Titans, the six Knight Titans on the front line naturally chose not to continue their advance to meet the enemy and started to fall back.
But then, the Alliance’s armored forces had already penetrated quite deeply into their ranks.
The ordinary infantry left behind to cover the retreat simply could not withstand such a massive offensive pressure. In the rear, under the volley of self-propelled artillery, their defenses were already on the verge of collapse; when the armored vehicles really began charging their lines, they formed virtually no effective resistance before disintegrating completely.
Subsequently, some of the kingdom’s core units came under attack.
Dozens of Sentry Mechas were bitten into by the Alliance’s Strider Combat Vehicles. Under the barrage of several hundred automatic cannons, those Sentry Mechas and surrounding kingdom infantry had to turn around to fight.
They were caught off-guard, and with a significant number disparity, they were suppressed fiercely.
Moreover, if the battle dragged on even a bit longer, dense barrages of 155mm howitzer shells would often come over from the Alliance forces in the rear.
The artillery battalions under the Alliance’s Armored Brigades, along with artillery support platoons within each Composite Camp, had fully upgraded their towed artillery to self-propelled artillery. The process of moving and setting up to fire, and then moving again, had become much faster than before, allowing them to smoothly support armored units, providing fire cover while they rapidly breached enemy positions.