Chapter 739: Chapter 413, Total War_2 Chapter 739: Chapter 413, Total War_2 The Alliance had no ships, and the Tianma Fleet had no ships left, and that was as much potential as could be mined.
However, within the Tianma Star Sector, there was one family that did have a lot of ships: the Gu Commercial Firm.
Most of the ships owned by the Gu Commercial Firm were civilian ships, namely transport ships and merchant ships.
Those Flying Pig-Class, Whale-Class, and even the massive Belly-Class ships didn’t really have any combat capabilities.
But earlier on, the firm did have quite a number of armed merchant ships.
The combat power of these armed merchant ships was definitely far from that of the regular navy ships of the same grade, but their quantity was not insignificant, which was an advantage.
The navy department of the Alliance, in cooperation with the two major shipyards, quickly assessed the situation and came up with a proposal to further strengthen the armed merchant ships to meet the upcoming confrontation with the Green Skin Orcs.
Really, there wasn’t much to it: the basic characteristics of the armed merchant ships, such as structure, energy, and power, couldn’t be altered too much.
But if there was room, it was possible to install larger shields or cram in more cannons.
Strengthening protection and firepower was the most basic increase in combat effectiveness.
Although the cost was actually not low, and it seemed wasteful under normal circumstances, in a time of war, it obviously wasn’t the time to consider cost-effectiveness.
Under the extremely limited time frame, the Alliance had to muster as much power as possible.
According to the latest estimates, counting the armed merchant ships that had been conscripted, as well as the subsidiary fleets of the Tianma Fleet, plus the Alliance Navy’s own forces, and including the ships that would soon be completed swiftly…
all added up, in a month and a half, the Alliance would launch a space force with two hundred ships of various grades.
Although the quality was somewhat lacking, with only two Musician-Class cruisers and about thirty destroyers as the backbone, having a grand total of two hundred ships was still something.
If used properly, their effect would not be too bad.
…
On the land forces side, the Alliance couldn’t possibly deploy all its troops.
People had to be left on each planet.
The Dragonhawk 3rd Corps and the Rage Bear Legion, totaling thirty million troops, definitely had to be mobilized; a large amount of combat power was called up from various planets, especially Korolya.
The Alliance Land Forces would bring out eighty million troops for combat, which included a large number of the top-ranked teams within the Alliance Army to participate in the war.
Besides the military troops’ preparations, Gu Hang had also brought out a sum of grace points.
There wasn’t much point in hastily adding more troops.
After all, if more troops needed to be sent, it wasn’t a problem of manpower itself, but that the delivery capability was limited.
However, in comparison, Gu Hang could improve the combat effectiveness of the troops being deployed.
He didn’t have enough grace points to significantly raise the level of the warriors to T4.
A T4 grade soldier could only train ten people with 1 point of grace.
On the vast scale of battle that was foreseeable, this small number of hands would have a relatively limited effect.
But Gu Hang had another trick up his sleeve.
Under his soldier card training function, there was a rarely used ability: bestowing the ‘Beast Slayer’ trait to soldiers who had completed T5 grade training.
This was a trait that had special attack effects against the Green Skin Orcs; soldiers who possessed this trait would have a better understanding of the weaknesses of the Green Skin Orcs and master various techniques needed to confront this enemy.
Although their overall strength levels were still at T5, with this specific trait, they would receive a significant boost when fighting the Green Skin Orcs, and if they couldn’t reach T4 level, at least they could be considered at a T4.5 level.
And the key was, it was much cheaper.
100 people/point, the same price as training T5 level soldiers, ten times cheaper than T4 level soldiers.
Gu Hang had one hundred thousand grace points at hand, plus the brand new and still warm fourteen thousand that he had just received this month, a total of one hundred and forty thousand.
He spent one hundred thousand of them, and directly created ten million soldiers with this trait from among those about to be dispatched.
Compared to the naval forces of the Alliance, which were just starting out, the Alliance’s land forces were a more reliable force.
After all, the Alliance started out with the land forces.
But as powerful as the Land Forces were, the deployment of the hundreds of millions of troops soon to enter combat was a major issue.
Crossing the ocean in a bathtub was impossible, let alone the Star Sea.
Fortunately, the Alliance had managed to cobble together more than two hundred warships.
These ships were packed with members of the Alliance Army, and it wasn’t about how many soldiers a warship could carry; the key issue was that the Green Skins really, really liked to engage in boarding combat during naval battles.
Even putting aside the fighting capability of the conventional Navy Marine Corps, their sheer numbers were cause for concern.
If enemies managed to breach the defenses during a battle and a few landing pods or landing ships got through, letting those Green Skins cause havoc aboard, even if it was only a few hundred or a few thousand of them, it would be an exceedingly troublesome affair.
Having the Land Forces inside provided a much greater sense of security.
And who says humans can’t board enemy ships?
However, if sea battles could be settled with sturdy ships and powerful guns, then it was best to do just that.
For human troops, boarding was always a very last resort.
Except for the Starfighter Battle Group.
Aboard the main ships of the Navy, five hundred Phoenix warriors stood ready and waiting, potentially a key force in a critical moment.
…
These were roughly the military preparations.
During this period, Gu Hang held one military meeting after another to discuss the major issues and directions of various matters.
He couldn’t possibly handle the specific details himself.
The movement of hundreds of interstellar warships and hundreds of millions of troops wasn’t something he could process with one brain.
At times like this, he could only fully trust in the Alliance system he had helped build to withstand the test of this suddenly erupting full-scale war.
But Gu Hang never forgot one thing: war was about politics, and even more so about economics.
If they went to the Eagle Horse Star Sector and failed to win, or even suffered a crushing defeat and complete annihilation, followed by those Green Skin Orcs cutting a bloody swath all the way into the Tianma Star Sector, then there would be nothing more to say.
At that point, all would be lost, and Gu Hang would have to figure out how to grab a bucket and run, then see if he could make a comeback from someplace else, and he would also need to find a way to cleanse himself of the stain.
However, as long as it wasn’t that scenario, if the war stalled to a stalemate to some extent, regardless of whether it was an advantage, disadvantage, or balanced situation, the rear would still need to provide a continuous flow of all the necessary materials for war.
War was not just a matter for soldiers, but also for civilian administrators, workers, farmers, and in fact, for all 61 billion citizens of the Alliance.
The meaning of total war, of general war, lay here: to wage war by mobilizing all the power of a political body!
This was not a matter of a single battle.
The military was only part of a total war, and though important, the maintenance of a wartime economy and continuous supply from the home front were even more crucial.
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Could the Alliance afford to lose a hundred million troops, and then immediately field another hundred million?
Could they afford to lose two hundred ships, ones that took years to build, and then instantly crank out dozens, perhaps a hundred more?
If that were possible, then victory in the war would always be within reach.
Not to mention, the margin for error would be greatly increased, and the range of military strategies that the troops could employ would be significantly expanded.
That was essentially the demand Gu Hang made to Alliance Premier Osenia and the entire Alliance Government.
As for his earlier demand to the Alliance Government for an annual GDP growth rate of more than 10%, that had been indefinitely shelved.
They would revisit that when the war was over.
For this reason, every bit of administrative power that the Alliance had established over the nine planets of the Tianma Star Sector was now mobilized in full service to the war effort.
Gu Hang had signed the relevant documents, declaring that the Alliance had entered into a wartime system.
A third-grade mobilization order had already been issued, and a second-grade mobilization order was on the way.
A large number of civilian factories were converting to military production, and many people, if they couldn’t join the military, were at least being pulled into industries related to the war.
The atmosphere of war had descended upon everyone.