Chapter 261 The Burning Position

New calendar year 589, early morning of August 14.

The thick fog covering the city is slowly dispersing, and the sun begins to shine again on the positions of the warring parties.

This is the day of Amber's "first anniversary" of crossing.

One year ago today, he was still a reserve lieutenant who had just arrived at Robert IV, and was still trying his best to survive in the cracks and find a chance to escape from the planet devastated by war.

One year later today, he was on another planet, commanding a coalition force of tens of thousands of people, and launched a final showdown with another imperial expeditionary force.

During this year, Robert IV was bombed, and the Federation and the Empire sank tens of millions of tons of warships in the starry sea, and countless soldiers died.

The Federation recovered from the initial state of being stunned, and while expanding its armaments and carrying out "big construction", it also allowed the power of the military-industrial complex to expand.

The "reins" loosened from the necks of the autonomous governments of various galaxies also planted a "seed" for the unbreakable Federation.

The seemingly prosperous and powerful Star Dragon Empire also began to expose its aging side. The old emperor was dying, and the domestic party struggles reached the most intense level.

The legitimate heir of the empire had just completed a bloody suppression on the border planet, using tough iron-fisted means to purge all those who tried to split the country.

The regent standing on the other side of the "stage" was still patiently waiting for an opportunity to complete a "fatal blow".

In the prelude of this war, Atlas also grew from a "start-up group" of dozens of people to the most basic form in the blueprint planned by Amber.

And with the nourishment of another "corporate war" under the shadow of this war, it gradually grew in a corner that people could not see.

But on Rubion V at the moment, perhaps only Amber would think about these things.

The soldiers in the various offensive preparation areas of the coalition forces who were ready to attack would not think so much at all, because they were looking at the positions in front of them that had turned into a sea of ​​fire with slightly fearful eyes.

Shell after shell passed over their heads like a meteor shower, whizzing out and heading straight for the enemy position.

The moment the shell landed, the whole earth was shaking, and the flames of the explosion dyed half of the sky blood red.

The huge shock wave and flying soil fragments swept over. Although they were at a safe distance, the violent force was still frightening.

With the Hermes heavy particle cannon's ground salvo as a signal, the orbital attack ship's tactical ground missiles kicked off the prelude to firepower preparation.

Next, the coalition forces' more than 300 self-propelled artillery of various types distributed behind the attack surface began to send 155 and 203 mm programmed grenades to the opposite position at an average rate of 15-18 rounds per minute.

At the same time, the main battle tanks and multi-legged vehicles equipped with 120 and 155 mm straight and curved dual-purpose electrothermal chemical guns on the offensive front also began to carry out supplementary firepower strikes.

High-explosive bombs, assault bombs, terminal-sensitive bombs, and cluster bombs, the coalition self-propelled artillery units used various methods to project various types of ammunition onto the bound coordinates.

The vehicles and engineering machinery used to assist the self-propelled artillery continued to transport ammunition and helped some self-propelled artillery with problems to replace the entire barrel module.

In 30 minutes of fire preparation time, the coalition ground forces alone fired more than 200,000 shells at the opposite side, not to mention that the Hermes also completed two orbital strikes, and the orbital attack ship also dropped hundreds of missiles.

In another parallel world, in Operation Michael in 1918, the German army assembled 6,000 artillery pieces for fire preparation, but it was converted to only 320,000 shells in half an hour.

Their target was the 13 infantry divisions of the British Fifth Army on the front line.

The target of the coalition attack was just a few thousand remnants of the Star Dragon Empire Expeditionary Force.

"Maybe this can be considered a kind of military progress? After the industrial manufacturing capacity has reached a new height, the God of War is still not old enough to retire?"

Amber in the HCP cockpit looked at the fire preparation report sent by the headquarters. At this point in time, he could only make such a comparison in his mind.

When the soldiers of the coalition looked at the positions on the opposite side that had been flooded by artillery fire, they might be glad that such artillery fire did not fall on their heads.

And the imperial troops on the outer defense line of the city were completely unable to think in the artillery fire.

Although at the moment when the coalition fire preparation began, most of the soldiers and equipment on the positions had already withdrawn to the second line of defense and the rear of the city's large buildings in accordance with the combat regulations.

But there are still many company and platoon-level troops that were written off on the positions as a whole.

The soldiers who were lucky enough to withdraw to the second line of defense were fortunate to see the largest ground artillery preparation in recent decades-after all, in the previous low-intensity battles, this level of artillery bombardment was not needed.

The earth was shaking and the air was burning.

Every shell that exploded on the battlefield was like an invisible giant hand, ruthlessly tearing at our defense line.

Especially those special assault shells, which turned the solid semi-permanent fortifications into dust.

The artillery fire was like a torrential rain, dense and fierce, almost suffocating.

The beams that fell straight down from the sky were like a divine punishment that destroyed the world, melting everything near the landing point.

Although the imperial soldiers were wearing combat exoskeletons and hiding in combat vehicles or bunkers protected by armor and overpressure explosion-proof layers, the artillery preparation, like a Vulcan forging hammer, still left them with psychological trauma.

Even though the exoskeleton's microphone had already reduced noise to the highest level, it was still difficult for the soldiers to hear the shouts of their teammates on the radio channel.

They could only use their elbows and knees as support, curl up as much as possible, and pray to the Dragon God that the next shell would not fall on their heads.

The half-hour artillery preparation time was like a year for the soldiers on both sides.

In the final stage of the artillery preparation, the mechanized troops of the coalition rushed out from their hiding places and quickly completed the deployment of the battle formation with the posture of "heavy armored units in front, light armored units, and armored transport vehicles on the side and rear".

Hundreds of HCPs also rushed out from their respective hiding places, surpassing the coalition armored forces at a faster speed and rushing towards the outer defense line of the city.

The fastest "spearhead" among them was the HCP company directly under the brigade led by Amber and the five test machines of ATT.

16 HCPs were arranged in a standard "arrow cluster" assault formation, and almost at the same time as the last 155 shell exploded, they stepped onto the first line of defense.

When the imperial soldiers and combat vehicles, urged by the officers, rushed to the first line of defense that was almost flattened in front at the moment of the shelling.

But what greeted them was a volley of heavy particle cannons on the position.

"What's going on? Why are we being attacked by our own position?"

This thought only appeared in the minds of several multi-legged tank drivers for a moment, and the next second they and the vehicles under them were vaporized by the surging heavy metal particle jet.

"The enemy's vanguard HCP has boarded the first line of defense! Repeat, the enemy's HCP has boarded the first line of defense! Where is our Titan?!"

The roar of the front-line officer echoed in the communication channel. He watched his men attacking the steel giant that was wreaking havoc on the position with individual anti-vehicle missiles in vain.

But the missile was detonated by the close-in defense laser in mid-air, followed by several large-caliber high-speed piercing rods fired by electromagnetic rifles, covering the launching team just now.

When the smoke and dust cleared, only some equipment and limbs that had been shattered remained in place.

While the imperial officer was cursing the friendly HCP, he rushed towards an anti-vehicle missile on the ground nearby.

A sharp sonic boom sounded from behind him. He didn't even have time to look back before he felt a behemoth flying over his head and rolling up a frenzy of wake.

A silver-white fanatic, in the dazzling blue light of the plasma propulsion array, wielded a heavy sword and rushed straight towards the coalition HCP.

The timing of this attack was clever. The coalition HCP had not even had time to turn its gun around before the Empire's fanatics had already approached it.

But just as the heavy sword was about to strike, a dark red HCP smashed a shattered building next to it, and in a flying rubble and smoke, it used a heavy shield flashing with arcs to hit the side of the fanatic fiercely.

At the moment when the two steel giants collided, the officer who had become a bystander even felt that he saw a visible shock wave spreading.

The pilot in the cockpit of the fanatic who was knocked away unexpectedly felt that his eyes went black. He didn't even have time to adjust his posture before he saw the blue plasma blade tearing open the armor outside the cockpit.

The nearby imperial officers never expected that the HCP, who was highly expected by their own side, would be pierced through the cockpit by this dark red HCP at just a glance.

However, he didn't have time to think about it. While he subconsciously hid behind the building next to him, two consecutive sonic booms came from behind him. The two Zealots that came to support him passed over his head again, and then disappeared between the nearby buildings in the fight with the other two HCPs.

The imperial officer slowly sat down on the ground against the wall of the building behind him. On his command interface, two-thirds of the people in his platoon were marked with red crosses.

The remaining soldiers were not only scattered everywhere, but each of them was marked with light yellow or dark yellow, which meant that they were injured to varying degrees.

This was just the beginning of the battle, and his platoon had already lost its combat effectiveness.

"Isn't this just the beginning?"

The officer was immediately confused, but the voice from the radio pulled him back from a moment of trance.

"Lieutenant Ram! We are here to support you!"

Hearing the voice, Ram followed the guidance of the 'out-of-sight unit indicator arrow' on the tactical visor HUD and looked to his left.

On the street across the intersection, a heavy multi-legged pacifier chariot was coming over here with about a platoon of infantry.

He stood up and was about to say something to the friendly troops who came to support him, when he saw a huge "crawler"-like figure appear on the first position on the right that originally belonged to the imperial army.

"Don't come over! Hide quickly"

Before he could finish his words, the turret of the pacifier who had just walked out of the street was pierced by a tungsten alloy rod, and the huge kinetic energy almost tore the turret of this heavy multi-legged chariot apart.

In the flames of the burning chariot, several anti-personnel anti-personnel bombs fired by electrothermal chemical bombs also exploded at the street.

The flying shrapnel quickly knocked down the mobile infantry accompanying the pacifier, and Lieutenant Ram also felt as if his neck was stung hard.

He raised his hand to touch his neck, but found that the silicon carbide neck guard had been broken, and the blood gushing from the carotid artery flowed all over the tactical gloves and arm armor.

While falling to the ground, Lieutenant Ram stared at the smoke-filled sky in a daze, his mouth kept making a "ho ho" sound, and his vocal cords cut by shrapnel struggled to form his last words.

"Isn't this just the beginning?"