Chapter 380: Rebuilding the Glory of Torpedoes
"The first round of heavy particle cannon fire is over. The scheduled fire target is 15, 13 are sunk, and 2 lose combat capability. The tactical goal has been achieved and we can enter the next stage!"
In the cockpit of the MA-01 heavy armored combat boat, the combat support AI Aurora is reporting the results of the first round of attacks to Jacob in a sweet voice.
Although she is just a combat support AI and does not have an emotional module, in Jacob's eyes, 'Aurora' is like his soulmate and partner.
So after hearing Aurora's report, Jacob even nodded as if he was talking to other people, and then opened the formation tactical communication.
"The first phase of the goal is completed! The battle continues!
Deep Sea Fish Squadron and Sea King Squadron began to attack. Heavy particle cannons can fire freely, but the plasma torpedoes focus on the enemy's main battleships!
Run after the fight, don't fight!"
"Received!" ×2
The heavy armored combat boats that emerged from the darkness were like hunters with fangs bared at this moment, lighting up the large propulsion arrays behind them. The relative speed, which was not low to begin with, has increased sharply.
Their sudden appearance from the back hemisphere of the fleet's combat alert circle also caused the 13th Fleet of the Federal Navy to panic for a moment.
Especially the escort formation responsible for air defense operations on the periphery, which fell into chaos after the air defense command ship was sunk by concentrated fire.
The captains of the warships didn't know whether they should continue to attack with the main force and clear the anti-ship missiles and plasma torpedoes in front of the fleet, or turn around to deal with these suddenly appearing enemies.
Originally, these tasks should be coordinated by a destroyer in the escort formation that was designated as an "air defense command ship".
But as this destroyer was "lucky" to be the target of the first round of attack, and "lucky" to have its fusion reactor blown up in the salvo of five twin-mounted heavy particle cannons, the allocation of these tasks also came to a standstill for a while.
Jacob, who had fought against the Imperial Guerrilla Fleet many times on the route of Pyra IV, was now an experienced commander of heavy armored combat boats.
As the person who is most familiar with the combat of this type of unit in the world, he keenly sensed this once-in-a-lifetime attack opportunity.
The speed of the heavy armored combat boats of the two squadrons suddenly increased, and at the same time, they quickly dispersed in groups of three boats.
They were flying all over the sky, shuttling flexibly under the anti-aircraft firepower of the escort formation. Even if they were occasionally hit by lasers or charged particle beams, it was no big deal for the heavy-armored high-speed predators.
The acceleration track of the twin-mounted heavy particle cannon quickly cooled down during forced cooling. Although this would reduce the service life of the acceleration track, it would not affect the tactical advantage brought by rapid firing in battle.
Soon, a total of 20 combat teams under the two attack squadrons, as well as the independent command team where Jacob was, launched the second round of salvos.
In terms of the target selection of the heavy particle cannon, all teams chose the weakly protected destroyers and frigates without hesitation.
Although almost all the ships of the 13th Fleet now exposed their large sides to Jacob and his men, these pilots knew that the heavy particle cannons equipped by the heavy armored combat boats were only as powerful as frigates at best.
It was okay to use it to attack the escort formation, but it might be a bit stretched if it was used to attack heavy cruisers and battleships with thicker armor.
The heavy metal particle jets can indeed tear open their armor, but the complex cabin structures and higher-level damage control inside these warships make them have a relatively high damage redundancy when facing the attack of low-power heavy particle cannons.
At the same time, the heavy armored combat boats' assault at this moment is never for damage, but for sinking. Jacob and his men need to sink as many enemy ships as possible to reduce the pressure on the main fleet to meet the enemy.
As the light of the heavy particle cannons lit up again, a series of fireballs exploded on the periphery of the federal fleet, and the fleet command module once again marked a group of destroyers and frigates with red crosses representing "sinking".
The biggest "weakness" of the two sides of contemporary naval ships, which are relatively fragile, can be said to be fully exposed at this moment.
Since human space warships abandoned the traditional rotating turrets and changed the main guns to "axis guns" arranged on the axis of the warships, the battles of human naval units have become a "head-to-head" form.
The design ideas of all warship designers have become to install enough firepower projection points and protection on the front projection as much as possible under a limited budget.
This is why in a fleet battle, the two warring fleets will be entangled and perform a "two-person show" in a head-to-head manner, because both sides want to bite the other side's "six points" while protecting their own "six points".
As the salvo of heavy particle cannons ended, the heavy armored combat boats also rushed into the formation of the federal fleet under the anti-aircraft firepower.
At this point, the air defense operations of the escort formation became more difficult, because they had to prevent friendly fire while attacking
The ship-borne HCPs carried by each warship were basically ejected at this time and began to assist in air defense and interception, but for the heavy armored combat boats, they were also targets of attack.
In this way, when the attack teams approached the main ship of the 13th Fleet and fired the plasma torpedoes mounted in the magazine under the hull, the fleet commander, Vice Admiral Guterres, had never thought of a scene that appeared.
Heavy cruisers or battleships were constantly hit by plasma torpedoes, and the most fatal side was hit. Nearly a hundred huge plasma fireballs appeared inside the fleet formation.
Since they did not slow down during the attack, and even occasionally accelerated, the two heavy armored combat boat squadrons commanded by Jacob quickly penetrated the federal fleet and sailed away.
The price of the three combat boats being shot down was the result of sinking 24 heavy cruisers, 2 battleships, and severely damaging another 4 battleships.
From the cost and exchange ratio alone, this can no longer be described as a bloody profit.
But this is just the beginning.
Before Vice Admiral Guterres and others recovered from this round of attacks, the voice of the tactical information coordinator sounded again as if urging death.
And this time, there was a hint of fear in his voice.
"Report, a large number of unidentified units have been detected in the fleet's rear hemisphere, with optical and infrared characteristics similar to plasma torpedoes, at a distance of 2,700 kilometers, a relative speed of 82 kilometers per second, and a number of .1642!"
When he heard this, Guterres was completely stunned.
He had never thought that such a situation would occur. This was completely different from all the battles he had experienced before, and it could be said that there was weirdness everywhere.
The tactics of the Atlas fleet can only be said to be unprecedented. As a fleet commander, Guterres had never expected that there would be such a large number of plasma torpedoes in such a fatal position.
But the current battle did not give him time to think about these issues carefully. He could only rely on instinct to order the fleet to disperse urgently and let the fleet behind adjust the axis by 180° to shoot down as many torpedoes as possible.
But such an order was still a step late after all.
The estimated hit time of more than 30 seconds was not enough time for the rear fleet to complete the turning and air attack.
After the seeker detected the extremely obvious infrared signal of the warship's propulsion array, these new plasma torpedoes with stealth configuration and coated with wave-absorbing materials also turned on their thrusters for the second time, and rushed towards their respective locked targets while continuing to accelerate.
After the plasma warhead hit the plasma propulsion array, the high-temperature plasma that lost its restraint instantly turned into a huge plasma fireball, instantly engulfing the rear section of the warship.
The "combination punch" formed by high temperature + electromagnetic thermal effect + electromagnetic vortex irrationally tore the titanium alloy frame of the warship and melted all the meltable materials.
Such an attack obviously exceeded the limit that any warship's damage control system could cope with, so the synchronous attack of more than 1,600 plasma torpedoes directly set off extremely spectacular "cosmic fireworks" in the formation of the 13th Fleet.