Chapter 537 True Red Lightning & Red Baron

Chapter 537 True Red Lightning & Red Baron

The combat support AI of the Holy Shield quickly marked the position of the current communication target on the full-circle screen.

Johnny Riding tilted his head slightly in this direction, and the second-generation head main monitor of the body immediately turned over and quickly captured the corresponding target - a red-painted MA-01B block 5 heavy armored combat boat.

This is the vehicle of Manfred, the Red Baron.

He was also ejected from the heavy cruiser "Sun Reward", and he was leading his team to surpass the HCP in front at a faster acceleration, and soon caught up with Johnny Riding and others who set off earlier.

After hearing the voice of his friend in the communication channel, Johnny Riding's nervous nerves, which were a little nervous because of his first participation in a space battle, also relaxed a lot.

Johnny Laiding looked back to the front and said:

"Hey, the driver is here. How many people can you take this time?"

"Not more, not less, just enough for one team to pack up and take away~"

At the same time as Manfred's voice came from the communication channel, Johnny Laiding's HCP team also received a "coordinated advancement" application from the heavy armored combat boat team.

"Then we won't be polite. The "True Red Lightning" team is ready for "coordinated advancement" docking!"

As Johnny Laiding's order was issued, the four fully equipped Holy Shields, including him, also slightly opened up some distance. After everyone agreed to the "coordinated advancement" application, the four heavy armored combat boats behind also accelerated and flew up.

Soon, these high-speed predators on the battlefield "docilely" came to the bottom of the four Holy Shields, and the latter's full-circle screen quickly displayed the auxiliary docking page and instructions.

With the help of the auxiliary page, the fully equipped Holy Shield and the heavy armored combat boat completed a one-to-one correspondence and entered a relatively static state.

Then, the two mechanical arms of the Holy Shield grasped the raised handles on the heavy armored battleship and locked them.

Then, the entire body was attached to the upper part of the heavy armored battleship in a posture similar to lying down, and the knees and feet of the body were also combined and locked with the interfaces at the corresponding positions on the heavy armored battleship.

"Docking and locking are completed, and the control authority of the main propulsion array of the body is shared with the 'partner battleship'!"

The voice of the combat auxiliary AI sounded, and Johnny Laiding looked down. The Holy Shield he was driving had completed the docking with Manfred's battleship. Under the armor plate in front of him was Manfred's cockpit.

"Manfred, it's up to you and your team. Lead us through! At the last distance, I will bring people to escort you and kill a way out!"

Johnny Laiding said loudly in the communication channel, and Manfred's answer was also very simple. He pushed the throttle of the heavy armored battleship to the top, and with the additional control of the Holy Shield's main propulsion array, the sudden burst of thrust almost bounced the battleship out.

His teammates in the same team were very compatible with him in terms of strength and tacit understanding, so they started to advance at full speed very synchronously, and the whole team continued to maintain the diagonal formation and rushed towards the target.

Behind them, more and more ejected HCPs quickly docked with heavy armored combat boats, and finally turned into assault formations that passed the position of the Infinity and followed closely.

At present, these heavy armored combat boats in the Third Combined Fleet have been upgraded from the earliest MA-01 to the latest model of MA-01B block5.

The biggest difference between the improved model and the "basic version", in addition to the more stable power unit and weapon unit and greater comprehensive thrust, is the integration of a system called "cooperative propulsion".

As the name suggests, this thing can allow the HCP produced by Atlas to temporarily dock with the heavy armored combat boat, and then, with the integration of the dual-machine thrust, the combat boat can carry the HCP and rush into the battlefield at a faster speed.

This system can be said to have solved the two problems of "heavy armored combat boats lacking cover in melee" and "HCPs are easily disconnected from combat boat units during the advance".

And this battle is also the "first show" of this system in actual combat.

While the HCPs and heavy armored combat boat squadrons of each ship attacked on all decks according to Randall's order, and launched an attack on the Rubion Galaxy garrison fleet after completing the "combination", the warships of the Third Task Force also began to attack.

Under Randall's order, the "Infinity" and all other warships switched to conventional combat mode. In the first and second rounds of long-range attacks, they chose to fire the electromagnetic reconnection guns of the entire ship.

However, this time they did not use the most common heavy anti-ship piercing rod, but another more countermeasure ammunition-AHEAD bomb, which is a cluster directional prefabricated fragmentation bomb.

The massive AHEAD shells fired by the entire fleet in two rounds of salvos turned into countless orange-red ballistics and disappeared in front of the fleet. According to the calculation of the fleet gunnery officer, these two rounds of salvos fired according to the calculated lead time will just cover the position of the garrison fleet in a few minutes.

"Let them intercept slowly. It would be best if they can be fooled~" After hearing the fleet gunnery officer report that the salvo was over, Randall nodded and continued:

"The entire fleet is ready to execute a salvo of heavy particle cannons from all gun ports. The timing of the salvo is controlled by the fleet gunnery officer!"

"Yes, sir!"

The fleet gunnery officer returned his attention to his workstation, and then put a helmet on his head.

Soon, the bridge of the Infinity disappeared from his vision, replaced by this icy space and the surrounding battleships of the Third Task Force.

On the frames marking these battleships, the green icons representing 'firing preparations completed' gradually lit up and joined together, and they all completed firing preparations in more than ten seconds.

The fleet gunnery officer who confirmed this did not hesitate to issue the tactical order of "full salvo of heavy particle cannons" to each ship.

In an instant, the universe, which had just been illuminated by the purifying beam and then gradually extinguished, was lit up again by the salvo of heavy particle cannons.

Everyone on the bridge only felt a flash of light outside the portholes, and couldn't help but close their eyes. When they opened their eyes again, there were still countless 'afterimages' of blue and white light beams on their retinas.

A distance of 20,000 kilometers, for a heavy metal particle jet with one percent of the speed of light, takes less than seven seconds to fly. Coupled with the fleet's gunnery officer's 'preview', this heavy metal particle jet will not be able to break through. Unexpectedly swept the flank of the garrison fleet.

It only took more than two minutes from the moment they were attacked to the position where they were hit by the heavy particle cannon salvo. During this time, Major General Kimmel had already realized that they were being attacked by surprise and issued an order to turn to meet the enemy.

But for this huge and fully equipped fleet, it is completely impossible to complete the turn of the entire fleet under such circumstances.

Except for some captains with more flexible minds, who have already commanded the warship to complete the axial adjustment in advance to prepare for the enemy, most of the other captains have just begun to command the steering according to Kimmel's order.

Although these warships did not care about the personnel at the bow and stern of the ship at this time, they may have red vision or even faint due to the violent steering, and tried desperately to face the enemy with the front of the warship, but it was still a step too late.

The surging jet of heavy metal particles immediately set off a spectacular 'fireworks' in the Lubion Galaxy garrison fleet.

In a fleet battle, it is a very terrifying thing to be strafed by the enemy's superior formation on one's flanks. Amber also emphasized this to Randall many times, but Randall did not fully understand this point at the time.

But now, Randall finally realized what Amber meant by 'horror'.

In the image synthesized from the observation results of optical, infrared, and synthetic aperture radar, a large number of warships in the Lubion system garrison fleet, including many capital ships, were interrupted by this salvo.

Those battleships that were hit by fusion furnaces or superconducting battery stacks exploded and immediately turned into a huge high-temperature plasma fireball.

Coupled with the three previous rounds of strafing conducted by the Infinity with its super-heavy purification beam generator, the combat intelligence team speculated that one-third of the warships in the garrison fleet may have been completely sunk in just a few minutes, and the remaining Nearly half of the units in the battleship are injured.

Such damage greatly exceeded Randall's pre-war predictions for the first round of strikes.

However, this 'fleet battle command novice' did not take this lightly, but immediately realized that this was an excellent opportunity. An opportunity to complete the tactical goal of 'quickly annihilating the enemy'.

"Pass my order, the entire fleet begins to slow down and maintain bombardment, Infinity! The battle module is deployed! Prepare for a wide-area electronic warfare attack!"

On the other side, on the ‘Balkaner’, the flagship of the Lubion System Guard Fleet, Major General Kimmel finally recovered from the panic caused by the enemy’s sudden attack.

When he had just given the order to 'turn the entire fleet to face the enemy', he had already realized that he had been tricked by the Atlas fleet, allowing the opponent to complete a beautiful 'tactical deception'.

However, he never expected that his own fleet would suffer such losses in the opponent's first round of attacks.

But no matter what, things have happened and the battle has begun, so Kimmel knows that there is only one way left for him now - to calm down and direct the battle, and try to complete the reversal in a desperate situation.

"Report! A large number of high-speed flying units have been detected. The personality of the shipboard controller is determined to be electromagnetic reconnection cannon fire. The number is 3392!"

Although the information reported by the Tactical Information Coordinator made Kimmel a little confused as to why the other party started attacking with electromagnetic guns from such a long distance, he had no time to think about it at this moment and could only order according to the standard disposal procedure:

"Each ship begins air defense operations! All HCP squadrons attack to coordinate defense!"