Chapter 72 The Task Force Begins to Enter the Battlefield

Since the position of the Marquis of Ascania was not far from the bridge, he and Raphael returned to the bridge not long after the warning sounded.

"Captain has arrived at the bridge!"

After seeing the Marquis enter the bridge, the first mate stood up from the second seat and saluted.

The Marquis nodded without any nonsense, and sat directly on the captain's seat with dragon wing sculptures.

"What is the situation now?"

"Sir, the space collapse warning terminal we deployed three minutes ago detected the space collapse phenomenon, and the mass detector of the outer reconnaissance ship also detected abnormal mass growth."

A combat staff officer on duty on the bridge reported the situation while opening the virtual star map and marking the corresponding area.

"This time, no other friendly units reported the space collapse phenomenon in advance, so we initially judged that it should be a certain fleet of the Federation that is leaving the jump. At present, the captain's wave radar and composite reconnaissance unit of each ship are searching the target airspace."

Hearing the report of the combat staff, the Marquis of Ascania fell into thought.

The jump of one or two warships will not trigger the mass detector of the reconnaissance ship, causing it to issue a warning of "abnormal mass growth".

To achieve this level of mass growth, at least a squadron is required.

And the friendly forces cannot fail to report the jump of the squadron, so the fleet that appears at this juncture can only come from the Federation.

Based on the assumption derived from this inference, the Marquis believes that no matter how incompetent the commander of the Federation's fleet is, he will not be stupid enough to use the strength of a squadron to attack their main fleet.

Therefore, the size of the opponent's fleet should not be much smaller than theirs, and at least there will be several main battleships.

"Pass my order, the fleet enters combat status, stops orbital operations and recalls all orbital attack ships!"

Marquis Ascania grasped the dragon claw decoration on the armrest of the captain's seat with his right hand, and ordered loudly:

"Except for the outer reconnaissance fleet to maintain surveillance of the target area, other fleets should gather immediately."

"The ships in Lansford Port stop cracking the space elevator and immediately implement the emergency departure procedure. This ship and other ships in the fleet begin to maneuver to the port to cover them until they complete the rendezvous."

Speaking of this, the Marquis looked at the Lansford Military Port in the distance through the 'panoramic porthole' and couldn't help sighing.

He thought of the time when he led the main fleet of the 8th Expeditionary Strike Group to launch a surprise attack on Lansford Military Port, and the federal garrison fleet also hurried out of the port to fight.

"It's really a matter of time"

As Marquis Ascania issued the order, the bridge lights of the Dawn Sword dimmed, and at the same time, the combat command center below the bridge immediately transmitted the combat order to the surrounding ships through the data link.

And use them as "signal relay stations" to radiate combat orders to the entire fleet.

The Imperial warships that were originally dispersed on the synchronous orbit of Robert IV lit up the plasma propulsion arrays at the tail one after another, and began to gather like a school of fish in the deep sea under the propulsion of the faint blue light.

The laminated armor was quickly lowered on the outside of the side windows of each ship and entered combat status.

The Imperial battleships and heavy cruisers in Lansford Port started the emergency departure procedure as soon as they received the combat order.

After disconnecting from the port and restoring the full computing power of the shipboard control personality, the helmsmen of some heavy cruisers showed superb and bold skills. They even completed a 180° U-turn while leaving the berth.

These steel behemoths weighing hundreds of thousands to millions of tons, under the auxiliary control of the shipboard control personality, kept sailing out of the port at an extremely dangerous distance of hundreds of meters.

It was like a venomous snake that ended its hibernation and slowly poked its head out of the cave.

Just as the Marquis of Ascania was looking at the fleet's assembly progress slowly rising on the command terminal, thinking about how to respond next.

The voice of the tactical information coordinator sounded in the bridge through the amplifier:

"Long-wave radar found the target!"

The attention of everyone on the bridge was attracted at this moment.

"At 116 degrees from the North Pole of the Celestial Sphere, 32 degrees from the ecliptic, and 20 degrees from the angle of the ecliptic plane, traces of an unknown fleet were found!"

The ultra-high-power long-wave radar equipped by the reconnaissance ship found a fleet that had ended the jump in the previous rounds of continuous frequency hopping scanning.

But when the scanning continued, the opponent's trace was lost. It was obvious that this fleet immediately turned on the radar wave cancellation after detecting the radar wave.

Although the tactical information coordinator reported the 'unknown fleet', everyone on the bridge knew that this was a federal fleet.

"Humph, a dogmatic and rigid response"

The Marquis of Ascania snorted disdainfully.

In a single ship or small-scale fleet battle, since both sides will use optical camouflage, there is nothing wrong with adopting the strategy of radar wave cancellation to conceal themselves.

But in a fleet-scale confrontation, this is purely unnecessary.

As long as the approximate position is confirmed by a round of long-wave radar scanning, a large number of reconnaissance ships in the fleet will scan this area through composite reconnaissance units.

And the warships in the background of the universe, not to mention the heat they emit themselves, the infrared characteristics of the plasma propulsion array and the heat sink are obvious.

Not to mention that a fleet that had just completed a jump and gathered together was as conspicuous as a pile of fire in the dark night under infrared and ultraviolet observation equipment.

Therefore, in the large-scale fleet battles that had been carried out in the past, the two sides of the battle almost discovered the position of the other side at the same time, and then continued to test and approach, and finally started boring shooting after entering the combat distance.

The judgment of the Marquis was not wrong. Not long after the long-wave radar lost the trace of the other side, the infrared observation equipment recaptured the target.

On the main screen of the floating projection in the center of the bridge, a bunch of densely packed long strips of heat sources were presented on the converted infrared image.

At the same time, the voice of the tactical information coordinator sounded again:

"Coordinate data updated!

The celestial north pole is 116 degrees and 02 minutes, the ecliptic is 32 degrees and 01 minutes, the angle of the ecliptic plane is 20 degrees and 01 minutes, the straight-line distance is 125038 kilometers, and the infrared and optical reconnaissance units have captured the target fleet, with a number of 89!

The infrared characteristics are compared with the database data and it is determined to be a federal fleet.

The number of giant demon battleships is 7, the number of Hydra heavy cruisers is 29, the number of jackdaw destroyers is 36, and the number of other frigates is "

The face of the Marquis changed for the first time. He did not expect that this suddenly appeared federal fleet would reach such a scale.

On the other side, the report of the tactical information coordinator continued.

"The relative speed between the enemy and us is 80 kilometers per second, and it is continuously increasing. It is expected to enter the combat distance in 18 minutes!"

The brows of the Marquis of Ascania frowned. He had roughly guessed the next move of this federal fleet.

Because the ships of the 8th Expeditionary Strike Group are basically parked near the space elevator.

Therefore, the opponent is likely to rely on the speed advantage after leaving the jump to quickly pass through and conduct a raid.

This is also a common tactic used by the weaker party after gaining a speed advantage when the strength of the two sides is unbalanced.

After thinking for a moment, the Marquis calmly issued an order.

"We have lost the initiative, Raphael, order the squadron to speed up the assembly speed and start organizing the fleet defense operations at the same time!"

"Yes, sir!"