Chapter 928, Air Raid
Chapter 928, Air Raid
The human air force's operations were quite effective.
They had three missions in this operation, and they accomplished them all exceptionally well.
First, we need to seize air superiority, but not completely. After all, it would be too much to ask to defeat those Abyss Dragons and Demon Engine-powered aircraft, which are unable to take off even while being intercepted and attacked by the enemy's ground-based air defenses.
However, having enough air superiority is sufficient.
The core objective is to complete the two tasks that follow once we have gained a certain degree of control over the skies.
The second task is bombing, which is to relieve pressure on the human defenders on the ground through ground attacks.
The task was completed quite well.
However, the Alliance's air force did not directly bomb the Chaos forces that were attacking the human defenses.
To be honest, those Chaos troops weren't actually putting the most pressure on the Alliance's defenses.
The greatest pressure actually comes from the relentless attacks and the chaotic artillery fire bombarding from the rear.
The air force is focusing its strikes on these two items.
The former represents the starting point of the Chaos forces' attack position, which is located slightly behind the enemy lines.
In war, troops are never thrown all at once to the front lines. Insufficient attack width and overly dense formations not only have limited impact on attack efficiency but also make the troops extremely vulnerable. A single shot is an area-of-effect attack, and anyone standing in the middle will die. There is absolutely no benefit to being too densely packed.
However, they must maintain constant offensive intensity and apply continuous pressure to the human forces. This requires reserves to immediately replace the troops that have withdrawn from the front lines. In this way, units that have consumed a lot of ammunition and suffered heavy casualties can be rotated and reorganized, while the pressure on the front lines remains constant due to the deployment of new, fully-equipped troops. The human side, with fewer troops, cannot have the same opportunity for rest and will only face increasing pressure until the balance is completely broken, they cannot withstand the pressure, and their defenses collapse.
Once these positions are destroyed one by one, the entire defensive line will collapse.
The air force is currently targeting these reserve forces.
The bombing began just as a reserve force from Chaos was preparing to provide support and replacement.
The machine gun's ground strafing is one aspect, although it is quite threatening. If a large-caliber machine gun hits, it can even penetrate the power armor of a Space Marine; if an ordinary person is hit, they will be completely destroyed; even a tank, after being swept back and forth by the machine gun for a couple of rounds, will be riddled with bullet holes and unable to move...
The greater power comes from the ground-to-ground missiles launched from large fighter jets of the Qilin or even the Longxiang class.
A single scalpel missile, if it hits squarely, is enough to destroy a Titan; a Sky-Splitter missile, if it lands, would wipe out an entire armored company if they were too close together and hadn't spread out in formation; and if it were a Dongfeng Incinerator...
Only a very small number of Dragon-Elephant fighter jets were equipped with this. The Dongfeng-Fen missile is too large. Once equipped with the Dongfeng-Fen, even the largest Dragon-Elephant fighter jets capable of operating within the atmosphere would be unable to carry anything else, essentially depleting their combat power.
But worth it.
If a single blast of wind were to hit, the entire chaotic starting position would be wiped out.
Currently, only one East Wind Burn was fired at the Chaos army's attack positions, which directly saved five positions that were originally on the verge of collapse, destroyed three Titans, killed more than seventy Chaos Space Marines, and countless other Chaos forces.
The other two Dongfeng Incendiary missiles were fired at another significant target posing a major threat to the Alliance's defenses: the Chaos Artillery positions. Artillery is the king of war, and that statement remains true even today.
Simply put, war is about delivering effective killings to the enemy. If naval guns could be used for rail bombardment, that would be ideal. But without that capability, artillery remains irreplaceable when considering ground forces alone.
Artillery is the most common, cheapest, most scalable, and most sustainable means.
The most difficult point for the human defenders was that they were constantly being bombed in the head.
Although the human side also has artillery, its numbers are far fewer than those of the enemy, making it difficult to counterattack and providing insufficient support to the front lines. Even so, being able to call in a round of artillery to cover the attacking enemy is enough to give them a much-needed respite.
Now, two Dongfeng Fireballs have almost destroyed two of the most important Chaos Artillery positions.
Chaos's firepower was immediately reduced!
Almost all artillery positions have ceased fire.
It wasn't that they were all bombed. The destroyed artillery pieces represented less than half of the Chaos artillery. After all, the Chaos wouldn't be foolish enough to gather all their artillery together for convenience. However, they were still worried about whether the Alliance fighters still had any Dongfeng-class destroyers left to fire.
Even if it weren't for the East Wind Burning, a few more Sky-Splitting Axes would still be terrifying.
Emergency evacuation began at various artillery positions in order to rebuild more, more dispersed, and smaller positions to reduce losses from the air raids.
Zakaria was furious.
"You forced me to do this!"
Enraged, the White Wolf King issued orders to his fleet.
Originally, he was worried that the orbital bombardment of the ground by the ship's guns would affect the 'thing' under the church, but now that the human side has done so, he will not hold back.
Directly bombarding the church and its surrounding core areas is out of the question; if it were destroyed, it would be disastrous. However, after careful calculation, bombarding the surrounding outer positions with relatively smaller amounts of naval fire is feasible.
However, the defensive forces deployed by the human side for these outer positions were not particularly heavy. They were often just a small position or a small hill, defended by a company of ordinary soldiers. While firing one or a few naval cannon shots could help the Chaos Warriors quickly capture the positions, their contribution to completely destroying the human defenses was relatively limited.
Zakaria had to reluctantly admit that to end the battle, he would have to rely on ground troops to fight it out.
He took a deep breath and told himself to be patient.
The situation is still under control; they are gradually eroding humanity's defenses. Those henchmen of the false emperor won't last long.
Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly heard the sound of gunfire not far away.
Stepping out of the command center, he saw several human fighter jets swirling down from the sky—they had been shot down.
Meanwhile, an equal number of human fighter jets were circling and firing downwards.
They appear to be covering for some objective.
Squinting, Zakaria realized that someone had come looking for him.
(End of this chapter)
