The ultimate goal of this ambitious assault was to ruin the Gauge Dynasty's economic and industrial ambitions in the Red Ocean.
It was for this reason that the Hexers wanted to ruin all of the buildup on Pima Pri V. They would never feel they had succeeded in this attack unless they directly turned all of the factories and cities of the busy trading planet into smoking ruins!
The Gauge Dynasty wouldn't make it easy. The military planners and analysts all expected the Gaugers to make their stand just before the invading fleet reached the doorstep of Pima Pri V.
Making a stand on the surface of the planet was unacceptable because the collateral damage of hundreds of thousands of chs exchanging fire or crashing into each other was too great!
It was in the best interest of the defenders to fight as far away from the planet as possible, but they could not go too far or else they would give the attackers too much room for maneuver.
General Verle transmitted a silent command that gave his audience a clearer view of the imdiate orbital area around Pima Pri V!
A loose ring of artificial satellites spun around the planet. When the view zood in even further, it beca abundantly clear that many of these tal constructions were military in nature.
An entire array of orbital space stations and defensive platforms had practically turned its near orbit into a space trench!
While it was still easy enough to bypass this defensive line and land troops onto the surface, any carrier vessel that attempted to do so would likely be pelted by a lot of attacks from different directions!
The only way to reasonably transport a massive amount of chs to the surface was to smash this orbital defense network first!
As long as the string of fortified space stations and defensive platforms got cleaned up, it not only beca easy to dispatch a lot of chs to the ground, but also bombard a lot of cities and critical sites from orbit!
Even though the defenses on the ground were not light, it was a bit too much to expect these static defenses to repel an entire invasion force consisting of at least 100,000 chs!
"The Kosic Ring itself will not be easy to dismantle. The strongest points are the military space stations. They not only host a lot of powerful turrets, but are also protected by dium titan shields. Each of them require massed firepower in order to breach their defenses and neutralize all of their threatening aspects. Again, we do not necessarily need to be concerned about this arduous task because the Hex Army will take the lead in this assault."
General Verle pointed out the defensive platforms that were much smaller and weaker but also a lot more nurous.
"The defensive platforms built by the Gauge Dynasty are not that special. They are cheap, mass-produced constructs that essentially amount to free-floating armored laser turrets. However, their quantity along with their dispersed deploynt makes it quite difficult to clean them all up in a short amount of ti. As long as these defensive platforms keep firing their long-ranged laser cannons at our ships and our chs, they can deal a lot of damage over ti."
Many Larkinson ch pilots frowned. The defensive platforms might be cheap and not that high-tech, but each of them were covered by thick layers of cheap tallic armor plating.
Since these platforms weren't chs, there was no need for them to go on a diet!
No matter how much weight these bloated constructs put on, it was okay since their only job was to maintain a stationary orbit in space!
General Verle made the situation clear to everyone. "The fixed defenses of the Kosic Ring must be overco, but the Sundered Phalanx will make this task as difficult as possible. Unlike Pima Prima V-A which will probably be utilized as a speed bump, the orbital defense network will serve as the bulwark in which the Gaugers will make their stand."
He waved his hand, causing well over 140,000 chs to appear!
The scary part about all of these chs was that none of them looked like random machines that were randomly thrown together.
Many of them exhibited shared designs, shared colors and shared battle tactics!
"We can expect the Sundered Phalanx to deploy at least 14 complete ch divisions at the Kosic Ring. Each of them consist of around 10,000 spaceborn or multi-environntal military-grade chs. Many of them are veteran units from the Komodo War. The majority of Fridayn ch pilots have fought and lived through years of massive battles and enormous campaigns. Their piloting skills are solid and their psychological values are even more impressive. Each of them has extensive experience with dealing against suppressive glows, so don't expect them to fold so easily when we confront them with living chs."
Every decent Fridayman veteran from the Komodo War could no longer count the amount of tis they fought against Valkyrie chs.
Though the glow of the Valkyrie ch line had received a considerable boost in effectiveness when Helena took over from the Superior Mother as design spirit, the Fridayn had done their best to train their minds to overco their instinctual fears!
This especially applied to the troops of the Sundered Phalanx.
As the main military branch of the Gauge Dynasty, the Sundered Phalanx was the strongest and most well-funded military branch of the entire Friday Coalition!
General Verle did not look too worried, though.
"That said, while the ch divisions in Pima Pri have all been restored back to full strength, there are many rookies among them that have not gone through all of this fighting and tempering. I believe it will be fairly easy for you to distinguish them and pick them off with ease."
That still left a lot of chs piloted by battle-hardened veterans, though!
Many of the opposing ch pilots fought in at least ten tis as many battles as the Larkinsons!
The disparity shouldn't be too great, hopefully. The Hex Army had its own fair share of Komodo War veterans.
In addition, the Larkinson ch pilots spent thousands of hours inside the MSTS. They fought in all manner of highly realistic spiritual training scenarios that were not only hardly distinguishable from reality, but also stimulated them to a much greater degree than any virtual training programs!
There were still concerns that the gap between these MSTS-trained ch pilots and grizzled veterans in the service of the Sundered Phalanx was too great.
The only way to know for certain whether the ntal Simulation Training System could truly substitute actual battle was to test the Larkinson troops against their Fridayman counterparts!
General Verle grinned. "I happen to have another piece of good news to you. After thoroughly analyzing and confirming the intelligence on the different ch divisions, we can confirm that 8 of them still make use of outdated chs while only 6 of them are modernized."
"What do you an by that, sir?" Soone asked.
"Let show you a comparison between two ch divisions."
The view changed to display two large collections of Fridayman chs.
Each of them were formidable military ch models that were all designed by multiple Master ch Designers!
However, the more discerning among the attending ch pilots soon noticed a few clear differences between the groups of chs.
Verle pointed towards the collection of ch models on his left. "These are the chs utilized by the 2003rd dallion Guards. As you can see, most of them have a bit of heft to them. This is because the ch division is dedicated to spaceborn defensive battles, which is one of the reasons why the Gauge Dynasty has assigned them to this garrison. Now, do these ch models look new in your eyes?"
A lot of ch pilots shook their heads.
"That is because the Gauge Dynasty has transferred the entire ch division with all of their chs to the Red Ocean. While the Sundered Phalanx has drafted a plan to replace them all with more modern and more formidable heartland-level ch models, the tiline stretches well into the next decade. There aren't enough high-quality resources available in the Friday Colonies to fabricate so many military-grade chs. Rather than replacing their older military assets for newer ones, the Gaugers would much rather keep their old machines while steadily producing more new machines."
This was a clever sche. The Sundered Phalanx just had to ship over a lot more ch pilots that generally took up a lot less space on a starship.
Once they arrived at the Friday Colonies, these ch pilots would remain in reserve until the Gauge Dynasty finally built enough chs to raise a new ch division.
General Verle pointed to the collection of chs to his right.
"The 6161th Nidin Vergers is an example of a new ch division. While their martial traditions and ch doctrines are still immature, their chs are highly modern and considerably more formidable than the ones fielded by the dallion Guards. Each of them are recently designed with local materials and local technological standards in mind. The Nidin Vergers is a ch division that is ant to put up a good fight against foreign military units that might originate from the galactic heartland."
The threat posed by the Nidin Vergers was almost certainly higher than the dallion Guards!
The performance difference between the newer and older chs could reach as much as 20 or 30 percent!
Of course, a lot of variables such as the cost to produce the chs were different as well, so the comparisons weren't entirely fair.
Nonetheless, that did not change the fact that a considerable part of the defending troops were still stuck with using rim-level chs that had only received minor modifications and upgrades as best!
This was good news to the Larkinson ch pilots as the clan had made sure to supply them all with new or upgraded heartland-level chs without exception!
"What of the chs of the Hex Army, general? Are all of them heartland-level machines as well?"
"Good question. The Hexers have tried their best to pool as many modern chs in their attack force as they can, but don't expect any miracles. What I can tell you is that all of the living chs designed for the Hex Army are updated to current standards. This is especially the case with the newest batch of Hexer ch models that our ch designers have recently supplied to the Hexers. You can expect each of them to be as strong as our own chs."
This gave the Larkinsons a lot of reassurance. Any ch designed by their patriarch was undoubtedly powerful enough to earn a lot of respect on the battlefield.
Since the Hexers were such avid fans of the chs designed by Ves and Gloriana, the Hex Army would undoubtedly deploy a huge amount of them for this massive operation!
"Which of the ch divisions will we fight against, sir? Will we be focusing our firepower on the outdated ch divisions in order to clean them up as quickly as possible?"
"No." General Verle imdiately shook his head. "It's the exact opposite in fact. We will take up the fight against the strongest and most modern ch divisions fielded by the Sundered Phalanx!"
That caused a lot of ch pilots to react with surprise!
"Do you think we are here to freeload off the Hex Army? I can imagine that it might be tempting to push the greatest burdens onto the Hexers, but that would be a disservice to our honor, our efforts and our friendship with our allies."
General Verle waved away the depiction of the outdated chs of the dallion Guards, leaving behind the more modern and formidable ones fielded by the Nidin Vergers!
"We are elites! Our ch legions are equipped with chs that are more expensive and powerful than the crack troops of the Sundered Phalanx. While our numbers are not even close to catching up to that of our enemy, we have always pursued the elite route to the maximum in order to make the most out of the limited ch capacity of our fleet. I believe in our superiority! I believe in it so much that I do not expect you to just hold back the strongest opposing ch divisions, but demand that you smash through their ranks with clear and overwhelming force!"
In other words, if the Larkinson Army was not up to expectation, then it would surely suffer a lot if it allowed the elite Sundered Phalanx chs to run amuck!
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