Chapter 332, The Final Battle
Seriously speaking, being covered does not mean victory.
When the news that their retreat had been cut off reached the Kingdom's army deep in the enemy's camp, they did not panic.
Although logistical supplies could not be delivered for the time being, there were more than 500,000 people in this encirclement of 60 kilometers wide and 80 kilometers deep. If the supply cut-off continued for a little longer, it would easily lead to a comprehensive and uncontrollable collapse.
But they don't think that will happen.
The cluster of twelve Knight Titans is still here, going around to surround us from behind?
It’s not certain who will surround whom!
Instead of continuing their forward offensive posture, they separated part of their forces and headed backwards.
Six Knight Titans and more than 500 Sentinel mechas formed the core of the battle, ready to recapture the lost rear positions. If conditions permit, it would be best to fight one or two more effective encirclement and annihilation battles.
However, at this time, their nightmare came.
The Alliance's army seemed to be fully aware of their plan and was ready to hold its ground.
Moreover, this time the alliance is determined not to retreat at all.
They didn't even resort to relying on trenches, fortresses and the like to hold their ground and fight a positional war against the Kingdom's army.
The tank troops took the initiative to attack, and the Falcon fighters in the sky risked lowering their altitude and began to provide fire support to the ground. Especially when they detected some enemy artillery positions in the rear, they would often fire a few missiles at them. If they failed to completely destroy them, they would rather risk being hit by rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns and use laser cannons to destroy the remaining mountain cannons in the enemy's artillery positions.
On the front battlefield, the total force deployed by the Alliance to participate in the decisive battle was ten armored brigades.
The numbers are respectively the 1st Xifeng Brigade, the 13th Armored Brigade, the 35th-38th Armored Brigades, and the 59th-62nd Armored Brigades.
These ten brigades have a total strength of only more than 80,000 troops, but they have gathered nearly 900 Lion tanks and more than 2,000 combat armored vehicles of various types!
There is no doubt that Perbov fought with all his strength and regarded this battle as the most important decisive battle on Black Arrow Star.
A total of 600,000 people from both sides, organized into brigades and regiments, engaged in a brutal battle on a battle line about 60 kilometers wide!
For the Kingdom Army, the decisive battle came a little unexpectedly and exceeded their initial psychological expectations.
Originally, when the full-scale offensive began, they were mentally prepared for a big battle. However, after a few days of overwhelming victory, they relaxed. Some idiots thought that the alliance army was just so-so, and some not-so-idiots also tended to think that the alliance was not ready for a decisive battle with them and chose to avoid the sharp edge.
But they did not expect that the alliance was not unprepared for the decisive battle, but decided to hold the decisive battle when the encirclement was formed and the two sides switched offense and defense.
The current situation is quite clear.
Otherwise, they could just gather the alliance head-on, place the ten armored brigades behind them, and smash them all in one go.
Otherwise, they would lose all their supplies in the encirclement and be wiped out.
But at this critical moment, they cowardly.
Mainly because at the first moment, they only sent six Knight Titans to the rear to deal with the encirclement.
According to the commander of the Kingdom Army, it was not that they did not dare to fight a decisive battle, but that the strength they gathered was not enough before the decisive battle began.
First, withdraw these six Titans and the main force, and wait until all the twelve Knight Titans gather, and then turn back to fight this decisive battle, you will have a better chance of success.
From some perspectives, the commander-in-chief of the Kingdom Army was not wrong. However, he made only one mistake, which was to seriously underestimate the determination of the Alliance's armored forces in this battle.
In such a decisive battle, courage and morale are extremely important.
If anyone is a little cowardly, then a slight failure may lead to the collapse of the entire situation.
And this situation happened on the front battlefield.
After receiving the message to retreat and join the other six Titans, the six Knight Titans on the front line naturally chose not to continue to attack forward, but instead retreated.
But soon after, the Alliance's armored forces had advanced to a considerable depth.
The ordinary infantry who stayed behind to guard the rear could not withstand such a great offensive pressure. In the rear, under the overwhelming fire of self-propelled artillery, their defense was already shaky; when the armored vehicles really began to attack their front, they could hardly form any effective resistance and collapsed completely.
Immediately afterwards, some core troops of the kingdom’s army came under attack.
Dozens of Sentinel Mechas were caught by the Alliance's Wanderer Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Under the powerful attack of hundreds of machine guns, the Sentinel Mechas and the surrounding Kingdom Army infantry had to turn around and fight.
In the hasty battle, there was a big gap in numbers between the two sides, and they were suppressed very badly.
What's more, if the fighting lasted a little longer, there would often be batches of dense 155mm howitzer bombardments from the rear of the Allied forces.
The artillery battalions under the Alliance's armored brigades and the artillery support companies in each synthetic battalion have fully upgraded their original towed artillery to self-propelled artillery. The process of moving, deploying artillery positions, and then moving again has become much faster than in the past, and can more smoothly adapt to the armored forces and provide firepower support when the enemy is quickly breaking through and attacking.
At the moment, this firepower has played a big role.
Under the heavy artillery bombardment, the Sentinel Mechas that lacked cover during their retreat were destroyed very quickly.
Especially when the distance of the exchange of fire is close to a certain extent, the infantry of the Allied Forces can also pose a great threat to them.
There is no need to say much about the company and platoon mortars. The accuracy of these things is not enough. It is not easy to hit the sentinel mechas which are much more flexible than tanks. They can only be used to attack the cannon fodder infantry of the Kingdom Army.
But that's enough.
The more terrifying weapon in the hands of the infantry is the heavy bolter.
There is only one gun in a company, and if it is hit by a few or a dozen bullets individually, it is not a big problem; but if it is hit by a series of bullets, even a tank may not be able to withstand it, not to mention that the armor thickness of the Sentinel Mech is much less than that of heavy armored vehicles such as tanks.
The machine guns and explosive machine guns on the infantry fighting vehicles, the heavy explosive machine guns of the infantry company, the long-range 155 heavy artillery... dozens of sentinel mechas and thousands of royal troops could not hold out for long under such fierce firepower and soon collapsed completely.
There were not many who surrendered or escaped, and most of them were killed on the spot.
After this happened several times in a row, the six retreating Titans also felt something was wrong.
The blood loss was too severe, and in less than half a day, they lost more than 30,000 troops.
If these ordinary infantrymen were not worth their attention, after all, they were just low-value cannon fodder, then the loss of hundreds of sentinel mechas could no longer be ignored.
The Sentinel Mech is also a very expensive and important combat machine!
What's even more terrifying is that they were clearly just performing a routine tactical retreat, retracting their fists so that they could punch harder the next time.
But looking at the current situation, their tactical retreat is tending towards a total collapse.
Their six Knight Titans gathered together to form this core area, which did not pose a big problem, but the other parts were at risk of being completely destroyed by the Alliance's military advance.
They couldn't help but start to feel conflicted.
Although their six Titans were the most important, if they lost all other troops, it would not be good news in the next decisive battle. After all, if they only had Titans and lacked the protection of infantry and sentinel mechas, it would be difficult for the Knight Titan to exert its full strength and it would be easy for others to find its weak points and destroy it.
They discussed whether they needed to go back to provide support and gather the troops together.
However, when they were still thinking about the so-called "next decisive battle", for the alliance's army, the decisive battle had already begun and had reached the climax of this stage!
While they were still hesitating, they were caught up.
At the beginning, what appeared in their field of vision was the 61st Armored Brigade belonging to the Alliance Central Army Group.
The reason why it can be recognized is that the brigade and its subordinate battalions and companies have embroidered their unit numbers on red battle flags, which are flying high on armored vehicles and can be seen at a glance.
More than sixty Lion tanks gathered together, each of them about 20 to 30 meters away. The tank guns were raised high, and while moving, they would suddenly pull back from time to time, either firing high-explosive shells at the Kingdom infantry, or smashing a Sentinel mecha with armor-piercing shells.
More than 150 infantry fighting vehicles accompanied and interspersed around, providing additional fire support.
The brave and elite infantrymen did not retreat, but marched between the tanks and even in front of the armored forces. They seemed not to be afraid of death at all, and with the support of the firepower of the tank guns and infantry fighting vehicles in the rear and the accompanying firepower of the self-propelled artillery in the back, they launched a coordinated attack.
Often after the heavy firepower was over, the Kingdom Army had not yet recovered from the deafening artillery fire, and the Alliance infantry had already appeared in front of them, only a few dozen meters away, with the cold muzzles of their guns almost stuffed in their mouths.
Under this circumstance, the six Knight Titans finally reached an agreement.
We can't retreat anymore, we must turn around and fight.
In fact, there is no way to retreat anymore.
At this distance, the Alliance's self-propelled artillery had actually fired howitzers at them, but it was blocked by the energy shield.
The six Knight Titans who were determined to fight were actually dragged into a decisive battle without much psychological preparation.
But even though this is the case, they are actually not aware enough at this time.
After all, there was only one brigade appearing before them.
Their initial mentality might be to destroy this brigade, or after temporarily repelling it, they could continue to retreat and continue to gather the other six Knight Titans in the rear according to the commander-in-chief's advice.
Therefore, their counterattack seemed quite weak and powerless.
They first fired a barrage of missiles.
These missiles did indeed destroy a lot of the self-propelled artillery behind the 61st Brigade, greatly reducing the density of the Alliance's firepower in a short period of time. Then, they used the self-loading howitzers on their arms to bombard the Alliance's tanks.
The precise bombardment could actually destroy a Lion tank with one shot. Moreover, the automatic loading and multi-barreled guns made their firing rate quite fast.
After these Titans launched a counterattack, the 61st Armored Brigade began to suffer heavy casualties.
However, it must be said that it was a little too late for these Titans to launch a counterattack.
The surrounding kingdom's army troops have begun to disintegrate.
In terms of morale, the final blow came from the numbers of two troops, which appeared on the front battlefield at the same time, one on the left and one on the right.
They are the 1st Wind-extinguishing Brigade and the 13th Armored Brigade respectively.
These two brigade-level units have a total of 300 Lion tanks.
When they came in a group, their tracks rolled up a sky full of yellow sand, bringing the atmosphere of the battlefield to a climax.
The voice of the Knight Titan resounded throughout the army. They worked hard to fire shells, destroy tanks, and try to stabilize the morale of the entire army.
However, the results were not particularly ideal.
Eventually, tanks, armored vehicles, and even infantry units began to rush to a place not far from them, and at a distance of about a kilometer, they opened fire and engaged them in a bombardment.
The energy shields on the six Titans kept flashing. The Alliance, suffering huge casualties, forced these Titans into a situation where they had to fight with all their might.
A distance of one thousand meters is already very close for Titan.
They were not cowards. After a brief discussion of tactics, two of them began to advance rapidly.
In addition to long-range firepower, the Titans are equipped with gravity fists and super-giant chainsaw swords, which are even more terrifying weapons.
When they rushed into the tank cluster, a tank was scrapped with one sword, one kick or one punch.
The energy shield did have zero protective effect at close range, but they were accompanied by the Sentinel Mechs, the most elite soldiers of the Kingdom Army, and the firepower cover of the other four Titans in the rear. Under normal circumstances, the Alliance's army could not take the initiative to enter the energy shield.
They started killing people everywhere.
Then, suddenly, the most violent explosion ever recorded on the battlefield.
The core of the explosion occurred on a Knight Titan that was engaged in close combat.
An elite team wearing red power armor withdrew from the center of the explosion.
That would naturally be the phoenixes.
With the cover of conventional troops, after approaching the Knight Titan, they quickly destroyed the surrounding protective Sentinel Mechs, installed thermal bombs, and finally escaped safely!
(End of this chapter)
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