Chapter 404, Iron Teeth War
The total construction cost of the 400 million Alliance Army exceeds 20 billion, and it consumes about 2.1 billion of the Alliance's military expenditure every year to maintain it.
This is a much greater expense than maintaining 30 million Star Army soldiers, even if we don't mention the total amount and just calculate it per capita.
This means that although the Alliance Army can only be regarded as a planetary defense force in the Empire's sequence, its actual combat effectiveness is probably much stronger than that of a standard interstellar army such as the Dragon Eagle Legion.
Normally, the alliance cannot build such an army. In addition to personnel training, the production and maintenance of military equipment are too expensive.
But in reality, the league did not spend that much money on paper.
Most products, especially expensive ones, were actually priced down by at least half when supplied to the Union Army.
This is to make the alliance's military expenditure look more normal. Otherwise, if the alliance really spends 20 billion to build an army and 2 billion per year to maintain it, the outside world will doubt how the alliance can afford such expenditure.
In fact, under normal circumstances, the Alliance really couldn't afford to spend this much money. The book price could be made lower, but the actual production could not be faked. After all, the troops really needed so much equipment and ammunition supplies.
But the alliance has unique advantages in this regard.
Some equipment produced directly by the black box is almost free, with only the material cost. When producing relatively cheap things such as guns and armored vehicles, the advantage is not obvious; but when producing heavy tanks such as the Lion King tank, which costs more than 300,000 yuan per unit, producing one by the black box is like picking up one for free, free of charge.
Direct production through the black box is still a small matter. The most important thing is that the production line directly produced through the black box is highly efficient, and the production line itself is free of charge.
When the same equipment does not need to consider R&D costs and production line costs, but only considers the manpower and material costs required for manufacturing itself, then this cost becomes very acceptable.
Moreover, the larger the scale of production, the lower the production cost. The Alliance will certainly produce as much as it can, and the army equipment that it cannot use will be regarded as imperial taxes. With an annual imperial tax of more than 10 billion, there is no fear that it will not be able to meet the production capacity.
Let's not talk about the actual situation for now. On paper, the Alliance only spent 7 billion on building the army, and it was spread over the past six years; the maintenance cost is only 600 million a year, and it is increasing year by year.
However, another major part of military expenditure, the construction of the navy, is not so easy to handle.
The black box cannot produce a finished product, only a manufacturing blueprint, and can only produce key components one by one to build a production line.
Although this is already excellent and greatly reduces the manufacturing cost, it is not easy to account for warships because there are few ships and the unit price is high.
And there is no need to do too much accounting, the difference in the middle is not particularly large.
The Alliance has invested approximately 7 billion tax dollars in naval construction over the past four years.
The current Alliance Navy has three Mad Shark-class destroyers and five frigates, including three 'Silver Helmets' and two 'Silver Swords'.
This is the main force of the Alliance Navy, plus 21 "Blackfish-class" patrol ships. I won't say much about these small boats, they can only play a supporting role.
Du Shiliang of the Tianma Fleet watched the Alliance Navy's appearance, and his expression at the time was a little subtle.
On the one hand, the current combat power of the Alliance Navy is no match for the Pegasus Fleet, even if it is just the remnants left behind. The entire Alliance Navy is about the same cost as a Musician-class cruiser.
But on the other hand, the Alliance Navy is also a star sea force that cannot be ignored. They built all of this in just four years. In comparison, how many years did it take for the Pegasus Fleet, which was funded by imperial taxes, to be built from the beginning to its current strength?
Three hundred years!
The Pegasus Fleet was founded from scratch during these three hundred years by accumulating ships, fighting battles, having ships explode, and continuing to accumulate ships... this is how it came to be.
The Alliance Navy is not the Imperial Navy. In name, they are the escort team within the Alliance star zone. Neither the Ministry of Military Affairs nor the Imperial Navy Headquarters have any control over them.
There is no need to unconditionally obey the Empire's orders and go to a dangerous battlefield to fight desperately. Just escort within the star zone, and the probability of the ship exploding is extremely low.
If we just save up money like this, and as the production capacity of the alliance, especially the capacity of the shipyard on the Angry Owl Star, continues to grow, wouldn't it be possible to save up one-third of the Pegasus fleet in 20 to 30 years?
Thinking from this perspective, it's really scary.
But in fact, Gu Hang’s idea may go even further than Du Shiliang imagined.
It took twenty or thirty years to build up one-third of the Pegasus fleet, which is too little.
If he is really given such a long time, the productivity of the Alliance will probably increase to an exaggerated level. The speed of producing starships will become faster, and the regular productivity improvement can also free the Wing Star from the restriction of paying imperial taxes with starships, and directly keep those starships and fill the Alliance Navy.
The speed at which the alliance builds its navy will become faster and faster over time.
Not to mention one third of the Pegasus fleet, if the entire alliance develops steadily, he is confident that within twenty years he can build a naval force that is no less powerful than the entire Pegasus fleet.
…
The warship that Gu Hang was on arrived at Korojia.
He inspected the recent reorganization of the Union Army, and a select regiment paraded before him.
After that, he visited several hive cities and met with some officials. He stayed in the Governor's Mansion for a few more days, and he completed Korojia's itinerary.
At present, Gu Hang spends half of his time every year in the Governor's Mansion on Feiyi Star or Angry Owl Star, and the other half of his time flying around and seeing the various planets in the alliance.
He has one Crazy Shark-class ship, two Silver Helmet-class ships, and seven or eight patrol ships, which serve as his vehicles and take him on patrols across the star zone.
On the destroyer named Meditation, a cabin was specially renovated for him, his head office, and the Alliance staff to assist him in his work. At the same time, the Meditation's astropathic signal was strengthened to facilitate his official duties here and to communicate with officials at all levels of the Alliance, ministries, and various planets.
Come to think of it, life as the top leader of such an alliance is so dull and tedious.
However, something happened recently that requires his attention.
The main force of the Pegasus fleet is coming back.
At the same time, it also means that Ye Licia is coming back.
…
It has been more than six years since Ye Licia left the Tianma star region.
They were engaged, but six years have passed and the marriage has not taken place.
But there is nothing we can do about it.
In the beginning, no one expected that the war against the Irontooth Clan would last so long.
The Iron Tooth Clan has been entrenched in the northeast of the Dragon Eagle Star Region for more than seventy years. Not only have they not been eliminated, but they have continued to grow stronger over the past seventy years.
From the beginning, it was just a small trouble on a planet in the Iron Gate sector, but it evolved into the entire sector being dragged into the war; then, the First Iron Teeth War broke out, and humans, despite having the advantage in space, suffered a crushing defeat in the ground war. Then, a large number of landing capsules launched from the surface jumped onto human warships in orbit, eventually resulting in the destruction of at least fifty naval ships of all levels.
The greenskins don't care about their lives. They launch manned rockets directly from the surface into orbit, and solve the problem of bombing and landing in one go. This is something that human armies cannot do. After they seize naval ships, they drive the ships directly to the surface. The huge ships that are dozens of kilometers long can actually drive to the surface of the planet, and it doesn't matter if they are smashed to pieces.
After the failure of the first Iron Teeth War, the star region urgently mobilized more forces to fight again. However, before the second Iron Teeth War started, the entire Iron Gate Star Region fell. The greenskins no longer only had ground combat power. A large number of greenskin junk ships that looked tattered and had weak combat power, but were numerous, began to run rampant in the Iron Gate Star Region and spread to the surrounding areas.
The Second War of the Iron Teeth broke out, a campaign dominated by naval warfare.
The human army misjudged the enemy's strength and was defeated once again.
The result this time was the fall of the Yinguan Star District, Kuoluo Star District, and Jiangmeiyu Star District surrounding the Tieguan Star District.
The warlord who unified all the greenskin tribes launched a grand waaagh and launched a fierce attack on the surrounding areas of the Iron Gate Star Zone.
Humanity rushed into battle, and the Third Iron Teeth War broke out in the Jinguan star region.
In this battle, the human army finally won.
The death of a greenskin pirate warlord caused the huge greenskin fleet to fall into chaos and be wiped out on a large scale; humans took the opportunity to launch an extermination order on the surface of a planet, killing most of the greenskins on the planet and causing the death of the greenskin warlord who personally led the expedition.
The Orc Empire in the four star regions fell into civil strife. After losing the leadership of the warlord, many first-level greenskin warlords began to fight among themselves.
This is also a traditional skill of the greenskin orcs. Under the leadership of a unified warlord, the greenskins will burst out with powerful fighting power; but once the leader is gone, civil strife will immediately begin until they compete for a new leader.
Logically, this was the best time to completely wipe out all the greenskins. But in reality, after three consecutive Iron Teeth battles, the first two were lost, and the last one was at best a pyrrhic victory. After the battle, there really wasn't enough power in the star field to pursue the victory.
The greenskins are indeed in civil strife, but after all, their numbers are still there, and the civil strife is between planets, or even between the bosses who occupy multiple planets at the same time.
If you want to regain lost territories one by one and eliminate the greenskins, you still need enough strength.
The Dragon Eagle Star Region no longer had the corresponding strength. The support they requested from the surrounding star regions and the higher-level cosmic government was also far away.
In this situation, they could only make an attempt to recapture the Jinguan star zone and clear out the greenskins inside the star zone. They were unable to carry out a complete annihilation operation in the four star zones that had completely fallen into the hands of the greenskins.
The Third Iron Teeth War was 26 years ago. During these 26 years, the Dragon Eagle Star Region established a defense line in the six star regions that could be directly connected to the four fallen star regions, locking down the four fallen star regions. This defense line was called the 'Iron Teeth Defense Line'.
Human armies often organize troops to attack occupied areas, trying to retake some planets, destroy greenskin fleets, and destroy greenskin shipyards.
But at the same time, the Iron Tooth Clan's marauding fleets often entered the six star sectors that made up the Iron Tooth Line of Defense and attacked humans.
The greenskins would also fight each other, and the whole situation presented a dynamic balance.
Until six years ago, the Star Region Government felt that it was back on track. Seeing that the greenskins had not yet formed a unified group, and that the entire Star Region had recovered a lot of its strength after twenty years of recuperation, the Star Region Government planned to organize another war to give the Iron Tooth Clan a hard blow.
Of course, we can't expect to solve the problem that has not been solved for 70 years in one fell swoop. But at least we should achieve some results.
In this war initiated by humans, the first step is to cut off the tentacles of the greenskins extending to the three defense star zones of Golden Pass, Bronze Pass, and Prideful Hand, and completely liberate the worlds caught in the greenskin war in these star zones; then, attack the Silver Pass star zone, capture and destroy at least three to four greenskin worlds, establish a bridgehead, and prepare for subsequent actions.
Following this plan, the main force of the Pegasus Fleet was transferred away.
At the same time, several main army groups of the Dragon Eagle Fleet and the Dragon Eagle Legion also took action.
At the beginning of the war, it was said that it was going quite smoothly. In a little over a year, the greenskins in the three Iron Teeth Defense Line star zones were eliminated by the human army, and then the fleet and the army entered the Silver Pass star zone and began to carry out the second phase of the combat mission.
But here, the situation is at a stalemate and progress is slow.
What was originally expected to be completed in three years has been delayed until now, a full six years.
But recently, there is finally good news.
Yinguan 2, Yinguan 3, Shuiwu Star and Baiwu Star, the four predetermined targets in the Yinguan star area were finally captured.
Since then, the human army has established a bridgehead inside the Yinguan star region.
Although the war was quite difficult along the way, the greenskins in the "Iron Teeth Line" were eliminated and four worlds were conquered in the occupied area. This result can be considered an acceptable result.
What happens next is to wait for another wave of strength to gradually erode the occupied areas.
The star domain government has even formulated a timetable for completely eliminating the greenskins, and has vowed to completely solve the greenskin problem in the star domain within the next fifteen years!
Under this premise, the war goal was initially achieved and the Tianma Fleet also had the opportunity to return and rest.
————
A star map of the Tianma star region is placed at the back
(End of this chapter)
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