Chapter 422, supreme command?
"When Gu Hang first proposed to take the initiative to attack, I actually disagreed."
Tillemans' voice rang in Yelicia's ears.
The naval battle that broke out in the void outside the Steel Wing Star has come to an end.
At this moment, the human joint fleet is fiercely attacking the fleeing greenskin ships, trying to expand the results of the battle as much as possible in the pursuit.
After the greenskins' No. 1 ship was destroyed, the next one was No. 2.
The destruction of the only two heavy cruisers caused a huge decline in the combat effectiveness of the greenskin fleet.
This is still a comparison of hard power.
Ship No. 1 is the flagship of the greenskin fleet, and their pirate commander is on that ship.
His death instantly left the huge greenskin fleet without a backbone.
Following the destruction of the No. 2 ship, and the collapse of several other ships that were not yet at the cruiser level but were equally strong, Gu Hang tore through their void shields in a similar way and commanded the ships to destroy them with firepower.
They began to flee.
So far, the human fleet has achieved an undoubted victory.
The remaining work is to pursue the victory and expand the results.
It was at this time that Tillemans finally had time to find someone to chat with.
Ye Lixia smiled and said, “I didn’t expect him to be able to do this.”
"So when you heard his order, you rushed forward without hesitation?"
"Because I trust him." Ye Lixia said frankly, "Although I don't know what he will do or to what extent he can do it, I believe he is not a stupid person. He made the decision for his own reasons. Facts have also proved that following his command has helped us achieve a brilliant victory."
"Yes, a glorious victory."
Thinking of this, Tillemans was not as happy as he should have been.
The victory itself is certainly worth being excited about, but...it is obvious that this victory has something to do with him, but it is by no means dominated by him.
The problem I thought of before: the command of the human fleet is chaotic and inconsistent, it seems that it needs to be solved.
If Gu Hang had clearly told him his abilities before the war, how could he appear so indecisive and embarrassing when the entire army was attacking?
He can certainly lead the fleet to this victory.
However, he did not say these words to Ye Lisia.
Judging from her expression, she will obviously support Gu Hang.
Tillemans did not think that he was engaging in internal struggles. Unified command was very important. As the commander of the Pegasus Fleet and a real vice admiral of the Imperial Navy, he should be the owner of the highest command of the navy.
…
The Concerto also appeared in the battle to hunt down the scattered greenskin fleet, but it had little to do with Gu Hang.
It tore apart four green-skinned ships in a row, including the energy shields of ships No. 1 and No. 2, and also supported the operations of hundreds of thousands of heroic legions in each green-skinned ship. This was also a huge consumption for Gu Hang.
After all, he only tore a hole in the curtain of reality and borrowed some of the power of the Kingdom of Storms, rather than merging with the essence of the subspace within the Kingdom.
There is a big gap between the two.
The remaining spiritual energy of Gu Hang is only one tenth of what it was at its peak.
With the overall situation already decided and only conventional pursuit operations remaining, there was certainly no need for him to interfere in the command of the ship.
Just let the naval generals do it. He needs to close his eyes and take a rest.
In this process, he also took into account the problem of command chaos in the current joint fleet.
Tillemans is not fit to be the commander-in-chief.
Gu Hang didn't think that even if he told the other party in advance the extent of his psychic abilities, Lieutenant General Tillemans would be able to make a correct and decisive judgment.
There is a high probability that before witnessing it with his own eyes, he would still be skeptical about what Gu Hang said, and then think that safety is more important when taking action, thus missing the opportunity.
Stability is of course important. Before Gu Hang arrived, when Tillemans was defending Steel Wing Star, the more stable he was, the happier Gu Hang was.
Don't cause any trouble, just hold on to Steel Wing Star and wait for me to come.
That's good.
However, Tillemans has completed his phased mission, and from now on, pure stability will not be able to solve all problems.
The issue of the lack of established supreme command authority must also be resolved.
However, these things can be put aside and the current tasks should be completed first.
…
The so-called "current affairs" of course refers to hunting down the remnants of the greenskin fleet and maximizing the results of the battle.
This pursuit battle lasted for more than three days.
In the end, nearly two hundred green ships escaped.
The human fleet actually has a chance to catch up, isn't it just escaping through the astral tunnel? Human ships can also pass through.
However, most of the escaped green-skinned ships ran through the tunnel from the Steel Wing Star to the Temir Galaxy. Temir already belongs to the Golden Pass Star Region.
No one knows what the current situation of Jinguan is. It is too risky to rush over.
Never mind.
In fact, this battle could not have been fought as a war of annihilation. It was already very good for the human navy to defeat the enemy, and it was not capable of encircling and fighting a war of annihilation.
The scattered greenskin ships fled in all directions, and it was impossible for the human side to split up so many branch teams to continue the pursuit.
Again, if you are not sure of completely destroying the greenskins, don't force them into a dead end. If you really split up your fleet to chase the greenskins regardless of how they split up their squadrons, the greenskins might find that the pursuers behind them are not that strong, and turn around to defeat you.
It is already quite good to achieve the current results.
Moreover, even though the greenskins lost half of their ships, the loss of combat power was far greater than this proportion.
During the pursuit, since we have already realized that it is impossible to destroy all the greenskin ships, we naturally have to focus on the most valuable ones.
The two heavy cruisers of the greenskins were destroyed in the previous fleet decisive battle. Of the remaining five greenskin ships, which were equivalent to the level of human light cruisers, only one escaped in the end. The remaining four were all destroyed!
The loss of most of the main battleships meant that although the remaining greenskin ships still numbered 200, they were actually completely powerless. If another fleet decisive battle was fought, even if Gu Hang did not take action, the human fleet could easily wipe them out.
The Battle of Steel Wings was a sign of the Greenskin invasion of the Hippogriff sector. At that time, the total number of Greenskin ships entering the Hippogriff sector was about 400, carrying about 150 million to 300 million Greenskin legions.
Now, only 200 ships have escaped. Conservative estimates put the Greenskins' loss of troops at around 60 million.
If we add in the 35 million greenskins that have been essentially abandoned and the 20 million greenskins that are still resisting in various parts of the Hippogriff sector but will undoubtedly be wiped out, the Irontooth Clan has lost at least hundreds of millions of troops in total in the Hippogriff sector.
This is undoubtedly a big victory!
Ever since the great chieftain Titus appeared out of nowhere, with the Irontooth Clan's decades of wealth, and swarmed out from the four occupied star regions, the Irontooth Orcs have defeated the human army from space to the ground. Starting from the Jinguan star region, all the way to Yunluo, no one could stop their advance, and they could only retreat all the way.
And now, the Iron Tooth Clan's offensive was finally stopped for the first time.
Although this was only a branch fleet, the real main force of the Irontooth Clan was the legion led by Chief Titus himself. However, a branch consisting of 400 greenskin ships was by no means a force that could be underestimated.
The loss of two hundred ships, including most of the main battleships, and the loss of over 100 million troops is a loss that cannot be ignored even for the Iron Tooth Clan as a whole.
It is foreseeable that if nothing major happens in the future, the greenskin invasion disaster in Qimadi can be considered to have been alleviated.
But although the disaster has been resolved, the threat still exists.
You never know when the enemy will come back again.
After suffering this failure, if the greenskins launch another large-scale invasion, the force they bring will be even greater than this time.
By then, will the alliance still be able to resist?
It all depends on how strong the alliance can become next.
In Gu Hang's opinion, the most essential aspect of the victory in the Steel Wing Star Battle was that it bought a relatively long period of time for the development of the alliance.
Although he couldn't say for sure how long this time would last, it was good to have time.
The alliance is getting stronger with every passing second.
…
After the pursuit was completed, the main force of the human fleet returned to Steel Wing Star.
The battle on the ground is still going on.
Many orks died in the orbital bombardment, but obviously not all of them.
In fact, most of the green orcs are still alive.
They were basically lingering on. In the previous large-scale orbital bombardment, many of their clusters were blown apart and exploded. The loss of a large amount of heavy equipment meant that even if many of these greenskins were still alive, they were unable to launch any large-scale attacks.
However, just because they are still alive does not mean that the remaining orcs can be easily dealt with.
On the contrary, according to the estimates of the Alliance Army General Staff, if Steel Wing Star wants to completely eliminate the threat of the green-skinned orcs, it will be a war lasting five to ten years.
The orcs, who had no offensive capabilities, switched to a dispersed, fully defensive posture, digging holes and mixing spore creatures with native vegetation to form strongholds one after another.
Once these strongholds are discovered, they will be attacked. The human army will quickly mobilize heavy artillery to encircle and bomb them, and then the armored forces will rush in with the infantry to eliminate the living orcs and eradicate the green plants.
If some strongholds are particularly well defended or are very large, the human army will not bother with them for too long and will simply call for orbital bombing, and then move in after the bombing is completed with ground troops.
But the problem is that there are too many of these strongholds.
Tens of millions of orcs and orcs are scattered across tens of millions of square kilometers of land in the northern continent of the entire planet. Some small strongholds may have only dozens or hundreds of greenskins.
It is not difficult to eliminate them, but it is quite difficult to find them all, and find them without leaving any.
Orbital bombardment also has a similar problem. It is impossible to bomb every stronghold when attacking. A stronghold that is too small may not be as valuable as artillery shells and missiles, and is not worth bombing. Fleet firepower cannot be consumed in this way. Even if the cost is not taken into account, the inventory and productivity are not enough to be wasted in this way.
In the end, those strongholds had to be found one by one and the army had to take them down one by one.
Even Gu Hang couldn't keep tens of millions of Alliance troops on Steel Wing Star to "suppress bandits" for a long time. Many other planets still needed the Alliance's army to rescue them.
In fact, he planned to withdraw the entire Alliance Army in half a year, leaving only the 30 million people of the Dragon Eagle Legion and the Angry Bear Legion.
I believe that in half a year, even if the greenskins are not completely eliminated, the remaining number will definitely be less than 10 million, and they will not be able to form a cluster. The two Astra Militarum Corps will slowly strangle them here, and strive to clean up Steel Wing Star within three to five years. By the way, they will also serve as a guard force to prepare for the next possible greenskin invasion.
…
After arranging the work of the army, Gu Hang immediately convened a naval meeting.
In the starport of Steel Wing Star, except for a few who were still on duty on their own ships, most of the captains participated in the meeting.
Especially the captains of the seven cruisers of the Pegasus fleet, each of them is an imperial general, or at least has the rank of brigadier general, and they have all arrived.
There was a smile on everyone's face.
In the previous great victory, the price paid by the human side was very low. Only less than 40 warships were destroyed, of which the only ones that were really heartbreaking were three destroyers and eleven frigates. The remaining twenty-six patrol ships or armed merchant ships were not worth much.
Then what reason is there to be unhappy?
Everyone was in high spirits at the dinner before the meeting.
A meeting was about to take place, so drinking was not an option; and as the war had just ended, the dinner party could not be luxurious.
But no matter what, it couldn't stop the warm atmosphere on the scene.
However, among these smiles, some are not so pure.
Tillemans and the three cruiser captains were talking together.
Their discussion ended quickly and they seemed to have reached some degree of consensus.
The dinner ended and the meeting began.
There was nothing special about the first half. At the meeting, Gu Hang and Tillemans stood together and joyfully announced the results of the battle in front of many officers, commemorated their fallen comrades, and announced that everyone's merits and achievements would be recorded. The soldiers would get the honor and rewards they deserved, and the captains of the Gu Trading Company who were recruited would also receive compensation from the empire and war bonuses.
The second half is the key.
After most people left, the only ones left were the seven cruiser captains of the Tianma fleet and Gu Hang.
At this time, Tillemans no longer smiled, but raised the first topic in a serious manner:
"All the ships of the Tianma Fleet are currently here. Next, we need to clarify the command. Given the current war situation, the Tianma Fleet no longer needs to be split into two parts. Major General Du Shiliang, the formation you lead will return to the team immediately and will be under my command."
(End of this chapter)
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