Chapter 440, Temir No. 5 Meat Grinder
The war situation on Temir 4 was basically proceeding according to the plan planned by the War Staff.
Although there were some surprises, such as when the ground troops actually landed and joined the planetary defense force, the fleet also provided support in orbit. After a more detailed reconnaissance of the enemy's specific situation, they found that the initial estimate of the number of greenskins was wrong.
The number of greenskins on Telmir 4 was not 100 million, but close to 300 million. There were 70 to 80 million legitimate orcs, and more than 230 million fart elves, not 50 million.
There was a big deviation in the estimate of the enemy situation, but it did not actually affect the implementation of the specific strategic plan.
Fight however you should.
The few greenskin settlements and ecospheres detected were directly destroyed by orbital bombardment. The ground forces deployed were still the same eight million people, but their next battle would be a little more difficult.
On Temir 4, the armored forces had a hard time deploying. Just as the orcs were unable to destroy the human army on Temir 4 due to the various mines and pits, when the human side switched from defense to offense, it was difficult to attack the greenskins. The aliens could also hide in the pits.
Tanks cannot drive into these potholes unless they are particularly large and are normal guard posts.
Because of this, the several armored divisions that went down considered it and exchanged some equipment with other brother units, greatly reducing the investment in Lion tanks and King Lion tanks, and even reducing some artillery.
Replacing the heavy tanks are large numbers of Sentinel mechas.
This thing is definitely not as useful as a heavy tank on a frontal battlefield. With that little armor, even if it carries a machine gun, it can't withstand too many rounds and will be damaged. It can't be like a tank and directly carry a large-caliber tank gun. At most, it can carry some machine guns, rocket pods and other things.
However, it is at least an armored unit, and it is flexible. It is roughly in the shape of a human, and although it is much taller than a normal human soldier, it can basically go anywhere that an infantryman can go.
This is the convenience that cannot be replaced by tanks. In a combat environment like the Temir IV, which is full of potholes and inside buildings, it can play a huge role.
Its natural enemies on the front battlefield: artillery groups and heavy tanks, all disappeared or were ineffective in the narrow and complex environment. Isn't that the Sentinel Mech showing off its power?
At the same time, artillery is not easy to deploy in this war environment. It is fine when defending, but when attacking, the cave is winding and can't be blown down by artillery. It is useless to go in, not to mention that it can't get in.
Artillery is replaced by stronger individual firepower, equipped with more offensive grenades, bombs, and rocket launchers.
I won't talk about grenades. Bombs are used to enter the cave, find the key parts, install them and blow up the cave. Once the key passage collapses, the greenskins inside will die in the end, no matter whether they are dead or alive. The greenskins do not need to eat and can "photosynthesize", but there is no sun to shine on them in the underground caves.
The rocket launcher is suitable for attacking, and it can be fired directly at the cave entrance. No matter whether there are people inside, three or five rockets are fired first, and then the infantry can move in.
In short, if tanks are not useful, find other armor alternatives; if artillery is not useful, find other firepower alternatives.
Thanks to the mobilization order issued in the Alliance's rear, tens of billions of skilled workers worked overtime to produce all kinds of war materials and equipment. The Alliance Army still has sufficient and diverse supplies to fight against those greenskins.
Of course, it would take more than a short time to completely wipe out the greenskins in Temir 4. The Alliance has sent 8 million people, but in the end, they still have to rely on hundreds of millions of local troops as the main force. Even if the greenskins have no backup and are afraid of orbital attacks, they have to retreat. But because of this, relying on the terrain for pure defense, it will probably take eight to ten years for the human side to completely eliminate the opponent.
But it doesn't matter.
Once the general situation is settled, that's all.
Although Temir 4 was still in a state of war, all production activities in the human-controlled area had been fully revived. They no longer had to worry about the orcs being attracted to them and causing their demise. Now they were eager for the orcs to come out on their own initiative, and then the defense forces with enhanced equipment would be the main force, and the Alliance Army would be the final killer, to destroy the enemy's living forces in an organized manner.
If the orcs don't come, then we can just mine. The mined minerals can be processed on site into steel alloys, and processed into raw materials in chemical plants. They can then be sent to the newly established arsenal to be produced into weapons or bombs to supply the front-line troops, to innovate their equipment and to strengthen their firepower.
The local defense forces will become stronger and stronger as they gain more war experience and get more equipment!
As long as these orcs can be prevented from being replenished in space, it will only be a matter of time before the orcs on the planet are completely wiped out.
Even as the battle line becomes more and more stable, these defense forces that have emerged from the war can be recruited and sent to other battlefields.
In fact, the Alliance Military and Political Department has already been organizing troops under the framework of the Seven Horses Pact under Gu Hang's instruction. This will be the third army force that Gu Hang will soon control, in addition to the Alliance Army and the Star Army - the Pact Army.
The 500 million people on Temir 4 can all be incorporated into the framework of the Allied Forces.
At the same time, Temir 4's minerals, raw material processing, and developing military industry can also be exported to the alliance's business.
Temir 4 no longer had a governor. When the disaster struck, their governor deserted the battlefield and was intercepted and executed by the angry soldiers and civilians on Temir 4 before it took off.
Now, the person in charge of the planet is the commander of the native planetary defense force.
After consulting Commander Gu, the execution of the Governor on Temir 4 was defined as "eliminating traitors", which certainly was not considered a rebellion.
The commander of the defense force was temporarily appointed by Gu Hang as the acting governor of Temir 4, and brought the planet into the Seven Horses Agreement.
There's no rule that only those with the word "horse" in their star regions can join the Seven Horses Pact, right?
…
Compared with Planet 4, the situation on Planet 5 will be more difficult.
There is no complex and defensible terrain like on Planet 4 here. This is just a very ordinary civilized world.
However, the number of greenskins here is similar to that of Temir 2.
There are 400 million green-skinned orcs, and a little less of them, but still over 1 billion.
The defense organization of Planet 5 is not as reliable as that of Planet 4. It is not only because of the terrain, but also because of the organizational ability of the government.
Planet No. 4 lost about 500 million people at the beginning of the war, but with a population of 3.5 billion, it was able to build an army of 500 million, with a mobilization rate of over 14%; the rest of the population also worked almost entirely for the war.
But Planet 5 has an initial population of 12 billion, and even though it has lost more than 2 billion, it still has 10 billion left. But the number of defense forces they have organized is only 500 million, the same as Planet 4, and the mobilization rate is only 5%.
Moreover, as a civilized world, the productivity of Temir 5 should be much more developed than that of 4. However, these productive forces have not been effectively organized to serve the war.
With only 500 million defense forces, they are of course at an absolute disadvantage when fighting against a similar number of orcs and two or three times the number of fart elves.
Cities were occupied and burned one after another, and greenskin ecosystems were established one after another.
Obviously, the Iron Tooth Clan regards Temir No. 5 as the same place as No. 2.
The conditions here are even better. After all, there is a developed industrial base, which can be transformed by the greenskins into their garbage factories and garbage cities.
The human defense force can only maintain a size of about 500 million. The planetary governments in the rear have been "trying their best" to recruit soldiers, but often when a corps of tens of millions of people is formed and sent to the front lines of various planets, the front lines in various places have already shrunk a lot and tens of millions of people have been sacrificed.
This is how the human resource pool is being consumed crazily.
Even so, they could not maintain the front line of the entire planet. Often, after a hole in one place was finally blocked, the orcs in another place suddenly rushed in. This situation was often accompanied by the fall of a large city, and then the already insufficient human resources due to the poor administrative and organizational capabilities would be further depleted...
This world is what the alliance particularly needs to put in a lot of effort to solve.
The extermination order cannot be issued. The only things that can be used are fleet support, orbital bombardment and ground forces.
Fifty million Alliance Army troops were deployed to the surface.
The already brutal ground battle on Planet 5 was raised to a higher level in intensity.
The Alliance was quite dissatisfied with the original combat command system on Planet 5. The commander-in-chief of the Alliance Army, Lieutenant General Perbov, commander of the Alliance's First Army Group, demanded that the command of the planetary defense force be returned to him.
Moreover, under the leadership of the Alliance Army, the human army fought three successful battles in three different directions within a week.
Such a short time was not even enough for the starships to deploy troops and then assemble to fight again. A considerable part of the army was directly deployed to a place not far from the front battlefield and then directly engaged in the battle.
It was this situation of divine troops descending from heaven that shocked the local defense forces, making it much smoother for Perbov to take over command.
Next, it’s conventional combat.
Use armored forces and artillery to find the main force of greenskins and fight a decisive battle.
And often, the decisive battle is always won by humans.
The excellent quality of the Alliance Army is one aspect, but it is not the key. After all, although the tactical qualities of the greenskins are rubbish, their individual qualities are too high, and sometimes even tactics cannot solve the problem.
The key still lies in orbital fire support.
As long as the human army finds a main force of the greenskins, no matter if it is a battle of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, the battle will start anyway, and the greenskins will be detected in orbit, and the intelligence will be basically transparent. They will be bombed when they assemble, the logistics ammunition depot will be bombed, and the transport troops will be ambushed and destroyed by the infiltrated human infantry companies and spearhead companies...
Even if they really set up their battle formations and fight, the two sides are often not yet at the distance of infantry combat. The greenskins will not only have to endure bombardment from heavy artillery clusters and attacks from the air forces of various divisions and brigades, but also fierce orbital strikes.
The greenskins cannot fight this kind of large-scale decisive battle.
After suffering several losses, they became smarter.
They seldom gather large forces. When they encounter a large human force gathering and advancing, they will disperse, even if it means losing key locations such as the ecosystem, Garbage City, and Arsenal that they have worked so hard to manage.
The greenskins, who had been broken up into small groups, relied on the fact that they did not need food supplies, had some armed trucks made from junk, plus the transportation of Squigs, and even carried some extra ammunition and supplies on their bodies. They became armies of a size ranging from a few hundred to just over ten thousand, and pushed deep into the human army's front lines.
Often on the front line, a large number of orcs form the cannon fodder army, attracting the attention of the main human forces, while the real orc troops fight guerrilla warfare and small-scale operations in the back.
This immediately curbed the offensive momentum of the human army.
It's very uncomfortable.
These greenskins really don’t need logistics to fight - at least their dependence is much lower than humans.
Human armies can hardly fight without logistics. People need food, guns need bullets and shells, vehicles need energy... If anything is missing, combat effectiveness will drop significantly.
The greenskins are different. They don't need to eat, or they can eat the Fart Spirits and Squiggles that follow the army. They also need ammunition and energy, but the former can be made by hand and the latter can be seized.
Turn around and suppress the bandits?
Fight a small-scale battle with the greenskins?
That's a real disadvantage.
In fact, the ground forces are fine. If we catch the greenskins and hold them back, reinforcements will come from all directions. If the greenskins also come to reinforce, that would be even better. We would be happy if we could have a decisive battle.
But it often doesn't happen. Instead of sending reinforcements, they try to find a way to break out. If that doesn't work, they just hold on and fight hard.
The green boys have a battle to fight and are howling.
For a small force like this, it would be a big loss if they called in naval gunfire.
The navy's masterly habits have improved a lot here in the Alliance. They won't say don't ask me to bomb a hole that can be filled with 20,000 lives. But if they really call a ship over and bomb you for a whole day, the money spent on shells and the cost-effectiveness of firepower will become outrageous.
Then we can only rely on the army’s firepower.
There will be considerable casualties.
The Alliance Army is valuable and elite, and the main combat power still depends on them, so the local defense force can only fill this gap, with the Alliance's heavy artillery providing fire support, armored forces carrying out assaults, and infantry finishing off.
But even so, the local defense forces did not have much objection.
Although it sounds unpleasant to say that they are being used as cannon fodder, the casualty ratio is much lower than when they were fighting independently before.
Perbov was unwilling to be led by a bunch of greenskins. While providing necessary support to the planetary defense forces, he also assembled the Alliance Army as much as possible and selected many strategic targets.
Rescue the occupied cities, save the population, destroy the garbage city, destroy the greenskin ecosystem... If you dare not fight a decisive battle with me, I will dig out your roots.
As for the countless scattered and intricate battle lines in the rear, which spread over tens of thousands of kilometers around the world, those battles that could be called meat grinders had to continue.
With the Alliance Army as the core backbone of the battles in various places and the firepower reinforcement of the space fleet, those countless meat grinders are not only grinding human meat, but also green skins.
Before the Alliance came, the exchange ratio between humans and green-skinned orcs was about 10:1, but now, it has been reduced to less than 2:1 - most of the human casualties are from the local defense forces.
This is without counting the fart monsters. If the fart monsters are included, the casualty ratio can be reversed, 1 human, 2 greenskins.
The fighting power of the fart elves is far inferior to that of the regular orcs.
Cut off the external reinforcements of the greenskins, destroy the greenskin ecosystem as much as possible, reduce local production... it's a fight to the death, the existing billions of greenskins cannot outlast humans.
But even so, it is estimated that to wipe out the greenskins on Planet 5 alone, humans would probably have to pay more than 500 million casualties.
This number made Perbov feel terrified after reading the data provided by the General Staff.
Five hundred million people... The local residents who were burned to death by the torpedo dropped by Temir 2 were less than half of this number. But if they wanted to wipe out Temir 2 through ground attack, the loss would not be less than this number, or even more.
What's even more terrifying is that on Temir 2, without No. 5, there are still a large number of planetary defense forces - now they should be called the Allied Forces - serving as friendly forces for the Alliance. By then, most of the losses may have to be borne by the Alliance Army.
Then who can bear it?
The interstellar battlefield, a war in which both sides cross star zones and combine the strength of all races, is so exaggerated in scale that it is unimaginable.
Thinking of this, Perbov no longer had any doubts about whether he should really release the world-destroying weapon.
All he had in his heart now was hatred for the alien race.
He gritted his teeth and commanded his troops to destroy an orc garbage city. Suddenly, he received bad information.
That comes from heaven.
Commander Du Shiliang told him that from this moment on, the fire support that the Allied Navy could provide would be greatly reduced.
Because the greenskin fleet is coming.
Although they have not arrived yet and are still traveling through the star tunnel, the navy must conserve its naval gun reserves. Otherwise, if a naval battle breaks out and the naval gun supplies from the rear have not arrived yet, it would be ridiculous to fight a naval battle without firepower.
Soon, a few days later, Du Shiliang's joint fleet was forced to leave the planet's orbit.
This planet doesn't have any orbital defense system to provide shelter for the human fleet, so it would not be a wise choice to stay in orbit and fight against the orc fleet that can advance and retreat outside, as they will be blocked in the planet's orbit and beaten.
They had to pull out into the vast star field to confront and fight with the Orc fleet.
In general, the strength of the fleets of both sides is similar. After all, only half of the combined fleet is here, and the remaining half is with Ye Lishia.
There are about a hundred warships and four main cruisers.
There are two hundred green ships on the opposite side, including three cruiser-level main battleships.
This number is one more than the battleship that escaped from Steel Wing Star.
It seems that the orcs still have some assets.
Du Shiliang had to act carefully. Given that both sides were of similar strength, he really didn't dare to engage in a fleet decisive battle.
The impact of winning or losing would be too huge.
With both sides being a little cautious, they began to play hide-and-seek in the entire star field, testing each other, sneak attacking, exchanging a few shots at a very long distance and then hurriedly avoiding each other. By the way, both sides would take the opportunity to fire a few shots when they passed by the planets...
Under this space situation, neither side has the power to control the space, but on the ground battlefield, the most massive battle since the war began is brewing.
When he heard that he had no orbital support, Perbov's first reaction was of course nervousness.
This is definitely not good news.
He didn't even consider whether he would win or lose the naval battle. If he lost, he would be prepared to suffer as much as the greenskins who were bombed some time ago.
Just looking at the current situation, without the support of naval artillery, the greenskin ground forces would probably not be able to fight guerrilla warfare so miserably.
They are likely to stand up and gather their strength to fight a large-scale battle with humans.
By then, can the human army, lacking orbital fire support, still guarantee victory?
Can we still guarantee a high combat loss ratio?
These are all areas of concern.
But...Perhaps Perbov has a bit of a gambler in his nature.
This may also be an opportunity.
Fighting numerous small-scale meat-grinder battles, the firepower support that the fleet could provide was originally relatively limited, and it served more as a deterrent to prevent the enemy from gathering.
In actual combat, the battle is fought with a relatively fixed loss ratio.
This is certainly "stable", but if a clear victory can be achieved in a certain battle, it means that countless greenskins will lose their combat effectiveness. The heavy artillery and armored clusters assembled by humans can, after victory, massacre the orc army that has finally gathered.
Wouldn’t that be even better?
Of course, if I lose the fight, the same situation might happen to me.
But Perbov thought he could take a gamble.
And this opportunity came soon.
When the greenskin fleet actually appeared in the Temir galaxy, the greenskin orc leader on Planet 5 apparently also got the news.
The cunning orc commander immediately thought that this was a good opportunity to counterattack.
He was tired of guerrilla warfare. If possible, which orc wouldn't want to fight a earth-shattering battle?
Under his deliberate command, the previously scattered green-skinned orc armies quickly gathered around him. In just a few days, a large force of about 500,000 people was assembled.
At the same time, more troops gathered towards where he was.
But he couldn't wait any longer.
He immediately launched an operation, deploying heavy troops to break through a battle line hundreds of kilometers wide.
The mighty armored trucks, Squig war beasts, death cans...all of these greenskin heavy equipment are on the scene!
The human army was defeated and fled in disarray!
————
6k
Still owe 62k
It’s so hard to pay back the debt…
(End of this chapter)
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