Chapter 856: The Universe is Burning (Part 3)
After Gu Hang personally led the Queen of Glory battleship and a large number of main ships in the human fleet to forcefully approach the planet's orbit and launched a fierce bombardment on the surface of Ankachi VIII, creating a landing opportunity, the human landing operation began directly.
The first batch of airdrop capsules were ejected from aircraft carriers and light aircraft carriers.
Unlike transport planes and transport ships, this metal cone-shaped airborne capsule has a much smaller carrying capacity than a transport ship and is not cheap to build, but its greatest value lies in its excellent penetration effect.
Whether in terms of speed, anti-detection, or anti-strike capabilities, they are all better and are most suitable for deploying the first batch of airborne troops.
Because they are responsible for the important task of "beach landing" and because of their small carrying capacity, this group of troops is often the most elite soldiers.
These airdrop pods collided violently with the Orcs' anti-aircraft firepower as they passed through the atmosphere. Even after being swept by the previous naval guns, a large amount of anti-aircraft firepower still survived.
More than 15% of the airdrop capsules turned into fireballs before they even landed.
This is still an airborne capsule.
If transport ships and transport planes were used instead, the number of people intercepted would probably increase dramatically.
The landing troops successfully broke through the interception and created a crater. The elite soldiers of the Glory Guard and the Space Marines of various regiments rushed out of the airdrop pods.
These fully armed soldiers, under the command of the ground commander, began to build a circular position.
Wang Jun, the acting captain of the 9th Company from the Phoenix Regiment, yelled in the communication channel.
The commander originally planned was actually the captain of the 9th company, not Wang Jun. However, during the airborne landing, the airborne capsule where the captain was located was destroyed. As for him, he took over as the acting captain on the battlefield and was the highest-ranking person among all those who had landed. As the commander, he naturally took on the responsibility.
Under the smoke and dust rising at the end of the horizon, thirty Ork war machines assembled from Zerg shells and scrap metal rumbled forward. When their foot tracks rolled over the ground, the splashed dust merged with the acid, enough to dissolve the ceramsite armor.
The Terminator Squad of the Phoenix 9th Company launched a counterattack on the right wing. The melta weapons melted through the war machines in the front row, but more green heavy trucks poured out from the gaps. The rocket launchers mounted on the roofs blew the rudimentary fortifications that humans had just built into pieces.
The ground battle was at a stalemate.
Although the troops under Wang Jun's command were all elite, their numbers were still too small.
The human troops had chosen a particular landing site. The landing of the airdrop capsule was also very precise, and the target was directly aimed at a large area of anti-aircraft firepower positions.
This area was of high importance and had been covered by naval fire before, but the heaviest guns were intercepted, and the lighter guns were not enough to destroy the position.
Not only are the fortifications here strong, but there is also an energy shield.
These energy shields are much stronger than those on starships.
No matter how big a starship is, it needs to hold weapons and accommodate personnel, from engines to armor to a series of necessary facilities, so the remaining energy compartment will always be limited.
It's different on the ground.
What's more, the greenskins' energy shield is a bit like an 'earth shield'. It can not only build warehouses and have abundant energy reserves, but can even integrate energy stations to directly utilize geothermal, fusion and other energy sources to directly power the shield.
Very hard.
With air defense and anti-orbital interception as well as defensive energy shields, simple orbital bombing is a bit difficult to deal with.
The original goal of the first group to land was to quickly advance to the location after establishing a position, defeat the defenders on the ground, and destroy the energy shield generator. Next, if there is spare power, just destroy the air defense position directly; if there is no spare power, just retreat and let the orbital bombardment attack the air defense position without shield protection.
But now, it looks a bit difficult.
After personally participating in the battle, Wang Jun realized how terrifying these orcs were.
The individual strength of these orcs was generally much higher than those that Wang Jun had fought before. Even when he crushed the heads of low-level green-skinned guys, he could feel that their skulls were harder than those of other guys.
Since the ground forces failed to make a breakthrough in the first place, it would be difficult to make a breakthrough later.
The orcs used their home advantage to constantly mobilize their reserve forces, while humans relied on orbital bombardment that was constantly intercepted by anti-aircraft firepower to support the front line, and were able to barely hold on as a whole.
But on Gu Hang's holographic tactical sand table, the dark red area representing the greenskins' military strength was growing rapidly. The greenskins were also constantly dispatching troops to block them.
Although he failed to achieve the desired results in ground combat for a while, Gu Hang still launched the second phase of operations without hesitation.
The main reason is that some changes have taken place in combat in space.
The previous fierce orbital bombardment reduced the greenskins' support from the surface to the planet's orbit.
More warships were released. Five hundred warships quickly closed the distance and reached low earth orbit.
At this moment, looking up at the sky from the surface of Ankachi, the number of human starships is even more numerous than the stars, so densely packed that they almost cover the entire sky!
Immediately afterwards, two more powerful orbital strikes came down.
The anti-aircraft firepower that failed to be resolved on the ground certainly intercepted a lot of orbital bombings, and even caused human warships to suffer greater losses than expected. But, isn't it just a loss? With the current powerful forces of the human army, it is completely capable of withstanding it.
Even at this stage, a group of troops were released from aircraft carriers and light aircraft carriers.
That's a dozen orbital airborne divisions.
The Orbital Airborne Division can be considered a special forces unit. They do not use airdrop capsules, but transport ships, but this is not the conventional way to use transport ships.
Light aircraft carrier starships, which were generally over twelve kilometers in length, opened their belly hatches, and several transport ships fully loaded with airborne divisions were launched to an altitude of about fifty thousand meters near the ground - this had already entered the atmosphere of Ankachi VIII.
At this distance, transport ships with weak armor and speed would have to survive in seconds when hit by anti-aircraft and anti-orbital firepower. If transport ships were used to carry soldiers to the ground, it is estimated that more than half of the ships would be destroyed halfway.
But since it is called an airborne division, it will not use conventional transportation methods.
The specially designed transport ship opened dozens of huge hatches on the belly and sides at the same time. Then, the fully armed airborne division jumped out of the transport ship one after another!
Orbital airdrop is a new tactic developed by the Marine Corps under the Alliance Navy.
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There will be another chapter later.
(End of this chapter)
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