A Grim Situation

In the hall of the combat planning department, on a projection, the red arrowhead that represented the Gyaca Woods Empire continuously charged at the several important high ground locations of Garo Mountain. As for the blue defense lines that represented the Leray Federation, they were on the verge of collapsing from the enemy’s attack.

Garo Mountain was the frontmost base west of Cato. Countless cannon fire cascaded down this section of the mountain pass with less than 600 kilometers square in area, with several of the important high ground locations being shaved off by 20-30 meters.

In a hidden forward command room that was not more than 10 kilometers away from Garo Mountain, the commander of Miracolo’s forward command who was personally supervising the battle, General Blatter, was currently looking with a grim expression at the electronic sand table.

He had already reinforced Point D1 on the Garo Mountain with two more mechanized infantry divisions that were from the fully-staffed main force of the army. However, the forward command’s call for SOS continued unabated, with the only difference being that those who had been previously requesting for help were all dead, and those who were requesting for help now were the soldiers from the reinforced divisions.

An entire mechanized infantry division that was originally stationed at high ground point D1 was entirely wiped out in battle.

This battle was truly bitter and fierce!

As the bunker located at high ground Point D1 had already been razed to the ground, even if the two reinforcement divisions brought with them temporary military fortifications, how would such structures be able to defend the cannon fire from the enemy? The only thing they could fight for was time; they needed time to allow the soldiers to use their mechanical arms and dig up some new, temporary barricades.

How much more reinforcements were required to be sent upwards? Gyaca Woods Empire had continued to assault high ground point D1 obsessively. Their losses were greater than the Federation’s, however, the Imperial forward commander had seemingly had set their goal as taking control of the Garo Mountain. By doing so, they would be able to cross the mountain and enter the strategic location in Catosi Canyon.

High ground D1’s position was located on the left flank of the defensive front line of Garo Mountain. The entire high ground had seemingly become a half-peeled pyramid, with the side closer to the enemy turning into a high precipitous cliff. Regardless of whether it were the infantry or Battle Mecha, attacking this high ground required them to conquer the cliff that was close to 80 degrees in steepness. Thus, this high ground became a stump on the enemy’s route of attack, as they could attack the incoming enemy from high ground at any moment, consequently turning this into the target of the Imperial Army’s General Offense.

What made Blatter irritated had been the fact that their firepower assistance system could no longer function normally, and six of their autonomous artillery teams had been destroyed by the enemy’s retaliatory cannon fire, four of which were direct subordinates of the fully-mechanized infantry division situated on the high ground point D1 while the remaining two were the reinforcement artillery team dispatched by the forward command on the Garo Mountain. The main cause behind the destruction of these artillery teams had been due to the high intensity electronic blasts that paralyzed the Sky Network System.

The autonomous cannon was actually a simplified version of a certain Battle Mecha model, with an ultra-large caliber cannon installed on top of the mechanical joint legs, enabling them to travel on all sorts of terrain and thus further improving their stealth and deployment capabilities over the previous version, which used caterpillar tracks to move. This was a firepower assistance system within the mechanized infantry divisions, and under the cover of the Sky Network System, this cannon would endlessly deliver an accurate payload to the coordinates demarcated on the Sky Network System in need of firepower assistance.

However, ever since the start of the battle, the continuous electronic blasts had entirely paralyzed the Sky Network Systems of both nations, leaving no system that were able to operate after such an intense electronic battle.

In modern warfare, regardless of whether it was in the outer space or on the surface of a planet, the very first move would be to initiate an electronic battle to destroy the systems used for or by the enemy’s communications forward command, battlefield monitoring, firepower distribution, attack positioning, and many others.

The term “electronic battle” actually came from the era of ancient Earth. In reality, modern electronic warfare covered everything from electronic communication, optical imaging, signal deceit, imitated military power, camouflage concealment to feigning attacks and many other modern warfare. The attack methods utilized were also increasing by the day. Other than the fundamental interference, there was also methods like virus infection, system invasion, program loopholes, laser-guided system blinding, signal disturbance, information infiltration, microwave radiation, pulse attack, commandos attacking certain infrastructures, and many others. The newly developed electronic attack equipment were also becoming more advanced by the day, increasing both the radius of the attack as well as the ferocity.

The electronic battle of both nations would determine the direction in which the war proceeded. The moment a nation lost the electronic battle, the units embroiled in combat would suffer an enormous loss. They would be unable to determine the positions of the enemies and would not longer be able to accurately assist other teams with their firepower under the guidance of the communication and command system, as the system would no longer function properly. The losing nation could only use the most primitive battlefield communications, and the moment those responsible for firepower assistance started firing, they would be revealed to the enemy, leading to the enemy using the Sky Network System to eradicate those from the artillery.

It was the same as currently there were no victor from the electronic battle between the two nations, and thus neither of their Sky Network Systems were working properly in guiding the artillery. The autonomous artillery team could only use the most primitive method of firing based on the observation from the front lines before shooting suppressive fire.

The entire Garo Mountain had become a huge battlefield with no areas for concealment. The autonomous artillery’s strafe shots, which they were familiar with, could no longer be used anymore. Furthermore, the front lines truly needed firepower assistance system so much that without the guidance from the Sky Network System, not only was the accuracy of the strafe shots low, but the speed of the suppressive fire and density of it could not reach the required level. As a result, both nations had decided to fundamentally rely more on the sheer numbers of the artillery soldiers. One by one, artillery teams from both sides would be destroyed after revealing their location because of the firing.

Not only was this happening at high ground Point D1, the losses incurred from the entire Garo Mountain battle region had already caused General Blatter to reach his wits’ end. Looking at the electronic sand table, he was doing his best to verify the intelligence report of the enemy’s military troop deployment and data. He did not know how long he could withstand with the remaining prepared teams. The firepower assistance that had been prepared had long dropped to a minimum, as there were just a few armored divisions left and the fully-mechanized infantry divisions had been destroyed the moment they were dispatched. If this sort of attack continued on for another day, his only option would be to request for Bernadotte to transfer soldiers from other defense lines.

However, would he dare to transfer? Even if he did, where would he transfer the military power to? The entire west of Cato had become a Meat-Grinder battlefield, and there would be no place he would dare to dispatch them to.

Other than Jialipalan, the military power in all the other locations were also hard-pressed. Even if he transferred them over, the time required to assemble the soldiers, transport them, and enter the battle would take at least two days. The only way for it to not take such a long period of time would be to use the teams defending Jialipalan, but if they were transferred out, what would they do if a mishap happened?

The most worrying thing was that nobody truly knew what exactly was the objective of the Imperial Army, who had started this General Offense assaulting method! Unless, did they truly want to open a passage to Cato in order to obtain a strategic open space east of Cato before fighting another war with the Leray federation?

Even though Blatter knew there were several other routes other than Garo Mountain which the enemy could use in attacking Cato, the reason why the Empire attacked Garo Mountain so fiercely was because the other routes were similarly heavily guarded by soldiers. Furthermore, Garo Mountain and the Catosi Canyon behind it contained a total of three Federation ground-based military bases and two air bases, and the soldiers stationed within could quickly travel to any of the places after getting through Garo Mountain, enabling the Imperial soldiers that breached through it to easily isolate and surround the other locations.

However, such an attack would not be worth it since it was so obvious. According to the reports, the Empire’s most famous general, Russell, had already personally reached the forward command on the surface of Miracolo Planet. With the commanding strength of Russell, he would never initiate such an assault in a situation where the Imperial ground-based army did not hold any advantages.

Thus, he had to have planned ahead of time. General Blatter decided to continue his journey to Jialipalan’s command headquarters without having answers to his questions, hoping that he would be able to find a method to resolve the issue of defending Garo Mountain while, at the same time, discover the hidden objective behind the enemy’s attack. Facing Gyaca Woods famous General Russell, Blatter knew that he would not win by just solely depending on himself. Right now, he could only rely on the collective wisdom of the team.

And the battle had lasted just a single day.