Chapter 941 Battle of the West: Attack and Defense of Tarastra (Part 2)
940. Battle of the West: Attack and Defense of Tarastra (Part 2)
Eriadu System, Tower Planet Rastra.
The fleet of the Fourth Civilization has begun to occupy a greater advantage on this battlefield. Wilhuff Tarkin, the governor of the 18th Army of the Republic, has discovered that even when the fleets of both sides are of equal strength, they It's hard to shake Severance Tann's formation.
What's more, although the Republic's fleet is large in number, it cannot form a reasonable combination.
Because in comparison, the fleets of the Fourth Civilization were basically built in the same era. At the beginning of the design and construction, the tactical matching between each other was considered, so the effect of 1+1>2 can often be achieved when working together. .
However, many of the Galactic Republic's warships have designs spanning hundreds or thousands of years. These warships were built for various purposes. For example, the Invincible-class battlecruiser was used as the main battleship during the Sith War. Its battlefield positioning was the same as that of the Jaeger-class battlecruiser. However, due to its slow speed, it was difficult to keep up with the pace of modern battleships.
Another example is the Prosecutor-class battleship, which is basically a battleship built under the restrictions of the treaty after the Rusan Reform. Its main purpose is to deter force, or to garrison near some important planets.
Others such as the CR-70 frigate used to protect shipping routes, the DP-20 gunboat used to exterminate pirates, etc... Various functions can be said to be multifarious and overlapping. In such a large-scale battle, So they just swarmed all over.
Not only is there no matching, but the complicated warship models also put great pressure on logistics.
The Supreme Strategic Command of the Republic no longer has enough logistics fleets to meet frontline needs, and has to ask several warship manufacturers to provide support for their own warships.
To put it bluntly, you, Kuat Power Shipyard, are responsible for your own production of Jaeger-class and Aquitens-class battleships, and Corellia Engineering Company is responsible for your own CR series frigates, DP- 20 gunboats these ships.
These battleships have different parts, specifications, and ages. The result is that the logistics supply is even more chaotic. Almost every day, a large number of dark transport ships fly to the planet Eriadu.
It can be said that if it were not for the extremely powerful Galactic Republic, other forces would have been completely overwhelmed by such a miscellaneous fleet.
Governor Tarkin also tried his best to command more than 300 of the warships to fight around the planet Tarastra, but the number was still not only one-third of theirs, but all of them were at the kilometer level. The battleship is the opponent of the fourth civilization fleet.
But similarly, Severance Tann was not feeling well either. The turret groups installed on five of the satellites around the planet Tarastra are not fun, and they caused extremely serious damage to the Fourth Civilization Fleet during the battle.
The battle lasted for about 10 days. As of April 32, the Fourth Civilization had lost 14 Dreadnought-class heavy cruisers and 1 Cole-class battlecruiser, of which 4 Dreadnought-class ships were destroyed on the spot. , the rest was dragged back, but it couldn’t be moved without a year and a half of overhaul.
In addition, more than 20 Dreadnought-class ships have suffered more or less damage and are unable to exert their full combat effectiveness.
At this time, only the last two of the five satellites with turret groups left, satellites No. 2 and No. 6. Severance Tann proposed a combat plan, wanting to send the army to land, forcibly occupy one of the satellites, and then build a temporary spaceport on it to take off, land and maintain drones to provide support for the fleet. But Ling Liang, Major General of the Army and deputy commander of the campaign, firmly opposed this plan. She believed that sending the army to force a landing under such circumstances would be tantamount to sending these troops to die! Because these two satellites have no atmosphere, they cannot survive at all, and unless special equipment is used, it is difficult to move on them.
Severance Tann had previously changed her attitude towards the diligent Ling Liang, but this objection once again aroused her hostility towards the Army. She scolded Ling Liang at the military meeting, saying that she did not cooperate with the navy's actions because tens of thousands of navy soldiers had lost their lives in this battle so far.
The occupation of one of the satellites is also to reduce the losses of the navy.
In her opinion, Ling Liang refused this battle on behalf of the army because he wanted to put the conflict between the two armies above the success or failure of the battle.
Ling Liang is not to be outdone. She is also very rich in military knowledge and has a strong appeal. She said that Severance Tann's plan was a blame-shifting move, because now we have no idea about the internal situation of the two satellites. Regardless of the harsh environment, the success of the battle is still questionable, and Worst case scenario, what if the base beneath the Republic's turret cluster self-destructs?
Temporarily build a maintenance drone spaceport on such a harsh satellite that can be used by a large fleet? This requires a huge number of transport fleets and engineering fleets, and under the watchful eye of the Republic fleet, it is simply impossible.
She said very pointedly that Severance Tann proposed this plan out of fear! Because she was no longer sure of victory when facing the Iron Barrel Formation of the Republic, she was extremely anxious and wanted to do something to give herself some psychological comfort.
And for this little bit of psychological comfort, do we have to sacrifice the lives of army soldiers?
After hearing these words, Severance Tann became so angry that she almost wanted to pull out her lightsaber and kill someone. The military meeting turned into a scene of quarrels and ended on bad terms.
The next day, Severance Tann ordered the former Jedi Master Adi Gallia who participated in the battle to block Ling Liang in the dormitory, and then issued the order directly in the name of the supreme commander of the battle— -The 3rd, 17th, and 18th Mechanized Infantry Regiments of the Fourth Civilization Army immediately launched a landing on Tarastra Planet 6 Satellite.
Under her command, the Fourth Civilization Fleet bombed the No. 6 satellite indiscriminately. The fighter formation also took the initiative and launched a resolute attack with the Republic's fighter group to cover the 10,000 army soldiers. Login.
When Ling Liang finally persuaded Adi Gallia to get out of the way and rushed to the command center, it was already noon the next day.
On April 34, it took the Fourth Civilization Army two days to advance over a distance of more than 50 kilometers and occupy the energy center of Satellite 6.
But as Ling Liang expected, the Republic directly detonated the energy center!
In the huge explosion, at least one-third of the landing troops were killed in the sea of fire, and many others were thrown directly into outer space in this low-gravity environment. A considerable number of them were also hit by Taras The planet Terra was captured by its gravity and dragged into the gas giant planet.
(End of this chapter)