Chapter 670, Collapse and Breakout
The Northern Front Army Group is different from the Western Front and Southern Front.
There is an absolute main body on the Western Front: the Otaupis Chapter, the Sun Fleet, and the Sun Legion.
Although there are three families, they are all direct troops working for Holy Terra. They cooperate with each other for more than a day or two. Salisius has full leadership authority over the Sun Fleet and the Sun Legion. Regardless of the fleet commander or the head of the Astra Militarum, there is no resistance to obeying Salius's orders. He can fully mobilize the troops of the Western Front Legion.
Not to mention the southern front, just the alliance itself.
Of course, both the western and southern fronts have some additional power. For example, there are some remaining troops on the Western Front who followed the orders of the Phoenix Chapter during the first Western Front Offensive; there are other Chapters who joined or were recruited on the road during the assembly process, and even ships and Astra Militarum. Troops; there are local troops recruited from the Maigret Domain...
On the southern front as well, there are some troops deployed from the Eastern Universe Region and even the Yunmengze Universe Region to the west of the Eastern Universe Region, obeying Gu Hang's command.
However, these 'foreign troops' on the southern and western fronts only have a subordinate position, not the core force, and are the icing on the cake.
Gu Hang or Salisius have strong enough control over their core troops, which in turn allows them to control the entire army.
But the Northern Front is not like this. The Northern Front is a real coalition.
Although there is a core like the Black Crusaders, their proportion in the entire northern front is honestly incomparable to that of the western front, let alone the alliance on the southern front.
There are twice as many people from other battle groups; as for the fleet, it is also a combined fleet. In addition to the Black Crusaders Chapter, the Galactus Space Domain gave great support. The nature of the ships coming from the Star Swallowing Space Region is the same as that of the Northern Fleet and Yunluo Fleet in the Dragon Eagle Star Region.
The fleets under these star domain governments have no affiliation with each other and are forcibly put together. Maybe, when I left my hometown and joined the expeditionary force, I was told by the boss of my own government to try to bring the fleet back. After all, for a star field, the value of the fleet is very great. The empire has really been wiped out, and it will take who knows how many years to rebuild, relying on the Star Territory Government’s own financial capabilities.
Especially some poorer star fields.
When the Northern Front Legion and the Insect Swarm were pulling each other's fleets together in the Rhea Druches system, these star fleets were the first to collapse.
They simply slipped away and ran away.
The smart thing about the Hive Fleet is that they did not hunt down the escaping human ships, but focused on putting more pressure on the human fleet.
Seeing that the war was becoming more and more difficult to withstand, and seeing that the fleeing ships really ran away, the remaining human ships, which were already in a state of turmoil, fled even more.
At this point, the human fleet's overall losses are not particularly serious. After all, the most important ship has not escaped yet.
The biggest impact is on morale.
The great impact on the war situation is that there is a gap in the entire fleet formation. The Hive Fleet can take advantage of the lack of firepower on the human ships to attack them. Not only is it easy for other ships on the human side to be hit by side fire, but some core ships inside are also exposed.
In a swift assault, the battle barge, the most important ship in the Northern Front Legion fleet, the flagship from the Black Cross Third Fleet, the flagship of the entire fleet that Leroy personally commanded, It was destroyed after being struck by concentrated fire.
Before and after the ship exploded, there were single boats that escaped from the battle barge that was about to be destroyed. Perhaps Leroy himself, as well as some of the important people still on board, escaped and ascended to heaven. However, unable to withstand the poor communication environment, no one could contact Leroy, and he could no longer form effective command of the entire fleet.
Immediately, Marshal Xi Rui of the Black Cross Fourth Fleet took over the command. The battle barge he was on was indeed the second flagship arranged in the entire fleet sequence.
Marshal Xi Rui's handling after taking over cannot be considered wrong. Tactically, he tried his best to make up for the entire fleet's tactical formation after a battle barge was destroyed; strategically, he also tried his best to appease people's hearts and avoid the total collapse of the fleet. However, no matter how hard he tried, the collapse still came.
With Leroy missing and the flagship destroyed, more ships began to break away from the battle.
The order was passed on, but there was no response.
I don’t know if it was really cut off by the omnipresent and very powerful communication interference ability of the insect swarm, or if it was clearly heard and just deliberately did not make any reply.
The Inquisition battleship that Qin Zhiping was on was actually the one that had lasted the longest.
But there is no point anymore.
Seeing that defeat was inevitable and realizing that the situation was over, Qin Zhiping had to order the ships to evacuate.
In other words, it would be better to call it 'breakout'.
He successfully broke through. Although the ship suffered a lot of damage, and although he made an interstellar shuttle after the breakout and was unable to contact the main force, he and his crew survived at least.
But just when they were relieved, bad news came one after another.
The ship's damage management department reported that the damage to the ship was relatively serious, and there was no way to repair it based on existing conditions. The only option was to forcibly mend the ship and try to keep the ship sailing. But they have no way to guarantee how long the ship will be able to sail. Perhaps, suddenly at a certain node, it will be damaged.
Qin Zhiping could only take his ship and run as far east as possible.
He knew that running north would lead to death, as that was also the territory of the insect swarm. It would be better to run eastward to the Alfonzo Star Territory occupied by the Alliance. That would be closer. If we really get there, there might be a glimmer of hope.
Then, they were attacked by the Void Zerg hunting ships.
Obviously, in the previous war, the Zerg ignored the escaping human ships, which was just a combat strategy at the time. After they had won the decisive fleet battle, all these escaping ships were trophies after the war, and they must find a way to recover them.
Dragging the broken ship, of course they couldn't escape pursuit.
The last bit of motivation could only allow his Tribunal ship to take the initiative to make an emergency landing on the world called 'Taiyuan Star'.
20% of the personnel on the ship died in the emergency landing.
But at least 80% of the people survived.
The emotions of surviving the disaster did not stay in their hearts for a second. What was about to come was the endless pursuit of the insect swarm!
(End of chapter)