The Imperial expeditionary force on this planet was forced to retreat again and again under the ferocious attacks of the Federal Army. They were routed to the north, and at most, only 15% of their strength was left. They retreated back to the glaciers in the extreme north. Under such circumstances, it should have been extremely easy for the new 17th Division to carry out the final clean-up operation. However, reality gave them a heavy blow.
Under the cold and tenacious command of that old fox General Ambly, the remaining Imperial expeditionary force silently turned to guerilla warfare. Tens of thousands of Imperial soldiers who knew that they had no way out and were in a desperate situation, not only did they not collapse from despair, they became even more ruthless and cruel, not only to the enemy, but also to themselves. They braved the dangers of the cold and appeared between the glaciers like night rats, looking for any opportunity to launch an attack on the Federation troops, completely disregarding their own lives.
This kind of crazy suicidal attack successfully dragged the new 17th Division, the Iron Seventh Division, and the rest of the Federal forces into a bloody swamp, no, it should be said that they were in a cold hell.
It was unknown whether it was before or after the start of the war, but the Imperial expeditionary force dug out countless deep pits covered by white snow in the glaciers that covered an area of about three million square kilometers. At the same time, they sent out countless melee explosive squads to guard the sides of the pits. The moment a Federation mecha fell into a deep pit, the Imperial soldiers who had long been waiting in ambush would rush forward and use their own blood-spurting bodies in exchange for the electromagnetic beam bombs on their shoulders to fire.
No one knew how many soldiers of the Empire had silently frozen to death in the ice and snow in such a crazy way of fighting. But for the Federal forces, they only knew that these snow pits that had escaped their electronic surveillance buried countless Federation mecha and their brave pilot comrades …
Lieutenant Colonel He Lei, the regiment commander of the first regiment of the new 17th Division, tossed the battle damage report onto the snow with a gloomy expression and walked towards the regiment headquarters. His military boots left shallow footprints in the snow, beneath which was a layer of ice that had accumulated for who knew how many meters.
It had already been two and a half months since his troops had arrived at the combat zone, but they had not made much progress in clearing out the remnants of the Empire forces. Those Empire soldiers hiding in the glaciers were like beasts on the brink of death, coldly glaring at the Federation soldiers, ready to pounce out at any moment to beg for a life and death battle. Under this sort of suicidal fighting style, in just 10 days, 1st Regiment had lost another 6 M52 mecha and 2 MX mecha.
What shocked and puzzled him was also the ability of the Imperial expeditionary force command center to control the remaining soldiers in the glaciers, as well as the ability of those Imperial colleagues to command.
From the very beginning of the Federation's victorious military operation, they had successfully lured out the main armored forces of the Imperial expeditionary force in the north of the planet. They had also obtained the specific location of the underground fortifications that the Imperial people had been building for decades. In the subsequent attack, they had deployed large amounts of energy backups and long-range missiles to continuously bombard the area. In the end … in the end, the Federation command center had discovered that the old general named Ambry had actually left a backup plan. There were still several large underground bases hidden in the glaciers that the Federation had not been able to control.
"Report to the division headquarters. If the mecha mechanics can't come up with any good ideas, our division will refuse to enter the mountains again."
Lieutenant Colonel He Lei's eyes were sunken due to the tiredness of the past few days. There was a cold light in his eyes as he said, "Obeying orders is the duty of a soldier, but death is not death. From what I know, Hua Xiaosi's mecha brigade has also temporarily stopped entering the mountains. "
"The division headquarters currently has no plans to enter the mountains, but we shouldn't ask for it ourselves." An officer said worriedly, "The Imperial people have really gone crazy. This is a war that they are clearly going to lose. Why would they rather commit suicide than surrender? If they continue fighting like this, even if they can clean up the enemy completely, the losses of their troops will be extremely terrifying. "
"Surrender? If it were me, I would also not be willing to be captured by the enemy after being away from home for so many years and being in such a hopeless situation. I would be more willing to trade my life for the enemy's. However, we are protecting the Federation. What are they doing this for? "
He Lei said coldly. His mind flashed back to half a month ago when the first group entered the mountains to clean up the enemy. A Federation mecha had fallen into a deep pit in front of the snowy forest. It didn't even have time to break out of the ice before it was surrounded and attacked by hundreds of Imperial soldiers. Those Imperial soldiers actually didn't care about the first group's main forces behind the snowy forest at all … in the end, these hundreds of Imperial soldiers were all killed by the first group's powerful firepower. However, the Federation mecha that had fallen into the snow pit also exploded and died.
Using the lives of a hundred soldiers in exchange for one mecha was extremely correct in terms of battlefield value. However, even on the battlefield where human lives were as cheap as grass, He Lei and the Federal military could not accept this kind of exchange method.
He could not understand why those Imperial soldiers, whose single soldier uniforms were already tattered and could not keep them warm, whose faces were withered due to lack of nutrition, whose skin was festering due to the severe cold, and whose movements were somewhat unchanged, could suddenly become so swift in the final charge, their eyes shooting out a crazed gaze like that of a dying beast.
What kind of ideology could make a group of invaders, a group of soldiers from the lower class of the Empire who had been bullied by the nobles, people without any moral support, completely ignore the terrifying threat of death and behave in such a fanatical and terrifying manner?
Right at this moment, an engineer wrapped in cotton wool walked out from the side room of the regiment headquarters. His nose was red from the cold, and his spectacles flashed with the light of anger. He said loudly to Commander He Lei, "Mr. Lieutenant Colonel, I hope you can take back your previous verbal attack on the designer of the mecha."
It was very obvious that He Lei's angry roar on the snowy ground had reached this engineer's ears. He Lei glanced at this person indifferently and did not pay him any attention.
The engineer stomped his feet and said, "The MX mecha was designed by Lieutenant Colonel Xu Le. If you want to scold him, it's best to do it to his face."
Commander He Lei's expression stiffened slightly. He shrugged and walked past this person. He said, "Although he is my instructor, I still have to scold him when it's time to do so. Your mission is to immediately solve the problem of those damned ice pits' lethality towards the mecha. If this ridiculous situation of arrows piercing through alloy shields continues, I'm really worried that I and the Nutshell Engineering Department will become the biggest idiots in the universe war. "
"The additional high-frequency short-wave positioning technology, which is also the crater breaking technology you mentioned, has been basically successful after receiving Lieutenant Colonel Xu Le's data. After debugging, it will be installed on all the mecha immediately."
He Lei suddenly stopped in his tracks and clenched his fists tightly. He said in a low voice, "Very good."
…
…
"On this planet, there must be countless officers and pilots cursing us. But I have to admit, back when we were doing the design in Hong Kong, we really made an extremely stupid mistake. There were problems with the data calculation of the balance instrument and the design of the joint transmission device. Once the MX's mechanical legs sank into the crater, the sensor would fail and feedback would be transmitted back to the assembly. The mecha system would not be able to instantly adapt to the posture. In other words, once you stepped on it, it would step down … Can you believe it? Our proudest work actually already had cerebellar dysplasia from the moment it was born. "
In the frigid world of ice and snow, a Federation troop of close to a hundred people was silently advancing. Amidst the tracked ice-breaking armored vehicles that had been specially developed for snow were three of the Federation's newest MX mecha. All three of the mecha were painted white, but for some reason, the waist and abdomen of these three white MX mecha seemed to be different from normal MX mecha.
The white MX mecha at the back seemed to have been damaged and lost its power. It was barely able to move forward by the tractor. In the closed and insulated cockpit, a voice rang out. The words were filled with self-deprecating anger.
"We are engineers. This kind of irresponsible self-blame and self-destructive impulse has no meaning. In my opinion, the MX design did not have too big of a problem. The main problem was caused by the special terrain of the 5460 glacial zone. Those M52s also sank into the ice crater and could not stand up on their own. This means that the senior engineers who designed the M-series also did not consider such an extreme environment. This includes your teacher, Professor Shen. "
A woman's voice rang out in the cockpit. The voice was calm and filled with the unique self-control of an engineer.
"Extreme environment? Fighter mecha should have been able to adapt to the extreme low temperatures on the vacuum mineral planet and the absolute high temperatures on the surface of the star. In the end, they were trapped in the ice crater. Do you think that makes sense? "
"There are many kinds of extremes, especially on the battlefield. In the extreme north of this planet, the sea level increased too quickly. Whether it was the primeval forest at the periphery or the glacial zone that suddenly rose, they all severely limited the mecha's options. This way, the Empire was able to calculate and accurately set the location and depth of the crater. The most important thing was that everyone seemed to have underestimated the hardness of the ice, even though it was originally supposed to be gentle water. "
The woman in the cockpit continued calmly, "At zero degrees, the Fahrenheit hardness of ice is 1-2. At minus 15 degrees, the hardness is 2-3. At minus 40 degrees, the hardness is 4. At minus 50 degrees, the hardness is 6. In the glacial zone where the Empire is hiding, the air temperature is minus 30 degrees all year round. The surface temperature is even lower. According to the monitoring data over the past few days, the temperature inside the glacial zone has long since reached minus 60 degrees."
"The hardness of the ice at low temperatures surpasses that of Huagang rock and steel. Under such hardness, after the mecha's mechanical legs sink in, there is no way for them to break out of the ice by themselves. The Empire has the time to use heat to break the ice in advance, but the mecha on the battlefield do not have this kind of time. "
"Also, don't you think that the design of the ice crater dug by the Empire is very exquisite? The ice craters we checked at the beginning of the month were all of the same caliber and the depth was just right. Especially the forward sliding angle of the ice crater, the design was very beautiful. "
"With the mech's mechanical leg sinking into the ice pit at such an angle, the hydraulic system connected to the spherical joint at the knee would immediately lose all function. Since there is no point of force and no space for displacement … the Empire's people had only used the most basic force calculation in classical physics to immobilize the most advanced MX mech. This proves that the classical laws of physics possessed the beauty of simplicity, and cannot be resisted."
In the cockpit, the female genius engineer from the Nutshell Engineering Department, Shang Qiu, looked at the data on the holographic screen in front of her and said calmly. She did not even look at Xu Le beside her.
...
...
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
