From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 561 Amber, you are not behind the comet at all!
Amid the eager anticipation of many forces, the real large-scale fleet battle between the Atlas Group and the Federation finally began.

During the electronic attack phase before the formal exchange of fire between the two sides, the four fleets under the Federal Fleet, which were almost completely suppressed, had actually begun to experience communication chaos.

Afterwards, the quantum entanglement communication equipment in the four fleets also failed at the same time.

This also caused these federal fleets to lose the ability to communicate with the federal naval headquarters and other friendly forces in real time.
However, this kind of "network disconnection" situation was already anticipated by Major General Stoner and others. After all, this ultra-long-distance real-time communication technology was developed by the Atlas Group.

After the Federation and Atlas had completely broken off relations and were even about to go to war, it was only natural for the Atlas Group to impose restrictions in this regard.

This is also an important reason why the Federation wants to take down the Atlas Group this time - that is, it wants to remove the "tight circle" on its quantum entanglement communication technology. Otherwise, as long as the Federation cannot make a breakthrough in this area, it will be controlled by the Atlas Group.

The Federation Fleet was at a disadvantage in the electronic warfare of the "pre-battle appetizer". For a long time, its warships could only rely on blue-green lasers and light signals to communicate with nearby friendly forces. This also made the coordinated attack of the entire fleet largely dependent on the combat deployment before the battle began.

At this point, whether it was the joint work of the four fleet commanders or the implementation of the combat deployment by the four fleets, there was no chaos after the nearly 1,000 warships of the entire fleet launched the attack.

As the two sides entered a distance of 50,000 kilometers, the fleets on both sides began to make final formation adjustments.

The distance between the warships of the two fleets began to increase, leaving room for each other to maneuver and evade, and all the light cruisers, destroyers and frigates began to shrink to the sides and rear of the formation.

After all, in a fleet battle of this scale, the survivability of such non-main battleships has reached an extremely low level. Even the naval researchers of the Federation and the Empire have begun to envision the possibility of the future naval fleet being "all-main battleship."

Soon, the four fleets of the Federal Navy formed a huge cone formation. The huge warships flashed a cold light under the starlight. The constantly activated weapon units on the hulls were like the authority of gods in mythology, exuding a terrifying breath of destruction.

The center area of ​​the cone formation is composed entirely of battleships such as battleships and heavy cruisers. The flagships of the four fleets are lined up in a row. This will also be a key area for output and defense, and will also be the center of the storm.

The two unmanned fleets on the Atlas side were like silent steel ghosts, quietly floating in the universe and forming a similar formation, but the scale was nearly half that of the cone formation of the Federal Navy.

Although these unmanned warships are modified from various warships currently in service, no matter who sees them for the first time, they will feel the difference between them and manned fleets.

The lines of each warship are simple and rigid, exuding a cold metallic luster. The only "intelligent life" on board - those high-level shipborne control personalities, have no warmth of life, nor emotional fluctuations, but just accurately execute the preset procedures. They are the coldest executors on the battlefield and the best choice for performing "line defense" missions in the Atlas combat fleet.

Behind the unmanned fleet, the Third Task Force is temporarily on standby here.

Although the warships under Randall's command were scarred, they still exuded an indomitable spirit. Those warships covered with scratches and dents were tired but still majestic.

The lights of the portholes on the battleships flickered in the darkness, as if the unyielding souls of these steel giants were burning. Every bullet mark left by a kinetic warhead was a memory of a battle, and every gap torn open and then repaired by a heavy particle cannon was a test of life and death.

The oldest of these destroyers can be traced back to the Battle of the Three Idiots.
They have charged into the battlefields of Atlas many times, and now, these warships are once again at the forefront of the war, ready to burn themselves out in this battle that will determine the future of Atlas.

"Ten seconds left to enter the 40,000-kilometer combat distance!" Selina's voice rang out on the bridge of the Infinity.

On the flagships of the four fleets of the Federal Navy, their respective shipboard control personalities reported the same information at almost the same time.

"Everyone, be prepared to meet the enemy!"

Randall's voice rang out over the communication channel, steady and powerful.

After receiving training on vocal techniques from the elves, his voice became like the sound of war drums coming from the depths of the universe. It was firm and full of confidence, as if telling every member of the Atlas combat fleet that they must win this battle.

"10987654321!!!"

"Fire!"

The countdown returned to zero, and at the orders of the commanders-in-chief of both fleets, the battle broke out in an instant.

In a fleet confrontation of this level, the killing effect of using high-energy lasers or charged particle beams is already very general, so both sides did not hesitate at all and fired all the main guns of the entire fleet at once.

The energy generated by nuclear fusion in the battleship's fusion reactor is absorbed by heavy metal particles by bombarding special alloys. Then, under the constraint of the directional magnetic field, it is accelerated through a long orbit and pointed directly at the target tens of thousands of kilometers away with a devastating momentum.

The dense blue-white "beams" produced by the salvo firing of a large number of heavy particle cannons streaked across the dark space like a meteor shower and attacked the position of the enemy fleet.

Ten seconds later, bursts of lightning flashed continuously on the battle lines of both sides. That was the "light curtain" formed when the deflection fields of the warships of both sides were activated to resist the heavy metal particles.

The full salvo of main guns of the entire fleet at the beginning of the battle can basically be regarded as the strongest punch a fleet has ever thrown, and such a punch is bound to produce the desired effect.

So next, "fireballs" kept appearing on the battle line, and each fireball symbolized that a warship was unfortunately sunk in the first round of salvos.

The two unmanned fleets were at an absolute disadvantage in terms of the number of warships, and were obviously no match for the federal fleet in terms of firepower projection capabilities. Therefore, on the battle line of the Atlas side, the number of "fireballs" that exploded when the warships were sunk was obviously more than that of the federal fleet.

But for the commander of the unmanned fleet, the commanding artificial intelligence 'Selene', these sunken warships are just updated numbers in the loss list.

"Begin to take turns covering each other and adjust your respective combat positions."

As her cold orders were given, the warships whose deflection field generators were overloaded after the first round of salvos but were fortunately not sunk, sent out the "worker bees" inside the hull to conduct damage control and began to use liquid helium coolant for emergency heat dissipation. At the same time, under the action of the attitude control nozzles, they began to exchange combat positions with another warship in good condition.

The precision and speed of the unmanned fleet were fully demonstrated in the twenty seconds before the second round of salvos began.

The Third Task Force, which was still behind the unmanned fleet, looked in surprise at the front of the two huge fleets with nearly 500 warships in front of them, and they completed the "battle position change" very smoothly as if it was a preset program.

These giant steel ships rely on the exquisite control of the attitude control nozzles to "pass by" friendly ships dozens of kilometers away with the shortest distance. The whole process is smooth as flowing water, without any sense of lag or any accidents.

So when the second round of salvos from both sides began, the unmanned fleet had urgently adjusted its battle positions, and the main battleships at the front were all in the best condition.

On the other hand, the four fleets of the Federation Navy will also perform the "battle position switching" operation during the battle, but it is not something they can do at the moment.

Because warships controlled by humans obviously cannot complete this series of delicate and dangerous operations within 20 seconds, let alone in a large fleet with thousands of warships.

Soon, both fleets launched a second salvo of main gun fire, and the entire battle area once again turned into a world of light.

Even on Rubion V, if you are in the hemisphere facing the battlefield, as long as you look up at the sky, you can find that there are star-like lights flashing in a certain position.

As for the "spectator crowd" who were driven away by the outer ships of both sides, although they were extremely far away from the battle area at this time, they could still catch the movement of the two fleets firing in unison.

However, when they wanted to pass the message to the outside world, they found that the quantum entanglement communication equipment on their respective ships had been suspended.

The equipment workbench popped up a message saying "Due to technical reasons, the Rubion galaxy and some surrounding space areas are temporarily out of service. If you have any questions, please contact your sales consultant~". This prompt also made the reconnaissance ships and spy ships of various forces have no choice but to suffer this loss.
After the second round of salvos, fireballs from warship explosions appeared again on the battle lines of both fleets.

However, this time, the number of fireballs appearing on the federal fleet's front line increased significantly.

"Seventeenth Fleet, the Steadfast and the Daring were sunk!"

"The 23rd Fleet, the Holy Grail, the Exile, and the King of Propulsion were sunk!" "The 24th Fleet, the Eagle Horn and the Samira were sunk!"

"Eighteenth Fleet, Quetzalcoatl and Budd are sunk in battle!"

On the main screen of the bridge of the 18th Fleet's flagship Galileo, information about the fleet's losses kept flashing. Rear Admiral Stoner, sitting in the captain's seat, looked at the information with a serious expression and remained silent.

At the same time, the fleet communications officer's voice sounded in the command channel:

"Report! The deflection field generator of the 24th Fleet's flagship, the Revenge, has reached critical value. In order to ensure that he can continue to command the fleet on site, Fleet Commander Rear Admiral Barak requests a battle position adjustment with the battleship Utah!"

Stoner said calmly, "Adjustments are allowed. The flagship does not need to be notified if it needs to adjust its position. It can be adjusted according to the real-time situation."

"Yes! General!"

Whether in the Federal Navy or the Imperial Royal Navy, the flagship is the command core and "morale maintenance tool" of a fleet. Generally speaking, it will not leave its position unless it is absolutely necessary.

Therefore, although the flagships of each fleet are active battleships, they have undergone substantial upgrades in terms of protection and communications.

Judging from the model, performance, and power of the deflection field generator alone, it far exceeds that of ships of the same class. In fact, its survivability is very strong during fleet-level firefights.

But now, after only the second round of salvos, the deflection field generator of the 24th Fleet's flagship, the Revenge, was close to overload. This showed that the Atlas battle fleet on the other side not only obtained the location of the flagship, but was also consciously conducting high-intensity concentrated fire.
The extremely high accuracy of the unmanned fleet's artillery fire also caused a large number of warships on the federal fleet's side to lose the protection of their deflection force fields in the first round of salvos, and they had no time to adjust their battle positions, and they died on the spot.

It's not that Stoner and others didn't think of this. On the contrary, they had already judged that this situation would occur in the pre-war meeting, so he was not surprised.

What really surprised him was that after the second round of salvos, the Atlas fleet on the opposite side did not suffer any more losses.

The attack assessment team concluded that the enemy suffered similar losses in the second salvo as in the first, and it is suspected that a large-scale rotation of positions was carried out in the interval between the two salvos.
“Is this the true use of the unmanned fleet?”

The rear admiral of the Federation Navy, who had once fought alongside the unmanned fleet, said silently in his heart.

Because in his previous battles with the unmanned fleet, these cold warships were used to perform auxiliary attacks or suicide attacks in most cases.
"Why does the commander of Atlas seem to be more familiar with these unmanned warships than us?"

A series of questions came to Major General Stoner's mind, but he quickly suppressed them because he had to focus on the battle at the moment.

Generally speaking, after the second round of salvos, both sides will temporarily deactivate their main guns and take the opportunity to perform other tactical actions, such as releasing HCP or activating electromagnetic reconnection guns, or launching plasma torpedoes and heavy anti-ship missiles.
So Major General Stoner issued new orders, just like in previous battles.

"Each ship adjusts its combat position according to the status of the deflection field generator, and continues to fire salvos after the main guns have finished cooling down!
At the same time, torpedoes and anti-ship missiles were deployed according to the combat plan, and the HCP forces of each ship were ready to attack!

The fleet will immediately carry out a 'full deck attack' after crossing the 2 km contact line, and launch an outflanking attack from both wings!"

"Yes, General! The order has been delivered!"

Then, Major General Stoner turned his head and looked at the officer on duty beside him and asked:
"Where is the target comet? Has the astronomical observation team found anything?"

The officer on duty seemed to have guessed that Stoner would ask this question, so he was already prepared and answered immediately:
"Report to the General, Comet Hyakutake is about to pass the closest position to Rubion V, but we have not yet found any trace of the enemy fleet near the comet and its tail!"

At this point, the officer on duty hesitated for a moment, then quickly glanced at Major General Stoner's expression and said cautiously:

"According to the Fleet Joint Command Center, Atlas' fleet may not be hiding behind the comet. Of course, there is another possibility that the huge comet tail fragments are interfering with our reconnaissance. Perhaps we need to continue the reconnaissance for a while before we can draw a definite conclusion!"

"I understand. Keep investigating."

Major General Stoner said this calmly, but his heart was already beginning to become uneasy.

Because the scene he had expected - Atlas' fleet rushing out from behind Comet Hyakutake when it passed Rubion V - did not occur.

Although the Fleet Joint Command Center has not yet made a final judgment, Rear Admiral Stoner knows that it is highly likely that Atlas' fleet did not approach with the help of a comet.

"Where exactly will he appear? Did he just give up the battle and flee?"

This thought only existed in Major General Stoner's mind for less than a second, and then he immediately dismissed it.

Although he had never met the 'boss' of the Atlas Group, nor had any contact with him, he knew from the intelligence sent by the Navy Command that the 'boss' on the other side would never do such a thing.
When the two fleets were engaged in a head-on battle in space, the tens of thousands of kilometers between them was actually very short, so before Major General Stoner could come up with anything, the Federation Fleet had already crossed the 2-kilometer contact line.

Soon, each warship released all the HCPs on board. Except for a group that stayed on board to perform air defense operations, the other HCPs quickly formed two attack clusters on the left and right. Under the initial speed given by the warships and the electromagnetic catapult tracks, they lit up their plasma propulsion arrays and rushed towards the two wings of the Atlas fleet.

Like a swarm of fireflies on a summer night.

Equally brilliant, equally short-lived.

But it's not that romantic.

No one knew how many of these HCPs would be able to return after the war, not even the HCP pilots themselves.

These pure soldiers from the Federal Navy now have only one goal in their minds - to try their best to break into the enemy camp, attack the side of the enemy fleet, and add another weight to the victory of this battle.

But at this moment, a message from the tactical information coordinator made Major General Stoner freeze in his command seat.

"Report! The fourth drive escort detachment outside the lower half of the formation reported that a target suspected to be a fleet was found in the nadir direction! It is approaching at high speed!"

The next second, the communication from the flagship of the 17th Fleet was also connected. As soon as the face of the fleet commander, Rear Admiral Benelli, appeared on the communication screen, he spoke impatiently:

"Stoner! We found a target that looks like an enemy fleet right below our fleet!"

Words like 'below' do not seem appropriate to appear in space, especially in complex space activities.

However, due to the traditional human cognition of space, and in space combat, the fleet will generally establish a coordinate system with itself as the center and confirm the directions of X, Y, and Z.

Therefore, the "up, down, left, right, front, back, and right" that make humans more adaptable have once again appeared in spoken reports of space activities.

Immediately afterwards, Major General Mueller of the 23rd Fleet and Major General Barak of the 24th Fleet also reported the same information.

By this time, Stoner also realized that he had made a huge misjudgment.

He looked at the 'unknown target' approaching from 'directly below' on the 3D battlefield situation map, and suddenly a familiar yet unfamiliar term popped up in his mind.

"This is...'Vertical Attack Tactics on the Ecliptic Plane'?!"

(End of this chapter)