The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2660

Chapter 2660: Rising Casualties

Ves and many other observers couldn't help but admire the performance of the Garlener expert mechs.

He had to admit that Vicious Mountain had turned expert mech combat into an artform. While he looked down on their warrior culture, only such a circumstance was capable of pushing the development of expert mechs to a higher level!

The expert mechs fielded by the rest of the enemy strike force looked like toys in comparison to the Vicious Mountain expert mechs!

Of course, Ves knew that much of that had to do with the relative strength and treatment of the individual expert pilots.

Venerable Brutus Wodin was not only a boy, but also a relatively young expert pilot who had only come into power for a few years.

Venerable Ghanso Larkinson and the other 7 expert pilots deployed by his side weren't truly Fridaymen. As foreigners who were half-conscripted to fight on behalf of the Coalition, they didn't receive the best treatment. They weren't as skilled as true second-class expert pilots so they wouldn't be able to make good use of more powerful expert mechs anyway.

All of this resulted in an obvious disparity between the two enemy forces.

The Fridaymen brought powerful elite mech troops but only paired them up with a bunch of mediocre expert mechs.

The Praetor and Planat Clan were led by a small number of powerful expert pilots but only managed to bring several thousand ordinary military mechs.

The expeditionary fleet did not have to worry too much about the weaker components of the two enemy forces. While that didn't mean that they could be ignored at will, they obviously weren't expected to achieve victory on their own merits as long as they were contained.

Right now, thousands of mechs on both sides have become locked in battle!

Due to the fact the enemy dispatched its forces in two pincers, the Larkinsons, Glory Seekers and Crossers had to split up their forces as well.

As previously agreed upon, the defending mechs on the right side of the expeditionary fleet largely consisted of units that were more suited to slower-paced battles of attrition. While that didn't necessarily mean that the individual officers couldn't employ unexpected stratagems or pull off clever maneuvers, the overall tone of the battle was relatively subdued compared to what took place on the opposite side.

The exchange of blows was a lot more intensive at the left side of the battlefield!

A flood of laser and positron beams lit up the surrounding space as rifleman mechs from both sides had become locked in battle!

The initial weight of fire clearly favored the elite Fridaymen due to their stronger mechs. The Larkinsons only managed to compensate for the weakness of their Vima Suns by relying on their greater numbers and allowing the Transcendent Punishers to provide some much-needed assistance.

The artillery mechs played a crucial role in suppressing the enemy! The Ylvainan mech pilots had all received orders to concentrate their firepower on the grenade-carrying mechs of the Holvein Grenadiers.

It couldn't be helped! The elite mech regiment founded by the Gauge Dynasty was just too difficult to fight against at close range! A series of powerful grenades could easily tear apart a formation or blow upon a hole in a battle line.

The grenades also induced a lot of fear in any mech pilot that attempted to take down a Holvein Grenadier mech. The elite mech pilots had a habit of holding back at least one grenade until their mech was about to be defeated. The damaged mech would whip out and throw the grenade at its opponent at the final moment before taking advantage of the moment to disengage.

If the nearly-defeated Holvein Grenadier mech was unable to withdraw, then its mech pilot would not hesitate to blow up the grenade at point blank range!

Therefore, the 300 or so Transcendent Punishers that still remained operational all unleashed death and destruction on all 6 mech companies of the Holvein Grenadiers!

While the Grenadiers brought forth plenty of space knights to withstand the barrage, their defenses weren't as perverse as that of the Corundian Giants.

With up to 1200 heavy positron and gauss cannons trained onto the brave space knights of the Holvein Grenadiers, their thick shields melted and fractured into pieces as soon as they were subject to focused fire. The energy shields that formed along the way quickly popped within seconds after blocking over twenty successive beams and rounds at once!

Once the space knights became exposed, not even their thick frontal armor availed them for long. Positron beams vaporized the upper layers while softening up what remained with an excess of heat. Solid gauss rounds fired by the Transcendent Punisher's potent Xcordon cannons slammed into the already-weakened plates and shattered several of them at the same time!

While a single Transcendent Punisher likely needed a fair amount of time to chew through the defensive layers of a Holvein Grenadier space knight, what about an entire squad? What about an entire mech company?

No single mech could withstand so much firepower at once, especially when they advanced closer!

Dozens of space knights shattered into pieces. Others turned into empty husks as their mech pilots hastily ejected from their machines. Without any significant counter battery fire to worry about, the Transcendent Punishers were performing their jobs in splendid fashion as their heavy firepower literally forced the Holvein Grenadiers to a standstill!

Other defensive mechs hastily reinforced the Holvein Grenadiers, allowing their more fragile mechs to escape the brunt of the bombardment for a while longer.

Of course, the fact that the Transcendent Punishers employed all of their firepower on just one single enemy mech unit meant that the others were able to advance under much less pressure!

The Larkinson rifleman mechs only inflicted light damage onto the enemy mechs. The modified laser rifles of the Vima Suns might be a tad more powerful than the norm, but the powerful armor of their opposition were more than capable of resisting the beams.

It couldn't be helped! The commercial second-class rifleman mechs piloted by the Avatars, Battle Criers, Vandals and so on were only optimized for laser weapons in order to lower costs.

While laser weapons boasted stellar accuracy, their damage potential was disappointing compared to positron weapons. Even when squads of Vima Suns focused their fire onto a single target, it took a lot of effort just to dig into the internals of a tough military mech.

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