From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars

Orbital strike is essentially bombing outside the atmosphere.

At least that's how it seems to humans in this world.

On the low-Earth orbit experimental ship, I tried high-energy lasers, charged particle cannons, heavy particle cannons, and electromagnetic guns.

The militaries of various countries have found that instead of playing with these bells and whistles, it is more effective to just throw missiles.

Planets suitable for human habitation have thick atmospheres.

Directed energy weapons attenuate seriously after penetrating the atmosphere.

And the speed of the electromagnetic gun's projectile, even in the final stage, is half slower than the exit speed.

Even on a planet with an extremely thin atmosphere, these point-to-point attack weapons are actually not suitable for ground attacks.

In terms of killing effect, a 140-kilogram long tungsten alloy projectile hit the ground at a speed of Mach 14.

The pure kinetic energy impact damage caused is not as powerful as a 155mm electrothermal chemical cannon using high-explosive grenades.

In terms of attack accuracy, ground forces have a large number of precision-guided weapons that can achieve an attack error of the same level as high-energy lasers.

However, the power and lethality range of a high-energy laser beam that has been 'diluted' by the atmosphere are completely destroyed.

Therefore, the orbital attack ships of all major forces finally "returned to their original nature" and engaged in orbital bombing.

Just like the Minotaur-class orbital attack ship that is 'laying eggs' in the low-Earth orbit of Robert IV.

These battleships, which are about 1 kilometer long and resemble thick silver door panels, do not have any anti-ship attack weapons and are only equipped with a small number of close-in defense guns for self-defense.

The spacious space inside its ship contains nothing but battleship-level jump drives and fusion reactors.

Almost filled to the brim with missile silos and deployment bays.

In the standard configuration, the Minotaur can carry 500 David tactical surface missiles and 10 Tunguska tactical hydrogen bombs.

At the same time, it can also carry a quarter of the empire's regiment, which is 500 orbital paratroopers.

The Eighth Expeditionary Strike Group brought a total of 50 Minotaur-class ships.

Right now, these silver door panels are scattered over the entire Robert IV.

Based on the intelligence provided by Commander Adam, they have already dropped a round of tactical hydrogen bombs on several assembly points of federal ground forces.

These tactical hydrogen bombs, with terminal speeds reaching Mach 30, left many federal troops with no time to react.

In the first round of delivery, only 15% of the warheads were intercepted.

The remaining tactical hydrogen bombs that broke through the interception all completed air explosion at a height between 200 and 350 meters above the ground.

The ground troops rushing to various exercise assembly points suffered extremely tragic casualties under the attack of tactical hydrogen bombs.

After completing the tactical nuclear strike, except for some warships that continued to cruise in low-Earth orbit and continued to attack with 'David' tactical surface-to-surface missiles.

Most of the Minotaur-class orbital attack ships once again lowered their orbital altitude.

The orbital paratroopers carried on the ship also sat in the orbital drop cabin located in the ship's deployment port.

As the green light turned on, each orbital drop capsule detached from the attack ship along the slide rails and plummeted toward the predetermined landing site.

These orbital paratroopers will become the first troops of the Empire to set foot on the soil of Robert IV.

They will land near key cities, facilities, and nodes on the planet and launch attacks as quickly as possible.

After they open up a safe landing site, even larger aerospace transport aircraft will carry various heavy equipment into the atmosphere.

And this is also the current standard process for humans to conduct orbital assaults.

Among these airborne pods falling like meteors, some of them have particularly cool paintings.

Although during the process of entering the atmosphere, the outer coating of these airborne capsules was burned black.

But it can be vaguely seen that under the blackened surface is the silver dragon symbol that symbolizes the imperial nobility.

In one of the airborne cabins, Viscount Ankarin and his comrades were experiencing the extremely exciting 'breaking through the atmosphere' session.

Most of the other imperial nobles who joined the army were battleship captains or ground force commanders.

Let Viscount Ankarin, the leader of the 72nd Orbital Airborne Regiment of the 107th Expeditionary Division of the Star Dragon Empire.

He became what other nobles called a 'freak'.

But Viscount Ankarin didn't care about other people's eyes at all.

In his opinion, those who are addicted to opera, music, equestrian, and fencing are 'cowards'.

It is impossible to comprehend the unique excitement brought by orbital airborne landing.

From the very beginning, he bought a decommissioned orbital assault ship, and then brought a group of like-minded 'freak' nobles to play 'outer space bungee jumping' in a different way.

He joined the army and became the first orbital paratrooper with aristocratic status in the history of the Star Dragon Empire.

Now, he has become the leader of the 72nd Orbital Airborne Regiment and received the honor of the 'Blood Dragon Regiment' personally awarded by the emperor.

Under his influence, some young nobles began to join this game of the brave, regardless of the opposition of their elders.

These nobles gathered in the "Blood Dragon Regiment" are called the "Noble Squad" by other orbital paratroopers.

At this moment, the target of Ankarin, his noble team and the Blood Dragon Group is the Yassin base.

After entering the atmosphere, the remaining federal air defense forces began a counterattack.

Although the drop pod can break into the atmosphere, it is actually a very fragile unit.

Ground air defense forces often do not need to completely destroy them, but only need to destroy their attitude control engines through attacks.

This will cause these airborne capsules to lose control and then roll and hit the ground.

As beams of high-energy lasers sweep across the sky.

The rods of the anti-aircraft electromagnetic guns also flashed in the night sky with bright trajectories.

Airborne pods continued to be hit by anti-aircraft fire.

Then it rolled, disintegrated, and exploded.

Viscount Ankarin didn't care about the hellish scene outside the porthole.

He was currently recalling the secret mission he had received from the commander of the strike group, the Marquis of Ascania, before the airborne landing.

"After landing, quickly go to the location of the communication center. The lurking personnel of the 'Star Dragon Fang' will join you."

Recalling the mission assigned to him by the Marquis, he felt the violent shaking caused by the friction between the airborne capsule and the atmosphere.

Viscount Ankarin closed his eyes.

In this environment where ordinary people would be frightened to the point of incontinence, he could feel a kind of peace.

Even think with the aid of this ‘peace’.

Viscount Ankarin pondered this task over and over in his mind.

He was a little confused as to why he needed to take someone to the communications center.

And he also had to meet up with a lurker from the ‘Star Dragon Fang’.

In addition, this task was given directly to him by the Marquis.

Thinking of a certain identity of the Marquis, Viscount Ancarin suddenly felt that this task might not be easy.

A roar came from the bottom of the airborne capsule, followed by a violent positive overload, interrupting the Viscount's thinking.

The reduction engine at the bottom of the drop bay started.

This also means that the airborne capsule is undergoing its final deceleration and is about to land.

"Gentlemen! Prepare to fight!"