Munitions Empire-Chapter 1235: Shen Army’s Counterattack 1155
Shan Lu didn’t plan to let the 2nd Infantry Division defend the western positions on its own. Judging from the troop deployments, he tried his best to place two divisions in each direction, indicating that he initially intended to station two divisions for defense in the west.
However, the 5th Infantry Division, which he planned to station in the west, landed quite late because most of the available transport capacity had been allocated to Shan Lu’s prized possession: the Orc Army’s main force, the 1st Armored Division.
Late that night, the 5th Infantry Division was finally sent ashore. After drifting at sea for two days, the Orc soldiers were utterly exhausted and could only stay put to rest and recover.
As a result, the 5th Infantry Division ended up as the reserve force and was temporarily placed to the left of the 1st Armored Division, closer to the area defended by the 2nd Infantry Division.
However, they were still approximately 8 kilometers away from the 2nd Infantry Division. Including the division commander, the 5th Infantry Division soldiers who had landed all fell asleep around 3 a.m.
Why didn’t Shan Lu rush to have the 5th Infantry Division rendezvous with the 2nd Infantry Division? Because, looking at the map, the direction defended by the 2nd Infantry Division wasn’t a principal one.
Judging from the landing area, attacking eastward essentially meant heading toward Shendu. By logic, Shendu should be the primary defensive direction for Mirage Country.
If Mirage Country were to launch a counterattack, it would most likely come from this direction. Thus, Shan Lu positioned the newly landed, fully staffed 3rd and 8th Infantry Divisions in this direction.
The northern 1st Infantry Division has the strongest combat power. However, they also suffered the most losses during the landing, so Shan Lu ordered them to defend in place while reinforcing them with the 6th Infantry Division. The formation there was relatively stable.
The western side theoretically faced the least pressure because Mirage Country controlled a smaller area there, far from Shendu. Shan Lu concluded that the Shen Army wouldn’t deploy any major forces in this direction.
But he miscalculated! Mirage Country’s main force, the 4th Armored Division, was stationed exactly in this direction! From Mirage Country’s perspective, they had to defend all potential landing zones of the Tang Army, keeping their armored corps as concealed as possible in readiness.
Coincidentally, the Tang Army’s landing area was situated between the 1st Armored Division and the 4th Armored Division. Shan Lu couldn’t possibly know this intelligence; he could only roughly estimate the Shen Army’s position, but he couldn’t guess their numbers or unit designations.
On the third morning after the landing, at the forward positions of the Orc 2nd Armored Division, an Orc soldier yawned, rubbed his eyes, and then spotted a Mirage Country tank appearing on a distant hill.
The enemy’s speed was fast. When it came to performance alone, it was roughly on par with the Great Tang Empire’s Type 4 tanks provided to the Orcs—possibly even slightly more advanced technologically.
No way around it; the Tang Army had already phased out their Panther Tanks long ago. Bear in mind that the Tang Army’s most elite units were now equipped with extensively refined Type 64 tanks.
An entire fleet of Shireck Type 5 tanks was undeniably impressive in appearance, enough to awe. When the Orc soldier saw those tanks, he immediately yelled, "Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
At his shouts, the Orc soldiers poked their heads out of the makeshift trenches they’d dug themselves. They didn’t have any sturdy defensive structures; after all, they had been in offensive formation until nightfall yesterday.
"Goblin tanks! Goblin tanks!" A Mirage Country soldier saw the steel behemoths advancing and screamed in terror.
He couldn’t find anything in his arsenal capable of destroying those enemy tanks. Besides two hand grenades, he had fewer than a hundred rounds and a Mauser rifle.
Most Mauser rifles in Orc hands, originating from the Tang Army’s early inventories, were neither new nor even recently out of Tang Army storage.
They were Chu Country hand-me-downs. Although the rifling hadn’t entirely worn out, their condition was visibly aged.
No choice but to accept it—The Great Tang Group hadn’t manufactured Mauser rifles for a long time. Nowadays, such weapons were produced only by the Shireck Consortium. Orcs’ new rifles mostly came from Shireck.
"Damn it!" Seeing Mirage Country tanks closing in, the frontline Orc commander cursed fiercely. They lacked heavy weapons—exotic items like anti-tank guns weren’t something they could be equipped with.
That’s not to say the Great Tang Empire couldn’t afford to donate a few anti-tank guns; it was simply hard to transport them to Ben Island. To provide the Orc infantry some semblance of anti-tank capability, the Tang Army had equipped them with RPG rocket launchers.
Unfortunately, the inexperienced Orc commanders stockpiled these sophisticated tools at division and regimental headquarters, unwilling to hand them to frontline combat units like the Tang Army did.
"Quick! Contact the regiment headquarters! Call for anti-tank team support! Quick! Hurry!" The battalion commander shouted orders at the communications orderly as the Shen Army tanks approached.
Upon hearing the orders, the communications orderly turned and ran. Unlike the Tang Army, Orcs didn’t possess extensive communications equipment, making their communications... as primitive as Mirage Country’s.
However, as Mirage Country was advancing with a tank division, they did possess radios. Thus, the Shen Army’s coordination capabilities far exceeded those of the Orc 2nd Infantry Division.
From the moment the battle erupted, the Orcs were at a disadvantage. The battlefield was filled with the sight of Shen Army tanks slaughtering and routing the Orc troops. Cries of despair echoed everywhere, with some Orcs even surrendering.
This invigorated Shen Army soldiers and commanders, rekindling long-lost feelings. They gritted their teeth, executed the surrendering Orc soldiers, and drove their tanks to continue advancing against Orc positions.
Having fought against the Tang Army for so long, Shen Army commanders were almost psychologically traumatized. They had forgotten what victory felt like, initially convinced of their weakness.
But when facing Orc troops nearly equal to them, they realized they were still quite capable.
The squat, nimble Goblin tank crews enjoyed a structural advantage—they moved easily inside cramped tank interiors, providing unmatched flexibility. No other nation’s tank operators could match them, except perhaps the Dwarves of the Ice Cold Empire.
Accompanying the Shen Army’s 4th Armored Division were two infantry regiments hastily mobilized by Mirage Country. They advanced swiftly, utilizing their familiarity with the terrain to charge straight into the Orc ranks and commence a slaughter.
Caught unprepared, the Orc 2nd Infantry Division’s frontlines were breached. Some remaining troops were encircled, while others retreated, abandoning the villages they’d captured just yesterday afternoon.
Exhilarated Mirage Country armored units continued their onslaught. They soon encountered fierce bombardment from Tang Aircraft carriers.
Over 30 Stuka Dive Bombers unleashed a barrage of more than 30 500-kilogram bombs alongside strafing runs. This destroyed over 50 Shireck Type 5 tanks belonging to Mirage Country.
Combined with earlier losses, the Shen Army had already lost over 60 tanks by around 8 a.m.
This amounted to roughly one-third of the Shen Army 4th Armored Division’s total attacking force! With such devastating losses, the division’s commander had no choice but to send an urgent telegram to Shenwu Ke, requesting approval to continue the offensive.
Shenwu Ke mulled over it. If he ordered a retreat at this point, even fewer tanks would likely make it back to the starting positions.
Brainwashed by suicidal tactics, Shenwu Ke gritted his teeth and issued a reckless order for the 4th Armored Division to push forward at all costs.
Effectively, this order sentenced Mirage Country’s 4th Armored Division to death while dealing a crushing blow to the retreating Orc 2nd Infantry Division.
The Shen Army commanders displayed their Goblin madness upon receiving the order, resolutely executing it. The remaining personnel of the 4th Armored Division similarly advanced heedless of losses, charging toward the beach.
Soon, more Tang Army aircraft arrived, causing significant trouble for Mirage Country’s armored offensive.
Meanwhile, the encircled remnants of the Orc 2nd Infantry Division stabilized their position after using RPG rocket launchers to destroy over a dozen Goblin tanks, recovering a shred of dignity for their routed division.
The entire battle was like a spectacular showdown between hapless fighters: Mirage Country’s tanks chasing Orc infantry exuded traces of the Tang Army’s armored brigade’s rampaging bravado, while Tang Army aircraft massacring Shen targets operated as if the ground were uninhabited...
Ultimately, Shan Lu mobilized two regiments from the 5th Infantry Division to take over the shattered 2nd Infantry Division’s defenses, using RPGs to destroy the few Shen Army tanks that had almost fought their way through half the landing zone, finally stabilizing the situation.
The Mirage Country 4th Armored Division, utterly depleted of offensive capability, no longer needed to retreat—they had lost almost all their tanks on the pathway of attack.
By the afternoon, the Orc forces launched a counterattack, retaking the positions Mirage Country troops had breached, under cover from Tang Army aircraft.
By dinnertime, the Orc 5th Infantry Division had rescued the encircled 2nd Infantry Division headquarters and the remaining troops.
After a day of fierce battle, both sides sustained heavy losses. By nightfall, the outcome was clear: the frontline positions mirrored the morning state, with no shift in territorial control.
Mirage Country had lost approximately 190 Shireck Type 5 tanks; their 4th Armored Division was effectively wiped out. On the western side, Mirage Army’s stationed troops lost nearly all offensive capability.
On the Orc side, half of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 10,000-strong force was missing or killed, with the injured soldiers strewn across the beach. The once-mighty 2nd Infantry Division was nearly annihilated, with the remainder losing the ability to fight.
After sustained high-intensity support missions, the Tang Army aircraft carriers’ ammunition reserves were nearly depleted. Lu Qianshan delivered grim news to Shan Lu: the air support trial card... was about to expire.
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That’s it for today’s two chapters.
