Munitions Empire-Chapter 1237: Battle of Dingcheng 1157

"Dingcheng!" In the operations room, Shenwu Ke stared at the map and finalized the main direction for this counterattack. This army general, the highest-ranking commander of the Empire’s Army Headquarters, was now reduced to being merely a field army commander.

Historically, the Empire’s army was nothing special, ranking below the navy in prestige, and Shenwu Ke had always lived in the shadow of Shen Haiping.

Now that the navy was obliterated, Shenwu Ke still hadn’t found a chance to rise: his army followed the navy’s collapse into decline.

The absolute mainstay of the Empire had always been the Imperial Guards tasked with defending King City and Shen Capital, with the 1st Armored Division deployed in this direction.

Compared to other troops, this unit always maintained well-trained soldiers, complete personnel configurations, and remarkable combat effectiveness.

To evade Tang Army bombing, the 1st Armored Division had been redeployed near Dingcheng early on, after New Island was seized.

Most of the tanks were hidden beneath disguises to evade reconnaissance from Tang Army satellites and scout planes, sustaining minimal damage during bombing raids.

It could be said that this unit maintained high combat readiness, and Shenwu Ke now dared to deploy it only because he had seen hope in previous counterattacks.

The 4th Armored Division achieved notable success in its counteroffensive in the west. If not for the intense bombing by Tang Army carrier-based aircraft, the results might have been even more substantial.

In this scenario, Shenwu Ke made a resolute decision: to commit sufficient forces and drive the landing Orc troops back into the sea!

For this operation, he not only deployed his precious 1st Armored Division but also brought in the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions!

Indeed, Shenwu Ke was going all-in this time, deploying the entirety of the Empire’s armored corps: over 500 tanks in total!

This constituted all the Empire’s available main forces; success or failure would hinge on this one effort, with Shenwu Ke staking everything the Empire had.

While the plan seemed risky, Shenwu Ke was actually quite rational: splitting the offensive into two phases showed that the Empire’s top army commander still possessed considerable skill.

He refrained from deploying the mainstay 1st Armored Division initially, instead opting to use the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions first to wear down the Tang Army and Orc forces.

On the first day of the campaign, Shenwu Ke planned to counterattack with these newly reorganized armored divisions, presenting a determined stance for fierce combat.

After two days of grueling battles, he anticipated a weakening in Tang Army’s air support. At that moment, he would suddenly deploy the 1st Armored Division to launch an assault on the Orc forces, breaking through their defenses in one decisive strike.

This strategy was named the "Eagle Endurance Tactic" by Shenwu Ke—a euphemistic term for an "attritional tactic" necessitated by logistical challenges.

The Empire’s fragile supply capacity could not sustain simultaneous operations of three armored divisions, so only the relatively lighter-equipped 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions would act initially.

After logistical crews painstakingly scavenged whatever gasoline and diesel they could find from abandoned airfields, the gathered fuel would then be allocated to the 1st Armored Division for its follow-up attack.

Previously, advanced fuel had been prioritized for the air force, leaving the army pitifully short on supplies.

Unfortunately, even kamikaze planes couldn’t take off, with the airfields rendered unusable from prior assaults. Consequently, the air force’s allocated fuel was reclaimed for the armored corps—a purely practical decision.

Faced with dire circumstances and limited resources, Shenwu Ke could only make calculated compromises in deploying his troops for battle.

That night, with its fuel supply finally secured, the Empire’s 2nd Armored Division started moving. However, Shenwu Ke flew into a rage upon discovering that the 3rd Armored Division had advanced only about 20 kilometers to the southwest due to fuel shortages.

The reason was that the train transporting fuel for the 3rd Armored Division had been paralyzed halfway, its tracks destroyed by Tang Army night bombers. As a result, the fuel-strapped 3rd Armored Division could only stand idle and wait.

Helplessly, Shenwu Ke ordered the 3rd Armored Division to disguise itself locally and enter a defensive posture, shifting the day’s counterattack entirely to the 2nd Armored Division.

As noted earlier, the 2nd Armored Division consisted of only 100 tanks, including forty or so outdated "tractors." Despite these limitations, the reorganized division zealously carried out Shenwu Ke’s order to launch the assault.

On the fourth day after the Orc forces’ landing at dawn, the Orc 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Regiment spearheaded an attack against the Empire’s forces near Dingcheng.

As daylight broke, an Orc tank commander, half his body protruding from the turret, was astonished to see an old Shireck Type 2 tank swiveling ahead of him at the edge of a field.

"Ahead! Empire tanks! Open fire!" The Orc tank crew, well-rested from the previous night, was sharp and immediately executed the commander’s order to fire.

Below, the 4th Tank’s main cannon adjusted its angle slightly and aimed its dark barrel at the distant Empire tank.

"Boom!" A shell roared out, piercing the wobbling Shireck Type 2 tank on the field ridge. The tank shuddered briefly, crippled, and became lifeless.

The thin armor of such tanks made them vulnerable to shots from the powerful guns on the 4th Tank. The spectacle briefly felt almost pitifully excessive.

Using the Tang Empire’s modified, retired long-barrel cannon-equipped 4th Tank—more specifically, the 4th Type H—against a tank with only a few centimeters of armor from the early World War II era was undeniably overkill.

"Enemy tanks spotted! Enemy tanks spotted!" The radio was flooded with cries of Empire tank sightings.

Meanwhile, the Empire’s tanks had also noticed the Orc tank battalion blocking their way ahead. After a few minutes of bombardment from the Orc 4th Tanks, the Empire’s tanks finally began to retaliate.

A shell landed near an Orc tank, erupting into dirt and startling the Orc tank commander conducting operations.

He refrained from ducking back inside the crammed 4th Tank, as its poor field of view made sticking out preferable for directing the battle.

At the moment, he held out a binoculars, pointing towards the enemy’s location while shouting commands through the intercom. Not far off, a shell struck another 4th Tank, igniting an inferno.

The chilling explosion rippled audibly even through headphones; it’s unclear where the shell came from, but it certainly managed to pierce the tank’s armor!

Indeed, the Empire possessed cannons capable of penetrating the Orc 4th Tank’s frontal armor. Whether it was the Shireck Type 5 tanks or Empire Type 2 tanks, their main cannons could achieve this feat.

Due to their offensive intentions, the Empire’s 2nd Armored Division did not abandon slower, older tanks like those in the 4th Armored Division or the Empire Type 2 tanks.

They had only 100 tanks—they couldn’t afford to leave any behind. Patiently awaiting assembly, they brought every possible tank to the front line.

This allowed the Orc 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Regiment to suffer setbacks: Empire tanks with newer and heavier designs created complications for the advancing Orc Armor units. The clash with the Empire’s 2nd Armored Division inflicted considerable losses on the Orc forces.

"They have weapons capable of penetrating our tanks! Locate high-threat targets and prioritize destroying them!" A battalion commander gripping the intercom loudly reminded his troops.

His tank was recognizable by the wobbling, high-power communications antenna—unavoidable as the oversized communications equipment left no room for the longer 75mm gun.

Using a short-barreled 75mm on the command tank meant it was ill-suited for combat, as its outdated weapon was no longer effective.

With seven or eight tanks lost, the Orc 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Regiment initially experienced tension and turmoil in the first dozen minutes of battle. Fortunately, this unit was trained in Tang Country and comprised carefully selected Orc troops, who quickly stabilized and began counterattacking.

The Orc 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Regiment contained three tank battalions, each with 47 4th Tanks, giving it a total of approximately 150 tanks.

This number significantly exceeded the roughly 100 tanks of the Empire’s 2nd Armored Division, meaning that when the Orc forces regained momentum, the Empire’s 2nd Armored Division could no longer hold its ground.

Even though both sides suffered similar losses in tank numbers, the Empire was bound to collapse first. This was indeed the case; the Empire’s forces faltered even faster than expected.

The reasons were clear: numerical disparity and obsolete equipment. The Empire had only about 100 tanks, of which 40 were incapable of damaging the Orc 4th Tanks—outdated Shireck Type 2 tanks.

With the real strength reduced to 60 tanks against 150 Orc tanks, the Orc forces held over two-and-a-half times the numerical advantage, making the rate of losses skew drastically.

The overwhelming numbers turned the battle into a lopsided slaughter: the Tang Army destroyed tank after tank, including the Shireck Type 5 models, crushing the Empire’s resolve to fight.

Soon, in a hopeless two-versus-one scenario, the remaining Empire tanks lost the will to continue, retreating and abandoning the wreckage of their fallen comrades as they withdrew.

At this moment, Tang Country’s attack aircraft roared overhead at low altitude, prompting cheers from the Orc Armor Commanders.

The rocket and cannon fire began sweeping the battlefield, as the Yir Attack Aircraft piloted by Orc forces launched from New Island swooped in, throwing the Empire’s 2nd Armored Division into chaos.

Recently arrived infantry forces from the Empire, tasked with assisting the retreating 2nd Armored Division, were immediately caught off-guard and decimated by the aerial onslaught.

Subsequently, the Orc 4th Tanks exploited their speed advantage during pursuit, causing devastating losses for the retreating Empire forces.

Already heavily damaged, the Empire’s 2nd Armored Division saw its 100-plus tanks utterly annihilated over the course of just one hour, leaving not a single survivor.

The developments turned increasingly surreal. Emboldened by victory, the Orc Armor 2nd Regiment pressed forward under cover from aircraft, intending to crush the Empire’s routed 2nd Armored Division completely.

Instead, they unexpectedly stumbled upon the defensive positions of the Empire’s 3rd Armored Division, resulting in a bloody setback as concealed tanks ambushed the Orc forces.

Stunned by meeting such resistance from the Empire tanks, Shan Lu had no choice but to withdraw the battered 2nd Regiment, replacing it with the 1st Regiment to continue the assault.

At this time, Shan Lu felt fortunate he hadn’t sent the entire 1st Armored Division westward. He believed the Empire tanks encountered along the way had surely been preparing to attack him.

He was correct, though there was no reward for accuracy.