The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1601

Chapter 1601 Bright Star

The Bright Republic learned a very painful truth after waging several costly battles against the sandman fleets that adopted the swarm configuration.

The Starfighter Corps was not a silver bullet.

Against the wrong configurations, the many weaknesses of starfighters became very pronounced.

Without costly exotics to fortify their armor systems, their mundane armor plating was barely better than that of a commercial shuttle!

Their designers cut so many corners in their design that their armor plating was only really good enough to resist spacedust, micrometeorites and the occasional space junk floating in deep space.

They fared poorly against high-volume firepower!

Not only that, but their starfighter pilots were hardly as professional and disciplined as actual soldiers.

By far, most starfighter pilots were young and poorly-educated citizens of the Bright Republic or the fallen border states.

Before the Sand War, they might have been students or laborers. None of them envisioned a career in the military. As norms, there was no glory in serving in an auxiliary regiment.

Though a number of professional soldiers and officers from the auxiliary regiment had been transferred to the Starfighter Corps to make up a somewhat competent cadre, that was hardly enough!

Against an overwhelming sandman opponent, there was little an officer could do to prevent their ill-trained subordinates from panicking.

Several instances of routing had already occurred, leading to severe losses among the mechs and starfighters that held their ground.

Even though the cowards had all been caught and executed within a matter of days, the problem was still in place!

Until the Starfighter Corps managed to train their pilots to a higher standard, instances like this might occur at any time.

Fortunately, the proliferation of Desolate Soldiers managed to stem the bleeding in many cases. A lot of battles could have ended off worse if not for their miraculous glows!

Their ability to stabilize the morale of starfighter pilots and encourage them to do their duty in a moderate range was very helpful in preventing many potential collapses.

These interventions already saved the lives of mech and starfighter pilots. Though not infallible, the Desolate Soldiers were still effective enough to warrant an even greater level of interest from the government.

The brass realized that the Starfighter Corps wasn't nearly as dependable as they thought.

In their enthusiasm to deploy as much cannon fodder as possible to consume the firepower of the sandman fleets, they failed to account for the consequences.

Starfighter pilots weren't dependable at all!

Due to the immense demand for cannon fodder, over a hundred-thousand starfighters were being produced throughout the entire state.

All of those machines were only useful when paired with actual human pilots.

Faced with an acute need for lots of starfighter pilots, the Bright Republic and every other state that employed these spacecraft were rushing through their training.

Three weeks of hasty training was not enough to transform a civilian into a soldier!

At most, they could only present a facade of discipline and dedication during fair-weather circumstances.

Whenever a battle turned difficult, their many deficiencies became acute liabilities, threatening to collapse an entire formation and inciting panic among the better-trained mech pilots!

The very welcome glows from the Desolate Soldiers helped a lot, preventing most wavering starfighter pilots from abandoning their duty.

As this valuable solution became more and more evident, Ves and the LMC earned more and more acclaim.

Their Desolate Soldiers were increasingly being regarded as a necessity!

No defensive force at the front and rear was complete without at least a handful of Desolate Soldiers.

With the advantage given by their glows, the Ministry of Defense estimated that the Bright Republic would have lost at least eight minor star systems and three major star systems at this time!

However, aside from the loss of a few emptied star systems, the Bright Republic fared incredibly well considering the opposition they faced.

No one rested easily, however. The sandman invasion was far from over. There were many more sandman fleets on their way to raze the territories of the Bright Republic, each of them more clever and tricky than before.

The average intelligence and experience level of the sandman admirals increased by a worrisome rate. They grouped up more and more and shared their insights with each other, causing them to adopt very strange and unusual configurations.

Though many people looked down on the sandmen as a stupid, bot-like race, the truth was that they followed a different trajectory of development.

By far, most of the sandman admirals that commanded the fleets had been elevated to their positions rather recently. The leader castes of the sandman empire sacrificed a lot to produce so many sandman admirals, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that they started off as amateurs.

Yet even if they started at the lowest level, the sandman admirals actually possessed a frightening ability to learn from their experiences and mistakes.

One such example assaulted a fortified star system.

Three enormous monoliths that exceeded the size of CFA battleships advanced indomitably towards one of the three populated planets in the star system.

While the monolith configuration was not as scary as the swarm configuration, they still proved thorny to fight, especially when their sandman admirals stopped conserving energy.

Ordinarily shaped in humongous spheres of sand and other animated matter, they advanced like battering rams.

Though slower than other sandman configurations, the spherical monoliths chained their sandman in a way that made their outer layer incredibly resilient!

What was more, their interior wasn't entirely solid. Instead, the sandman admirals adopted a very hollow wireframe that limited the damage of explosive and concussive weaponry!

Though disparagingly called balloons by some combatants, this huge but largely-hollow configuration was incredibly resilient to damage.

What was more, they possessed a variety of means to hit back!

Every sandman admiral developed their own favored means to attack. While some stuck to firing their heavy laser strikes, others adopted more versatile solutions.

The three monoliths that simultaneously invaded this star system showcased the creativity of the sandman admirals when they had time to develop.

One monolith took cues from the high volume of fire it encountered in a previous battle and unleashed a storm of lasers from its surface!

Just like a swarm configuration, the swarm of lasers unleashed by this humongous monolith damaged over a hundred starfighters with a single salvo!