The Mech Touch novel Chapter 390

Besides the two heavy knights that attracted most of the attention of the defenders, the other Imodris mechs looked well-built as well. Ves forcefully shook off his fear and began to focus on what he could do to help.

"As a mech designer, I can still be of use."

Out of all the defenders, he knew more about mechs than everyone else put together.

In battles like these, mech designers sometimes assisted frontline units by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy mechs. They also kept their eye out for weak points generated by battle damage.

Ves kept his eyes trained on the projections that showed the approaching Vesian formation. The enemy finished their preparations and began to set out towards the broken gap in the wall.

Now that the enemy came into range of the Mech Nursery, their jamming failed to block its powerful sensors. Detailed telemetry poured into the command center in rapid tempo, swamping the support personnel. They tried their best to help the processors identify the mech models.

"Report!" Ves barked.

"Sir! The enemy regiments have been identified. One company comes from the 5th Vavulan Chausseurs and the other company is detached from the 1st Meandering Monkeys!"

Additional projections popped up that provided a brief overview of the two regiments of the 3rd Imodris Legion.

The mechs 1st Meandering Monkeys all took on a mottled brown-green coating, and predominantly consisted of light and medium mechs. Much like the Oodis Mudriders, the Monkeys excelled in long-range wilderness operations, and would usually be deployed in wild, untamed planets.

The 5th Vavulan Chausseurs on the other hand consisted largely of frontline mechs coated in grey and pale blue to better blend in to an urban environment. They eschewed light mechs entirely and based their full force around medium melee mechs and a fair amount of medium frontline mechs, the latter of which replaced their humanoid arms with ballistic cannons or laser cannons.

Ves understood the enemy composition. The Meandering Monkeys only made up the numbers and didn’t form that much of a threat. The true threat lay in the Vavulan Chausseurs, whose formidable mechs had been designed to break through enemy defenses. Their allocation of two heavy knights to this minor raid further underscored their power.

Right now, they couldn’t withstand two heavy knights at once. It was not that the heavy knights possessed the means to run down every mech and kill them in a single blow. Their true threat lay in their ability to act as immovable obstacles that absorbed everything the defenders dished out.

Having just come off a Mastery experience where the attacking force cleverly used disposable heavy shields as a means of approach, Ves knew the value of an impenetrable defense. So long as those heavy knights remained operational, a large portion of the mechs from Sanyal-Ablin and Mudriders would have to divert their firepower to hold back their inexorable march.

At this time, the Vesian mechs entered into range of the defending mech’s rifles.

"Open fire!"

Almost every rifleman mech among the defenders proceeded to open fire behind the walls. The initial volley of fire largely hit their marks, only to be stopped by two enormous tower shields.

"The Vesians have sustained minimal damage!"

The Vesians cleverly arranged their assault formation into a column of two ranks. With the two heavy knights in front, the more vulnerable mechs at the rear had little to worry about.

Occasionally, some of the fire slipped around or above the shields, but the rest of the Vesian mechs only sustained glancing damage.

Despite enduring a rain of fire, the Vesian mechs remained in formation and continued to march forward. The only downside to their formation was that they moved at a snail’s pace in terms of mech speeds.

Heavy knights carried an immense amount of high-quality armor, and their shields weighed as much as an entire light mech or more, so it was a given that they moved as fast as an elderly person.

Their relatively slow pace meant that the defenders slowly managed to chew up the shields. Nevertheless, these shields did their job as they forced the defenders to expend a large amount of munitions that might have otherwise been targeted at the lighter mechs.

As the formation of Chausseurs neared the walls, the mechs of the Meandering Monkeys started to branch out and pressure the sides of the Mech Nursery. Their diversion forced Melkor to request the Mudriders to split some mechs away from the center and deter the flanking mechs from breaching an undefended part of the wall.

"Fire on the mechs behind the knights!" Melkor ordered in the central command channel.

Once the enemy mechs entered a certain range, it became possible for some of the defending mechs stationed in the far left or right of the walls to target the sides of the incoming column. This time, they achieved some solid hits, although the frontline mechs quickly turned their cannon and retaliated in kind.

Most of their fire splashed against the walls that the defending mechs hid behind, but the intense barrage succeeded in suppressing them. At this moment, the inevitable collision became imminent. The Chausseurs showed movement that indicated that they were about to bypass their heavy knights and breach the defensive line.

"Open fire! Ignore the knights! Focus on the frontline mechs!"

The melee mechs of the Chausseurs carried a substantial amount of armor. The frontline mechs on the other hand had been built to scale, so their individual quality left much to be desired. Their deadliness came not from their superior equipment, but from the training and coordination of their mech pilots.

Even though their basic-level pilots would never be able to advance to advanced pilots, as long as they gathered in a sufficient amount of numbers, they would be able to suppress any enemy formation, which was what they did right now.