The Mech Touch novel Chapter 543

Chapter 543

The Frosty Meteors immediately showed their intentions when they emerged from FTL . They approached the stranded Vandal task force at full burn without any hesitation!

Their arrogance knew no bounds! Conservatively, they would be outnumbered at least three-to-one, yet they showed no signs of slowing down!

The most prudent decision to make from Venidse's perspective was to wait for other friendly elements to catch up . After all, taking on the task force with only four spaceborn mech companies left them with very little margin for error .

The unspoken message behind their brazen course of action came as a slap to the faces of the Vandals! The Frosty Meteors obviously thought little of their opponents!

To be honest, Ves couldn't blame them for viewing the Flagrant Vandals with contempt . The two mech regiments differed largely in purpose, funding, tradition and fighting ability .

A raiding regiment such as the Flagrant Vandals mainly relied on their mobility to attack when they were strong and flee when they were weak . This was their main advantage, but also their fatal weak point . The moment when their mobility became hindered, they lost almost all of their advantages .

It was pretty much the opposite for the Frosty Meteors . Almost every fighting attribute reached an extreme . As a medium to heavy cavalry regiment, they leaned more towards the use of hefty armor . Every mech of the Meteors was at least twice as resilient as an equivalent Vandal mech . This difference alone gave the Venidse mech regiment a decisive advantage!

Everyone in the command center could tell how serious a threat they faced . Nobody belittled the Frosty Meteors for their arrogance or their lacking numbers . The Meteors proved their mettle many times in the frontlines of the previous wars . Slow they may be, even the most premier mech regiments of the Mech Corps abhorred getting into a slugging match with the Meteors .

After venting his fury, Major Verle opened a private channel to Ves . "What is your analysis as a mech designer . Will our mechs be able to withstand the Meteors?"

"I don't rate our chances high . " Ves responded despondently . "With half of our fleet unable to move, we are forced to fight on their terms . The Meteors love nothing more than to bash themselves against soft targets like us . Neither the Inheritor or the Hellcat will be able to turn the tide . The only variable that I can't account for is how many heavy mechs they brought . Each heavy mech is an enormously difficult rock to crack . If they brought more than twenty heavy mechs, we basically stand no chance at all unless we adopt a clever tactic . "

Ves knew his mechs, but even his perspective contained holes . The one element that Ves couldn't predict was the effect of different formations and tactics . Depending on how well the Flagrant Vandals and the Frosty Meteors employed their formations, the outcome of the battle might very well swing drastically in one direction or another!

Therefore, even if everything appeared hopeless, Ves did not give in to despair .

"Can we employ our landbound mechs to enhance our strength?"

"It's very difficult . " Ves shook his head . Ves had seen such a drastic desperation move many times in action dramas . What worked in the dramas didn't necessarily work in reality . "Our landbound mechs aren't able to maneuver in space at all . They'll be sitting ducks against the enemy ranged mechs . There's also recoil and heat management to consider . "

Mechs with ballistic weapons especially suffered from recoil . Each time these mechs fired their weapons, they would spin their entire frames like a wheel .

As for heat management, landbound mechs reliant on high-heat weapons such as laser rifles relied a lot on heat convection to shunt away their excess waste energy . Since there wasn't any air or solid ground in space, such mechs wouldn't be able to get rid of their heat fast enough!

"Is there no other option?"

"There is one I can think of, but it's rather silly . Just as how we employ our landbound Akkara heavy cannoneers as an improvised turret, we can make use of other landbound ranged mechs in a similar fashion by strapping them against the hull of our ships . "

Such a tactic fell in the category of desperation move as well . While it came with a lot of malpractices, it had been used often enough during the Age of Mechs to be regarded as a viable way to leverage a mech force's otherwise useless landbound mech force in space .

Affixing the landbound mechs onto the hulls of their ships neatly solved their heat and recoil problems . The only problem for the Vandals was that it took a lot of time and manpower to set up . With the Frosty Meteors less than thirty minutes away, they wouldn't be able to affix more than a dozen or so mechs onto the hulls of their combat carriers .

Major Verle must have thought the same . "I've already considered this option . It is extremely ruinous for the landbound mechs because they have lost all of their mobility . Besides, if we want to employ all of our ranged mechs into ad-hoc turrets, we need several hours of preparation time . "

Venidse timed their surprise attack fairly well . Only a couple of hours after they immobilized the Vandals, the Frosty Meteors arrived to deliver the coup-de-grace! Though it sounded simple, to plan and time such an outcome required extremely strong prediction capabilities on the part of the enemy!

They certainly faced a formidable opponent right now! Not only did they come with strength, they also showed an excellent level of coordination!

This was bad news for the Vandals because even if they fought back hard against the Meteors, they also had to worry about stealth attacks . This invisible threat constantly hovered over the heads of the Vandals . The moment the Vandals broke up their anti-stealth formation, their invisible opponents would have free reign to deliver another crippling blow to the task force!

Ves and Major Verle swapped a few more ideas, but none of them sounded promising . In the meantime the clock continued to tick . A few minutes into their burn, the enemy combat carriers finally launched their mechs .