Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 1451: Chapter 9-2: Trouble

The fleet continued to advance. To ensure safety, Fleet 601 joined the ranks of the Bandit Army Fleet under orders from the Chuckna Military Department. They will return to the Jump Point after the Bandit Army Armored Division lands on Leifeng Star.

With the addition of the captured Jiepeng Warships, the Bandit Army Fleet rapidly expanded to five A-class fleets and two B-class fleets. If not for the fact that many Jiepeng Warships were severely damaged and needed to be directly destroyed or towed back to the Long March Star System, the fleet’s ranks would be even larger.

The absence of barriers and suspicion between the two originally unfamiliar units, dissolved by a life-and-death battle, was more gratifying than the fleet’s expansion. Although the Bandit Army Warships played a minor role in this space combat, Commander Tian Xingjian’s performance had already won over all officers of the Phantom Corps. Especially the ship captains who fully accepted Fatty’s command were sincerely convinced.

From the bold missile torpedo swarm attack at the start of the battle, the decisive use of fighter group tactics, to the mesmerizing domino carnage at the end. All of these made them realize that old man Hastings still had sharp judgment, unaffected by age. He had handed this unit to a truly trustworthy genius.

With the battlefield cleanup and fleet reorganization completed, the ship captains were only curious about the whereabouts of the Bandit Army B-class fleet that had not engaged in battle.

Modern fleet grading does not depend on the number of warships. In fact, as early as the Earth Federation, the Space Navy had naturally developed a strict fleet standard.

Like agreed-upon units of measurement such as a kilogram or a meter, an A-class fleet is also known as a Standard Combat Power Fleet.

The fleet’s combat power composite index is a complex rating system that requires comprehensive scoring based on various indicators like electronics, defense, assault, speed, endurance, cruising distance, and more. The different combat power and equipment types of warships from various countries lead to differences in the size and number of a Standard Combat Power Fleet.

In recent years, as countries have built new types of warships for war, the A-class fleet, which used to require thousands or even two to three thousand warships, can now achieve the same combat power standards with only a few dozen to a hundred new warships.

Considering the advanced level of Phantom Fleet warships, a B-class fleet with a combat power of one quarter of a Standard Fleet, without carriers, requires about half the warships of an A-class fleet. Yet the Bandit Army B-class fleet comprised only twenty to thirty warships, most of which were below battleship level and all were ragged. Can they truly be considered a B-class fleet?

In General Tian’s operational plan, this fleet was always hidden around the battlefield. Yet until the end of the battle, this fleet did not appear. Where did they go? The ship captains made restless by stealth technology even felt they fought too hard initially, missing the chance to see what they most wanted to see...

The cruiser ”Siriaduo,” gradually led a detachment into the fleet’s spindle-shaped navigational formation. While handling warship affairs, Ship Captain Marcos inadvertently noticed a command from the flagship on the command computer – the Bandit Army Fleet was ordered to destroy the remaining Jiepeng Warships in the battle zone airspace that held no capture value.

Were the Bandit Army Fleet truly around? Marcos puzzledly opened the command station’s long-range viewer screen, controlling the bridge’s long-range viewer’s rotation direction, searching for traces of the Bandit Army Fleet. Like the other ship captains, he shared the same doubts. As the one bearing the heaviest burden during the battle, he couldn’t understand why these warships weren’t deployed during the toughest times of the conflict.

Suddenly, the radar lit up, and Marcos instinctively fixed the long-range viewer screen on the airspace indicated by the radar.

A Ragged Fleet suddenly appeared from the void, its sharp ramming beak directly impacting the abandoned Jiepeng Warships. Steel hulls rippled under the violent collision, then twisted and shattered. The heavily accelerating Bandit Army Warships emerged like torpedoes launching from hell.

While the Deputy Captain and staff beside him stood dumbfounded, Marcos swiftly brought up the previous battle situation map. The airspace to which the Bandit Army Fleet appeared was...

Marcos gaped, then punched the air hard. He could see at a glance that although it was a skirmish, from the moment news of the Jiepeng Fleet blockading the route was received, the seemingly casual Fatty Commander had already planned an escape route for the entire fleet before fighting the enemy.

While preparing the fleet for implementing his awe-inspiring tactics, he also factored in the possibility of defeat.

If the battle were lost, the Phantom Fleet could only retreat to the obstacle zone of the Fifth Leg. The airspace where the Bandit Army B-class fleet was kept hidden, was right alongside the pursuing Jiepeng Fleet’s route! They quietly waited there, silently and invisibly, like wolves lying in ambush in the grass, ready to use their bodies for a furious assault and blockade for the main fleet’s retreat!

Marcos clapped vigorously. The applause grew louder and louder in the ship captains’ communication channel.