Ch.347Tannhäuser Workshop Battle (3)

Following my assault order, a total of 402,526 mercenary vessels—excluding the 73 aircraft carriers that should remain in the rear and including 132 battleships—began their advance.

“Confirm enemy fleet size!”

“34 fleets, totaling 65,000 vessels!”

“How many enemy cruiser battleships?”

“175 ships, Commander!”

“We’re overwhelming them on all fronts, Commander.”

“Hmm.”

As planned, we began to overwhelm the hastily deployed guard fleet with sheer numbers.

Of course, if the guard fleet could be overwhelmed by “numbers” alone, there would be no need for the base to hold back their “main combat fleet.”

“Commander! Tannhäuser’s main gates are opening!”

“It seems their main fleet is preparing to deploy, Commander!”

“Hmm… they’re coming out faster than I expected.”

As most of our mercenary units entered the base’s radar detection range, Tannhäuser’s command center must have realized that their guard fleet could never stop the forces I had mobilized.

They began opening the main gates scattered in all directions, officially deploying their main combat fleet that should have been resting inside.

—

Meanwhile, at the same time.

Perhaps because users who had dispatched thousands of stealth ships were providing real-time updates, the community forums couldn’t stop buzzing about Icarus’s assault on Tannhäuser.

Far from dying down…

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Title: Oh sh*t, the full-scale war is finally happening

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Video of Icarus’s mercenary fleet and ALL of Tannhäuser’s fleets colliding head-on in real-time.swf]

This is epic

No joke, I’m watching this in real-time from my ship and it’s absolutely insane

Comments:

-[Wow what’s this? Just charging in without any fancy maneuvers?]

-˪[To be fair, if we’re just comparing total numbers, Icarus has the advantage…]

-[400,000 ships vs about 350,000 ships, my heart is pounding]

-[This is madness]

-[Woah, fireworks]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: Breaking News) Tannhäuser Fortress Defense Forces and Icarus’s Mercenary Fleet Clashing

Author: News Boy

Content: [Video of large-scale fleet battle following Ouroboros’s maximum charge bombardment.swf]

The Ouroboros-class fired a siege bombardment equivalent to at least 2 buffs at the stronghold

Of course, given the size difference between the stronghold and ships, the maximum output hit several large ships from the standby guard fleet

And while it directly hit a few defense batteries and one fighter hangar

Once the defensive facilities were directly damaged and the mercenary fleet’s full scale was detected by the stronghold’s radar

Tannhäuser began deploying their “fortress defense fleet” that normally would only come out after the guard fleet was annihilated

Comments:

-[Whew;;]

-[Damn, the mercenary fleet is so overwhelmingly large that they had to bring out their main fleet lol]

-[Wow]

-[But even so, isn’t Icarus’s mobilized force still larger?]

-˪[No, doesn’t Tannhäuser have more large ships?]

-˪[This intense battle is so satisfying]

—————————————–

Despite being a fleet battle game, users typically employed small elite forces centered around large ships, resulting in battles of very limited scale.

While large clan battles that could provide spectacle kept getting postponed as major clans just watched each other cautiously.

Now Icarus had arranged all fleets to maximize firepower and then initiated a head-on collision with Tannhäuser’s fleet without any special tactics…

Like neighbors watching a house fire, users were gleefully munching popcorn while watching hundreds of thousands of ships exploding in real-time on the forums.

Of course, amid all this, some users were showing rather alarmed reactions.

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Title: Watching Icarus charge in made me realize why clans don’t casually engage in combat

Author: Anonymous

Content: [GIF of mercenary ships exploding as they clash with Tannhäuser’s defense fleet], [GIF of a perfectly intact battleship being torn apart in just seconds after being exposed to concentrated fire]

What the hell? Battleships can’t even last a few dozen seconds before exploding?

It takes nearly a week to build one ship, but it can only survive for a few dozen seconds—that would destroy anyone’s morale

Now I understand why clans falter after just one war, when not just dozens or hundreds, but thousands of ships get destroyed like this

Comments:

-[That’s why the North-South War in the Xenovia Empire keeps going into ceasefire]

-˪[Is that so?](Original Poster)

-[During the last Southern Campaign, both Humanity and Loki nearly faltered after funding their users’ war expenses]

-˪[I don’t think anything was revealed about Loki?](Original Poster)

-˪[An acquaintance who joined and left Loki said they couldn’t counter Humanity because of that and other issues]

-˪[Huh?]

-[The battleships are bad enough, but seeing cruisers getting shredded like paper is terrifying]

-[Now you know… yes, that’s what matters…]

-˪[*sobbing*]

-[If those were all user ships, dozens or hundreds of users would lose all their ships in just one battle]

-˪[Damn that’s horrifying]

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Title: Tip) I calculated the potential losses if Tannhäuser assault was conducted purely with user forces.txt

Author: Pythagoras

Content: [Detailed Excel spreadsheet causing scroll pressure.jpg]

This is just something I did out of boredom

Read if you want

Here’s the 3-line summary:

1. To purely assemble 400,000 ships with just users (+mercenary units, faction detachments), you’d need roughly 5-6 thousand people

2. It’s only possible to charge in like this because they’re mercenary units; if users did this, compensation for damages would cost millions in resources

˪(During the past Southern Campaign, when users had just managed to build one or two battleships and most only had cruisers, Humanity invested resources in the millions to billions)

3. This is just a hobby calculation that excludes users’ skills and fleet operations

˪In an actual battle, users’ loss rates would be much lower than Icarus’s brute force mercenary approach

Comments:

-[Hmm]

-[You should also explain why users would have fewer losses]

-˪[There are too many variables for me to calculate alone](Original Poster)

-˪[Combining the variables from thousands of people would result in millions of possible variations](Original Poster)

-˪[I don’t care, you can do it]

-˪[Why is this anonymous user such a tough guy?]

-[Smart young man…?]

—————————————–

Users showed various reactions, but to summarize:

They were finally realizing why the “large-scale PVP battles between clans” they wanted weren’t happening.

But what mattered was that Icarus was delivering the “mindless, no-guard, full-frontal assault” performance they craved.

Most users were cheering at the spectacular fleet battle, enjoying it like they were watching a mad movie from Star Wars or other sci-fi games.

But that didn’t last long.

As it became clear that Icarus wasn’t simply charging in recklessly but implementing various simple tactics he had shown before, and using mercenary units thoughtfully rather than just throwing them away…

The evaluation of Icarus—which had evolved from being a ranker due to skill, ship advantage, and luck, to just ship advantage and luck, and recently to just “mercenary advantage”—was quietly beginning to include an assessment that he possessed the “brains” befitting a ranker.