Within three days of the fall of the Trailblazer space station on May 11, Vice Admiral Bunier, commander of the Fifth Fleet of the Raymond Kingdom, ordered a space shuttle formation under his command to launch a frenzied attack on the ten temporary military space stations deployed by Chief of Staff Yarvis on the outskirts of the Ultra Nebula.

In the face of these regular troops under the command of Lieutenant General Bunier, the formation of Free Civilian fighters temporarily recruited by Chief of Staff Yalves immediately exposed its huge shortcomings in training, and was crushed under the intensive blows established by the opposing side relying on formations. After only three days of support, all the temporary military space stations were lost, and they had to huddle in the Charon fortress in the Ultra Nebula. Vice Admiral Bunier blew up the four space stations on both sides, and based on the remaining six space stations, further modified their military use, connecting them into a large space shuttle attack port, and ordered nearly one-third of his aircraft carrier space shuttle to be stationed here to further carry out military infiltration of the Ultra Nebula controlled by the Republic.

At this point in the war, it has undoubtedly turned out to be quite unfavorable to the Republic. Although the space shuttle production line of the Charon Space Fortress still produces high-performance 'J-IX.' space shuttles, and the Free Folk still actively respond to the call to participate in the defense of the Ultra Nebula, this kind of improvised army is not as good as a well-trained regular army. Even though the freedfolk had mastered the art of space shuttle fighting before joining the army, war was not a one-man battle. In the battle of a large group of fighters, how to maintain the formation, how to cooperate with comrades to export firepower, how to cover each other and so on are more important than individual bravery. Only by completely obeying the commander's tactical command and arrangement can the fighter group build the densest firepower network, and only by continuing to maintain its formation in the face of a rain of bullets can it gain the upper hand in a group-style fighter attack.

But in this respect, the fighter formation, which consisted mainly of free people, was undoubtedly too different from the regular army under Lieutenant General Bunier.

Since it was a temporary conscription, and because the freedmen had never been trained in military discipline, the group of fighters that Chief of Staff Yalvis had worked so hard to put together was nothing more than a rabble. They may be no less than or even better than the regular army under Lieutenant General Bunnier, but if the number of both sides is increased to hundreds, the freedmen's ability to fight alone will undoubtedly become a disaster.

Taking several large-scale encounters over the course of three days as an example, the Free Folk pilots could indeed charge the enemy in a complete formation as requested by the Rose Formation instructors before they officially entered the attack range. But when the distance between the two sides is close to the attack range, and both sides start firing at each other with long-range missiles, then the gap between the two begins to become apparent.

Faced with the dense barrage formed by the formation of Kingdom fighters through salvo fire, most of the freedfolk pilots who were on the verge of battle for the first time would immediately forget the instructors' teachings. Their fragile psychological qualities make it impossible for them to keep moving forward in the face of a rain of bullets, but habitually use free dodges to avoid enemy flights

Play. They didn't realize that when they began to evade enemy missiles, they lost the ability to continue attacking, and both sides used regular dense formations to form concentrated firepower, which made the distance between the space shuttle and the space shuttle in the formation quite narrow, and when the pilot suddenly broke away from the command and dodged freely, there was a great chance that he would collide with his comrades on both sides and cause accidental injury.

In several large-scale battles of defeat, most of the freedmen suffered crushing defeats due to their inability to observe military discipline. The Fifth Fleet's space shuttle formation was overwhelmed by continuous attack firepower, and often suffered heavy casualties before entering the white-knuckle combat distance of the space shuttle, and had to retreat in a hurry.

In fact, from the standpoint of the Free Folk pilots, their subconscious freedom to avoid because of the fear of missiles is completely instinctive. Most of them have excellent flying skills, because only those who are good at dodging can survive the encirclement and suppression of federal patrols. Therefore, this subconscious free circumvention has become their flight instinct, and it is not something that a few Rose Formation instructors can change with a few simple trainings.

But in large-scale space shuttle encounters, thousands of space shuttles tend to line up in three rows in a row of geese. When launching long-range missiles, taking the Sidewinder long-range missile as an example, in order to launch smoothly, it requires three large-scale tactical actions to complete. This will inevitably lead to a sudden slowdown in the fighter plane that launched the missile. If it is a well-trained space shuttle formation like the Rose Formation, then the space shuttle in the second row will immediately take advantage of the slowdown of the comrades in the front row, pass through the gap in the flanks, form a position change into the front row, and launch missiles to attack while swapping positions.

The large-scale space shuttle formation attack is mainly based on the three-stage goose marching formation, and its most important purpose is that this formation can maintain the continuity of firepower to the greatest extent. And the key to victory or defeat is often to see which side discharges a denser formation and which side has higher firepower continuity.

Only well-trained and tacit cooperation between comrades-in-arms can pass through friendly planes with standardized tactical movements at the moment when the comrades-in-arms in front shoot at the moment. Only by carrying out military discipline and still sticking to one's position in the midst of a hail of bullets can we maximize the damage to the enemy at a distance from a long range.

It sounds a little unbelievable, and it feels like you're lining up to be shot. However, in fact, in the high-density missile attack between the two sides, as long as the formation can be maintained, most of the missiles fired will collide with the enemy's missiles and will not be effective, and only a small number of missiles will really pose a threat to the formation. At this time, the fighters in the third row will be responsible for providing barrage cover for friendly planes in the front row, forming a barrage with plasma bombs with a high rate of fire, volleying those enemy missiles that leak through the net.

If the fighter formation is well-trained, it is rare to suffer mass casualties at a long distance, and the conventional tactical purpose of this three-stage missile salvo is only to cause confusion in the enemy's formation, so as to facilitate the superiority of the fighters in white-knuckle combat.

cooperate

Tacit understanding and well-trained are the two most critical winning weights in space machine warfare. However, the free people, who had just joined the army and had never been exposed to such large-scale machine warfare, were obviously not able to adapt to this mode of warfare immediately.

What was originally a long-range salvo as a secondary attack was now the most effective killer against the Free Folk pilots. In several encounters, nearly 80 percent of those killed were shot down at a distance or crashed by colliding with their comrades while dodging. In a real white-knuckle battle, the casualties were not heavy, and even when the formation was completely broken up and there were many enemies, the Free Folk pilots were able to rely on their excellent flying skills to escape. The number of people who are bitten and knocked down by enemy teams is only a small part of the list of the dead.

And perhaps because of the deep realization of the free folk pilots' ranger-like qualities, after barely holding on to the outer defense line of the Ultra Nebula for three days, Chief of Staff Yalvis decisively ordered to abandon all space stations and reorganize the space shuttle combat formation, no longer conducting group operations in conventional large formations, but breaking up the entire team with a group of three to five space shuttles, and giving them free attack authority by distributing them in several lanes in the Ultra Nebula.

Jarves's gambling effort to break up his troops into pieces was extremely risky, and if he were in an open space, it would undoubtedly be suicidal to set up a large range of skirmishers, and it would not be able to resist the effective salvo of the enemy's group. However, the unique and complex passage of the Ultra Nebula has become the best battlefield for this skirmish mode.

It is well known that there are twenty trillion large celestial bodies active in the Ultra Nebula, of which ... [This chapter is not finished, please click on the next page to continue reading!] ］