The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge

2314. Raid Battle on Kira Planet (6)

What the scientific research and technical personnel of the Galactic Empire have never understood is how the swarm drones mounted on the Archon-class aircraft carriers can be so powerful.

The swarm unmanned interceptor has extremely high speed, agile flexibility, powerful firepower, and cunning combat logic. Normally, it is impossible for so many things to appear in a mere 1.5-meter-diameter micro-drone. body. This is true even for the Swarm II drones that are now available.

Two-thirds of their volume is in those two engines, which also gives them unparalleled maneuverability. However, it cannot explain where the energy reserves are? That powerful plasma beam, where does such power come from? At the same time, that combat method is comparable to that of an ace pilot. Where is its AI terminal?

Finally, after a lot of research, they believed that this was a technology that could transmit energy over long distances and operate it remotely. This can also explain why swarm drones will only appear on Archon-class aircraft carriers, and Archon-class aircraft carriers will not carry other types of drones.

But it still cannot be explained why during the Yago-Dur planet battle, in the face of the powerful electromagnetic pulse caused by the violent orbital change of the star, other electronic equipment could not be used, but the swarm drones were still able to maintain a powerful combat effectiveness.

But in any case, imperial scientists believe that at least they have seen through the secret of this drone a little bit, which can be considered progress to some extent. More intelligence requires more actual cases for analysis.

However, the imperial military is not completely ineffective. The Vindicator-class heavy cruiser they handed over to the Xina Fleet for systematic development is a cruiser specially designed to fight against such small fighters.

Vindicator-class heavy cruiser, 600 meters long, equipped with 25 multifunctional turbolaser cannons, 20 quadruple light turbolaser cannons, 10 point defense laser cannons, 20 point defense ion cannons, and 6 power cannons. Big tractor beam.

It can be said that the Vindicator-class is covered with anti-aircraft weapons, and the whole body is like a hedgehog. At the end of the Clone Wars, and later during the four-year battle with the Confederacy of Independent Systems on the last fortress, the planet Salukami, the Vindicator-class heavy cruiser can be said to have shone brightly. As long as it was there, any fighter could defeat it. Can't get closer!

It is precisely because of the existence of the Vindicator-class heavy cruiser that Quat Dynamics Dockyard boldly removed the close-defense turrets from the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer design, allowing the battleship to focus on fleet decisive battles.

Because if you want to install close-in defense turrets, they must cover the whole body of the battleship. There are at least dozens of turrets and they must be installed everywhere. This makes the battleship's energy supply system fragmented and branches must be installed everywhere. This will affect the battleship's main gun and protection. shield system power.

For example, the Catastrophe-class battlecruiser basically has no weapons other than particle lances installed. At the same time, most of the warships in the Principality of Dawn actually do not have too many close-in defense guns installed. This is the same idea.

However, today, the Vindicator-class heavy cruiser was completely defeated in the confrontation with the Archon-class aircraft carrier.

Michel Unser's fleet is equipped with a total of 20 Defender-class heavy cruisers. According to the design, 20 Defenders can handle at least 2,000 fighter saturation attacks, which is completely sufficient for fleet operations under normal circumstances. of. But now, what they are facing is not a normal battle!

Although after upgrading to Swarm II unmanned interceptors, the number of aircraft carried has been reduced by half, but the number of Swarm II unmanned interceptors carried by each of the 10 Archon-class aircraft carriers is - 10,000!

In other words, what Michel Unser's fleet now needs to face is a full 100,000 drones! ! What is the situation like when 100,000 drones swarm over? Even the screen of the battleship's sensor was completely covered by the countless drone signals, and it was impossible to even see other things on the screen clearly! In order to effectively command the operation, Michel Unser had to order the drone signals to be blocked on the holographic combat star map. However, the signal was blocked, but the damage caused by these 100,000 drones was real. !

Only one Imperial-class Star Destroyer was seen fleeing desperately, surrounded by at least 3,000 drones besieging it. Dense particle beams continued to shine on the battleship. Although each beam was very small, the cumulative effect was that the Imperial-class deflector shield was broken within 5 minutes!

A Vindicator-class heavy cruiser next to it was sailing in sync with the Empire-class ship. The anti-aircraft firepower on the battleship continued to fire, but those unmanned interceptors were extremely flexible. They could even avoid the rotation of many anti-aircraft turrets, allowing Close defense against laser beams failed.

Although drones continued to be shot down, after fighting for a long time, hundreds of drones were destroyed, but the number of interceptors surrounding the Empire-class Star Destroyer did not decrease at all!

The shield was breached, and those interceptors focused all their firepower on the towering bridge of the Empire-class ship! Even if the Imperial-class captain immediately raised the protective armor plate, it was still to no avail! The armor plate soon melted and fell off under the continuous irradiation of particle beams. Immediately afterwards, the entire bridge was destroyed by countless particle beams, a large amount of flames were sprayed out, and the Star Destroyer was completely out of control!

As for the Imperial Fleet's TIE fighter formation, there is not a single one left now!

Without the threat of fighters, the First Task Force led by Ling Liang immediately called back all the carrier-based aircraft to focus on dealing with the N-1 starfighter formation that took off from the planet Naboo.

This is another massacre!

When the N-1 starfighter was developed at the time, it had powerful performance that surpassed its time. This is also the reason why the performance of the N-1 starfighter is still not too backward even after 20 years. But it is just not backward...

The Ghost fighter launched at the same time as the N-1 starfighter has now undergone countless modernizations. The current Ghost fighter is the G type, which has gone through 8 generations since the A type. Although the performance of the N-1 starfighter far exceeded that of the Ghost fighter during the A type period, after 8 generations, the Ghost fighter can easily crush the N-1 starfighter.

N-1 starfighter and Ghost fighter, Dawn and Naboo, this is the difference between having an independent industrial system and not having an independent industrial system.

The reflection on the battlefield was that 400 N-1 starfighters were destroyed without any suspense, and the number of ghost fighters and Viking fighters lost was... zero!

That's right, without the guidance of large battleships, the N-1 starfighters didn't even have the possibility of seeing the ghost fighters!

After completely destroying the N-1 starfighters, Ling Liang led the First Task Force to reorganize, changing from a defensive formation to an offensive formation, with the Xuanwu Titan battleship as the vanguard, and all the battleships launched an assault!

Now the overall formation of the Imperial Fleet has been completely disrupted, and almost all the battleships are fighting on their own. Under the attack of 100,000 unmanned interceptors, they were simply overwhelmed. Facing the attack of the Dawn Principality battleships, they couldn't even spare a few turrets to fight back.

However, the Divine Revelation-class battleships and Paladin-class battlecruisers will not wait here!