14 Chapter 14 — Battleship Volley

Huge artillery cannons were pulled by massive steam-belching steel monsters. Giant steel ships with fearsome battleship cannons poking out from them like a hedgehog took off full of soldiers. Trains full of cannon and howitzer shells the size of a human were loaded by steam cranes.

This was the product of over 2 months of rapid industrialisation. The wreckage of the first Imperial Army had been scoured through, and the magic that had allowed the ships and fortress to float had been deciphered and used. Konrad personally designed a steel ship with numerous WW2 battleship cannons based on his memories, and newly built factories started mass production, supplied by giant mines filled with modern mining equipment. The ships were named battleships. Of course, most of the equipment and resources was made with source points to speed up the progress. Konrad had spent most of the source points he earned in the previous battle on building infrastructure and helping with the production of battleships. Even then, only 10 battleships had been built.

Over the last 2 months, more soldiers had been recruited and trained. Konrad wanted to hide the existence of his modern army, so he spent his efforts vigorously developing the native army. To control it, all the officers and most NCOs in it were his source soldiers, and there was even a number of source soldiers pretending to be native soldiers, blending into the army. They would rally the troops at key moments and convince them to keep fighting. Konrad's control in the People's Army had spread deep, like the roots of a tree.

To limit technology spread, soldiers were equipped with WW1-era rifles and machine guns and were taught in trench warfare. With guns, a newly trained recruit could kill a powerful warrior or a wizard. In the absence of overwhelming magic power, hot weapons dominated the battlefield.

The WW2 cannons on the battleships and artillery were ordered to fire as soon as the Imperial Army got into the most effective firing range. While their maximum range was 20 kilometres, their effective range was 10 kilometres. 10 battleships were lined up in the sky, their sides facing the enemy.

Rows and rows of large-calibre battleship cannons aimed and opened fire with a mind-shattering boom. The recoil was so great it rocked the entire ship and pushed it to the side slightly.

Hundreds of shells flew into the distance and impacted straight into the Imperial Army. The weak wooden hulls of their ships provided no resistance to the giant shells. The shells penetrated deep into the ships before exploding, setting off the gunpowder storages on board.

With just one volley, dozens of ships were destroyed, and even more were crippled.

Since a puppet could not feel emotions, the commanders of the advancing Imperial Army were the only non-puppet people in the entire fleet. The commander of the 4th Imperial Army was normally a heroic and stoic man, but now his face was full of disbelief.

[Dammit, how can they hit us from all the way over there! And how are their cannons so powerful! Are we in range yet?]

[No sir, we are still far from being in range! We need to be within at least 300 metres if we want any chance of hitting them while moving!]

[Fuck! Are you telling me that we have to keep going 10 more kilometres under this bombardment? Just kill me already! It would be a miracle if there is anything left of us!]

[But sir… You know what Archmage Daiki would do to us if we were caught retreating…]

The commander shivered at Daiki's name and re-considered his choices.

[Fine! Keep advancing! But offload the troops and get them to march on foot! Tell them to spread out as much as possible!]

The commander took deep breaths to calm himself. He would rather do down with his fortress than defy the will of Archmage Daiki. He shivered as he remembered Daiki turning hundreds of thousands of soldiers into emotionless puppets without showing any mercy.

He planned to exploit the flaw of the cannon: it could be overcome with numbers. Cannons took time to reload, and while they could do tremendous damage to a single target, they could only fire at one target at a time. The fleet would act as targets to buy time for the soldiers.

Roughly 200,000 troops dismounted, the rest continuing to pilot their ships. The commander even sent down the loading crew of the cannons, showing his lack of confidence in even surviving until they got in range.

The cannons of the Third Reich's battleships relentlessly fired on the incoming fleet. With every volley, dozens of ships directly blew up and even more were disabled or took heavy damage. A few shells fell into the forest, but their accuracy got higher the closer the fleet was.

The dismounted army quickly advanced through the forest. This was when the artillery opened fire. 1000 howitzers opened fire, their pre-sighted rounds washing the forest with a rain of artillery. This was when the imperial army learned the true horror of artillery.

Hundreds of soldiers were blown away in just the first inaccurate volley. The closer they got, the more accurate the howitzers were. Meanwhile, all the ships had been destroyed, either exploding in the air or crashing into the ground in a blaze of fire. Only the five floating fortresses were left, with their powerful magic shields barely absorbing the explosions. 

However, with all the battleships focusing fire on them, their shields quickly cracked and turned to dust. Giant shells instantly razed the entire fortress to the ground (literally). The once-feared war machines had been turned into debris.

With all the air targets eliminated, the battleships changed their target to the ground troops, raining hell down on the advancing soldiers. But the human puppets of the Imperial Army didn't fear death. No matter how many of their comrades were blown to pieces beside them, they just continued advancing emotionlessly at full speed.

A row of heavily armed trenches had been set up outside of the forest. Soldiers of the People's Army stood tensely, nervously  clenching their guns as they heard the explosions in the distance. The trenches were dug in a zig-zag pattern and there were multiple layers of them. There were several railways that ran directly from the munition factories to the front lines. Lines of barbed wire were nailed in front of them, along with dense fields of land mines.

All the soldiers readied their guns as they heard the minefield going off. Against all odds, the Imperial Army had done the impossible. They had done it. At the cost of overwhelming casualties, they had finally reached their enemy. And they were going to regret it.