The Emperor’s Angel of Death

"Recall the fleet and order the Grey Knights not to pursue." →

Hearing Sorskyan's command, Mark nodded, but after turning around, he hesitated for a moment before returning and whispering:

"Chapter Master, but the Carcharodons

Sorskyan shook his head.

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"There's no chance. Huron would rather destabilize the battle line than allow anyone to get close to his flagship. The main force of the Red Corsairs fleet is still there. Even if Huron can't win, it's still easy for him to escape, and besides, it's unlikely that the Carcharodons fleet alone can break through the intercepting firepower of the Red Corsairs' large warships to send a message to the Carcharodons. Don't pursue a desperate enemy. I hope they can listen."

The facts also proved Sorskyan's judgment. Although the Carcharodons came menacingly, Huron was determined to avoid battle, just like a real shark with brute strength and sharp teeth but unable to catch a slippery old mud loach. At this time, the Red Corsairs' separated fleets gradually converged. Due to the huge loss of aircraft, there was no continuous air raid pressure, and the Red Corsairs' capital ships immediately used fierce artillery fire to beat the Carcharodons fleet into a daze, destroying one cruiser and damaging two frigates at the time.

Realizing that they could no longer carry out the surprise beheading, the Carcharodons fleet had to give up the charge and join the Imperial fleet's bombardment.

At this time, many Red Corsairs were still evacuating, and the void was full of swaying landing craft and gunboats, and even lifeboats. →

Zhu Fu had specifically arranged for people to occupy two non-critical escape zones during the attack, which now played a huge role. Many Red Corsairs without escape tools quickly escaped with the help of the escape zones controlled by Zhu Fu, and because they were escape vehicles from the star fort, they were identified as friendly markers in the fire control system of the Imperial warships, making it difficult for automatic weapons to target them—after Sorskyan learned about this after the war, he couldn't help but sigh that with such a commander in the Red Corsairs, the subsequent battles would be difficult.

After that, the exchange of fire between the two sides continued for more than an hour. Finally, after confirming that they could not recover more people, the Red Corsairs quickly disengaged from the battle.

The Second Angstrom Sea Battle, which lasted for a full 14 hours, came to an end.

Both sides can be said to have tried their best in this naval battle, but the casualties were far less disparate than in the first battle.

According to post-war statistics, the Red Corsairs had 1 Emperor-class battleship, the Death Mire, 1 battlecruiser, 3 large/heavy cruisers, 6 strike cruisers/light cruisers, and about 80 small ships sunk, which was about the same as the ship losses in the first naval battle.

On the Imperial side, the fleet led by Sorskyan alone had 1 heavy cruiser (the Astral Knight's Redemption), 3 strike cruisers (including the Astral Knight's Endeavor and Resolute), 4 light cruisers, and 30 small ships sunk, and the Adeptus Mechanicus' battleship Alloy Truth was also severely damaged and almost sunk, and was also invaded by demons, with half of the gun decks destroyed, one-third of the engines destroyed, and one-quarter of the crew and technicians sacrificed, which would probably take 5-10 years to repair. In addition, 2 large and medium-sized ships and 11 small ships were lost, plus 1 cruiser lost by the Carcharodons fleet.

The Imperial side only had a slight advantage in the number of losses, but the Blessed Bulwark was basically badly damaged, and it was conservatively estimated that it would take more than two years of berthing and repair to restore basic mobility and combat capability, and if it was to be completely repaired, it might take 10 years, which means that this star fort would probably miss other battles in the future. In addition, more than 10,000 aircraft participating in the battle were lost, and a considerable part of them were destroyed by warp power and could not even be recovered.

It can be seen that the victory of the last naval battle largely relied on the defense forces of the planet Angstrom. Once out of the range of planetary orbital defense, even with two star forts and a large air force, it was still not enough to bridge the huge gap between the two sides in capital ships. Once the Red Corsairs fleet forcibly rushed up for close-range fire, the advantage of their heavy-armored giant guns was still very great, and the defense of the star fort was deployed in all directions, and the firepower in a single interval was actually very limited.

For example, the Red Corsairs' Retribution-class battleship Desperate Prayer, even with one-third of its deck destroyed, was still able to use its powerful main guns to sink the Astral Knight's Endeavor and Redemption in succession, and even used its sturdy hull and armor to withstand the Imperial small warships' harassing fire when it retreated because its void shields were overloaded.

It was precisely because Sorskyan saw that the Red Corsairs' heavy-armored capital ships still had combat power that he did not intend to really fight Huron to the death, after all, the Word Bearers were now the Red Corsairs' trouble, but if there were no Red Corsairs, it would immediately be the Imperium's trouble. They didn't have much information about what their strength Okam was, but as an ancient traitor legion, the traitors of Garmek should not be underestimated. Don't let both sides be hurt and then be picked up by others, that would be too ridiculous.

In addition to the loss of the fleet, the personnel losses in this battle were what really made Sorskyan very heartbroken.

In the last battle, only 49 warriors were sacrificed, but this time, in the cruel naval battle and star fort defense battle, the Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Tenth Companies of the Astral Knights alone had 102 people killed in action!

Among them, 19 people were killed in the Third Company, 28 people were killed in the Fourth Company, 24 people were killed in the Sixth Company, and 31 people were killed in the Tenth Company.

The situation of other chapters was not good either. 85 Flesh Tearers were killed in action, 134 Penitents were killed in action, 48 Rangers were killed in action, 17 Imperial Fists were also killed in action, and 9 Grey Knights were killed in action, for a total of 395 Imperial Space Marines killed in action!

It should be known that there are not many Space Marines in the entire expeditionary force. Including the losses in the previous series of battles, according to the casualties reported by various war zones and chapters, nearly a thousand Space Marines have been killed in action since the beginning of the expedition, and the strength of the entire expeditionary force has been reduced by almost one-fifth.

However, there are still many tough battles to be fought in the foreseeable future, and Sorskyan has no idea what the final number of casualties will be.

In addition, the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ecclesiarchy also suffered great sacrifices. 3 Fabricator Lords died in battle, 11 Datasmiths were sacrificed in battle, and more than 200 chaplains dedicated themselves to the Omnissiah, and more than 600,000 Militarum Protecta and nearly 3,000 various combat robots were destroyed in battle, and more than 100,000 Ecclesiarchy combat personnel, including Militarum Protecta and mercenaries, and 61 Battle Sisters were martyred.

As for the crew and non-combat personnel sacrificed because of the sinking of ships and boarding, it was an even greater number. According to calculations, at least two million crew members and non-combat personnel were killed in action.

On the Red Corsairs side, the number of enemies that can be counted is about 3,000 Chaos Space Marines, and the actual number is at most 5,000, which is about the same as the first Angstrom Sea Battle, but the intensity of the war is completely incomparable. It can be seen that the great victory of the first battle also had the effect of the Red Corsairs commander's poor command in it. This time, with a clever front-line commander, the effect was immediately different.

Facts have proved that the Red Corsairs are not really soft persimmons that can be easily pinched. It is just that there are many problems within them that prevent those Chaos Space Marines from truly exerting their fierce individual strength.

Therefore, Sorskyan can only pray that those internal problems continue to plague the Red Corsairs. It is also out of this mentality that he did not really have the intention to kill Huron, otherwise, it was indeed possible to take down this guy if he had really launched a reckless assault at that time.

As for those cultists and demons, they cannot be counted at all, and there is no point in counting them.

In addition, the battle report also mentioned some special things.