The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Watching Jacob's puzzled expression, Bakhram guessed what he was thinking and said slowly:

"That's right, this is the Basilisk anti-aircraft rocket vehicle that uses airburst rockets. Those airburst rockets are specially made to deal with Tyranid flying swarms. They are 50mm in diameter, 410mm long, use a disposable small plasma engine, and have an effective range of about 5,000 meters. They are filled with 32 small bombs. After the explosion, they can cover a spherical space with a radius of 300 meters. When 32 small bombs are detonated, they can cover an area with a radius of more than 1 kilometer. Therefore, the minimum launch height must not be lower than 1,000 meters, otherwise there is a possibility of accidental injury. A Basilisk can carry two launch nests, and one launch nest can be loaded with 72 airburst rockets. You can calculate the firepower. It is equivalent to a Basilisk launching 144 airburst rockets in 1 second, and then projecting 4608 small bombs. Four Basilisks can simultaneously launch 18432 small bombs into the air."

Bakhram then pointed to the hundreds of gargoyles that remained, wailing and flying into the sky.

"Tyranids like to cluster together. That group just now had at least more than 50,000 Tyranid flying creatures. If you use conventional weapons, how long will it take to take them down? The small-sized Tyranid flying creatures happen to be relatively fragile. Even grenade-level explosions and fragments can cause fatal damage to them. The Basilisk's intensive coverage attack seizes on this characteristic and weakness. At the same time, after firing, it can quickly transfer or hide, to guard against enemy counterattacks. Tyranids are not without large aerial units. If you deploy a fixed air defense position, the survival rate is actually very low."

Jacob shook his head, clicking his tongue in amazement. He had indeed watched the Tyranid swarm be directly "evaporated" in the sky.

"Tsk tsk, this Basilisk anti-aircraft vehicle is amazing! I've never heard of it before. Was it recently developed? Logically speaking, isn't new weapon development very slow?"

"There are many reasons for the slowness, rules, laws, or political considerations, historical factors... The weapon itself is not complicated. You have seen it, the chassis is the Chimera, and the launch nest is not strange either. The only thing that needs to be researched is the rocket itself, and this should be something that the Legion Commander instructed Ulanhuda and Zhao-Akada sages to develop very early on."

Jacob nodded suddenly, then looked at the Basilisk tanks that were being assisted by Centaur logistics vehicles to hoist new rocket nests—it was more troublesome to load the rockets on-site, so they directly replaced the loaded launch nests.

"The Legion Commander is really far-sighted! This weapon is indeed too suitable for dealing with Tyranids. It is completely tailor-made."

Hearing Jacob say this, Bakhram seemed to think of something, but he just nodded silently.

Then he patted the other person on the shoulder.

"A lot of Tyranid corpses fell into the stronghold just now. Take people to deal with it, gather them together and burn them, and see if there are any stragglers."

"Yes!"

"Wow, Uncle, what was that weapon just now? It just took out the cloud-like Tyranids... Yo, be careful."

Little Feidun, who had just crawled out of the bunker, almost got slapped in the face by a gargoyle's wing after saying a few words. He glared at the two guys who were carrying Tyranid corpses.

"What if there's poison and you guys ruin my face!"

"We know, we know, stay away, we're going to throw it down."

When he walked to Hayes, who was cursing, Hayes was directing people to help clean up the corpses on the nearby position. They didn't get hit much here, but the next position was more unlucky. A Hierodule's corpse directly smashed into the wall, almost breaking a gap, but the metal machine gun turret was directly skewed by the tail. Now the company commander of that company is scratching his head trying to figure out how to "straighten" it.

Hearing Little Feidun's words, Hayes looked at the location of the four Basilisks. Although he couldn't see the real appearance because of the obstruction of the buildings, he could still guess.

"It should be an anti-aircraft rocket launcher. This is indeed a very unique idea. Most of the Empire's anti-aircraft missiles rely on direct hits to kill, such as the Hunter missile, but the problem is also obvious. It has almost no effect on this kind of cluster of small targets. This kind of cluster rocket is generally used for ground attacks. I didn't expect that transferring it to air strikes can also have miraculous effects. The person who designed it is really a genius. It's not that this weapon is so magical, the key is this kind of change in thinking... Don't stand here, hurry up and help clean up. These Tyranid corpses may rot and produce toxins."

Just as the stronghold was busy cleaning up the corpses of those fallen Tyranid flying creatures, the rising observation servo-skull quickly discovered an abnormality and issued a sharp alarm.

"The enemy is coming!"

Bakhram came to the small tactical display in the temporary command post and saw the picture sent back by the detection servo-skull. A large number of small Tyranid creatures were climbing up the steep hillside at high speed. Their powerful jumping and climbing ability can almost be said to be like walking on flat ground. There are also many large creatures mixed in, mainly Warrior Bugs and Harpies. There are no larger Tyranid creatures yet, such as Lictors. Maybe this terrain is not suitable for them to play. After all, the location of Outpost 7 is very dangerous.

But Bakhram had another worry. He looked into the distance with a large observation mirror and saw some slow-moving four-legged monsters.

"...Sure enough, the Tyranid artillery is here too."

When he saw a dozen Tyranid artillery creatures standing firm, Bakhram immediately turned to the Mechanicus priest who was operating and pondering behind him and said:

"Is the void shield open?"

"Reporting, Lord, it is already open."

"Monitor the energy level at all times and report every ten minutes."

"Yes."

Under Bakhram's gaze, the dozen or so Tyranid artillery fired deadly ammunition at Outpost 7 on the high ground, those rolling spherical fireballs.

Seconds later, the fireballs slammed heavily into the void shield, causing a burst of flickering in the air.

"Snow Palace Command, this is Outpost 7, artillery position detected, coordinates..."

Bakhram reported the location of the enemy artillery to the rear as soon as possible. One of the shortcomings of Tyranid artillery is that their range is generally not particularly far. This may also be related to their biological positioning not being accurate enough. Except for Biovores, the range of most Tyranid artillery is far lower than that of human artillery.

After receiving Bakhram's coordinates, the artillery positions established in Snow Palace immediately reacted. In order to deal with the Tyranid bio-artillery, Soshjan specially established an anti-artillery force, and this force was composed of 24 Shadowsword tanks.

The Shadowsword super-heavy tank actually appeared in the armory a long time ago. A batch was obtained through transactions with various Forge Worlds before the Great Vortex Expedition. Ulanhuda himself can also manufacture this weapon, because the weapon itself is not complicated. It uses the Shadowsword chassis and only replaced the main gun with an Earthquake Cannon.

The birth of this artillery completely came from the needs of the Astra Militarum generals. Although the Astra Militarum often has an advantage in numbers, this advantage will disappear when facing the enemy's fortified fortresses and fortifications. Although an Astra Militarum general would consider sending Leman Russ Demolishers or other siege tanks to carry out the task of destroying the city defenses, their disadvantage in range easily leads to these valuable siege vehicles being destroyed by the enemy's city defense firepower before reaching the attack position. Long-range artillery such as the Basilisk self-propelled artillery, although capable of firing outside the range of the defenders, is somewhat discounted in power, while the Shadowsword, although also capable of doing the work of city defense destruction, is somewhat lacking in the frequency of fire and mobility.