The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Chapter 3298: Orpheus Death Corps

Now that the decision was made to use boarding tactics, what kind of troops could carry out this mission?

Undoubtedly, among the troops currently under Solzhenitsyn's command, only the Krieg could carry out this task. Only they could fearlessly step onto the alien flagship and destroy it with a near-suicidal offensive.

But the problem was that the number of Krieg was not that large. According to the research and analysis of the Tomb Raiders' laboratory on the internal structure of the Tomb Ship, it was roughly estimated that at least 500,000 to 1 million troops would be needed to destroy a Tomb Ship by boarding. Therefore, relying solely on the Krieg was not feasible. After all, their numbers were limited, and Solzhenitsyn would have a hard time explaining if they were all sent to their deaths this time, and he couldn't bear it in his conscience.

This was the first time the Tomb Raiders' plan came into play. Although this organization was still in a hidden state, it had already absorbed many knowledgeable sages.

"Is this Necron Tomb Ship really that big?"

Many naval officers who had never seen a Necron warship were incredulous about the size of the Tomb Ship. Solzhenitsyn directly projected the data model of the Tomb Ship onto the display and compared it with a Retribution-class battleship. They were all speechless now.

In order to carry out this plan, Solzhenitsyn decided to select a group of strong and brave soldiers from the Orpheus Defense Force to conduct specialized boarding and void warfare training, at least 1.5 million people. Solzhenitsyn gave them the designation of Orpheus Death Corps. Each person could receive double pay, officers triple, and death benefits would also be doubled.

In fact, the name of this army already explained their mission: to carry out missions of no return. After all, boarding so many people was difficult enough, and there would be no time or tools for these people to evacuate. The Astartes had gunboats and teleportation, and there was still a chance to evacuate, but mortals had no way back once they went up. Their mission was to use all means to destroy the structure and facilities of the Tomb Ship, but once the alien ship was destroyed, they would also be buried with it.

This sounded cruel, but Solzhenitsyn really had no better tactical choices.

With people, equipment was naturally also needed. Void combat suits were still relatively rare. The entire Amara star system could not gather even 20,000 sets even after searching all the armories. This obviously could not meet the needs of forming a large-scale boarding force, so if there were none, they could only be manufactured.

The Imperial Guard's more common closed-type void combat armor was mainly Alicia's airborne combat suit and Kasrkin's storm carapace armor, but both were not cheap and belonged to elite equipment.

However, Solzhenitsyn found a more suitable option, an unconventional choice: the Navy's Breacher void armor.

Although the Navy focused on naval warfare and did not send soldiers to the ground battlefield, there were also many scenarios in space where infantry were used. Due to the continuous tug-of-war between the Navy Department and the Department of Military Affairs, the Navy established armed sailors in the form of boarding teams. Their main responsibility was to prevent enemies from boarding the ship and suppressing any uprisings of the large number of slaves on Imperial Navy ships. At the same time, they were not only able to fight defensive battles, but also trained in boarding operations and could serve as guards for naval officers.

And their void armor was a type of protective gear that performed very well in space environments, even better than many armors of the Imperial Guard. What was even more puzzling was that they were not very expensive, and large and small naval ships were equipped with a certain number of them.

So it was very simple: on the one hand, search for Breacher void armor from various ships, and on the other hand, have the various industrial worlds of Orpheus seize the time to produce them.

If everything went smoothly and the problem of troops was solved, then only one last question remained:

How to send such a large force onto the alien ship?

This was a blind spot of knowledge for all naval officers. In the past, boarding was at most the force of a few assault boats or boarding torpedoes. Who had ever seen an entire legion thrown onto the enemy's ship?

This was also the reason why Solzhenitsyn called in the Mechanicus representatives.

He hoped that the Tech-Priests could, as quickly as possible, transform some of the old small ships in the Orpheus fleet into a unique landing craft. It had to be fast enough, strong enough, simple enough, able to withstand the alien firepower to come close enough, or simply crash into it, and also ensure that the soldiers inside could land safely.

It sounded simple, but it was very difficult to actually implement. First of all, the procedure was not right. Arbitrarily改造舰船是触犯了机械修会戒律的, Solzhenitsyn had to apply to Mars for approval before he could start construction.

But what kind of person was he?

It had to be done, even if it couldn't be done!

It wouldn't be too late to report to Mars afterwards!

But even if the procedural problems were solved, there were still many technical problems. For example, Solzhenitsyn required that this kind of ship must be very strong, especially the front part. These were all easy to solve, but requiring the ship to maintain basic operation even when the electronic equipment was interfered with or even crashed was more difficult. In addition, the speed had to be very fast, which was not easy for a limited hull. It might require external acceleration rockets, and how to ensure the safe delivery of troops and equipment in a violent collision was also a problem.

But what Solzhenitsyn needed was not problems, but solutions. This was an order, and there was no room for bargaining.

Some naval officers suggested that if the ship was really designed like this, why not design a suicide ship? For example, load it with explosives, or directly crash into it and activate the warp drive to die together with the opponent. Wouldn't that be better than boarding? Use it as an oversized torpedo.

This led to another question.

"...Necron large warships are equipped with a large energy interference device, and its power will gradually increase as the distance decreases. In the Battle of Ekvoria, our ships experienced large-scale crashes and even the shutdown of all equipment. This was still in the case of long-range combat. If we rush towards the opponent and close the distance, then the mysterious interference device on the Tomb Ship can probably instantly shut down all the electronic equipment of the entire ship. How can we activate the warp drive without energy supply at that time? Manually? And relying on explosives, first of all, the measurement is not easy to calculate, secondly, the hull is too strong, the explosive power is limited, the hull is not strong enough, there is a possibility of a secondary explosion due to the hull being hit, and it is also difficult to cover, after all, the opponent will not wait foolishly for the boarding ship to crash into it. This requires the main ship to cover the boarding ship's advance in a dense formation. If it is a suicide ship, if it is detonated, it may blow up its own ships first."

The mysterious interference device that Solzhenitsyn mentioned was naturally the Stellar Pulse Generator equipped on the Tomb Ship - this device was named by the sages of the Tomb Raiders' laboratory, and it also unlocked the secret of the large-scale crashes of human warships in naval battles.

However, the Tech-Priests still did not understand the specific operating principle of the Stellar Pulse Generator, but only roughly speculated that it might be similar to the principle of solar flares. But how to accommodate stellar-level energy as a weapon on a warship, and how to ensure that the material can remain stable under such a strong impact, is still a mystery, or rather, black stone is still too unfamiliar to humans.

"In addition, the suicide ship has another hidden danger. In the alien Tomb Ship, there also seems to be an evil psychic attack weapon. In the Battle of Ekvoria, many crew members and even captains of warships were paralyzed by terrifying visions and lost their minds. Crew members who went crazy were likely to cause damage to their own ships, causing the ships to run wild."