The Mech Touch

Chapter 7005 The Power of Viscounts

The Omega Thresher was an interesting mech model.

Just as its name suggested, the first-class multipurpose mech model was primarily designed around the use of its Omega Laser Cannons.

The combination of high power per shot and excellent precision made the Omega Thresher good for mid to long-ranged combat.

While it was not as accurate as a dedicated marksman mech, it came with an advanced targeting system that helped to improve its hit rate at longer ranges.

After all, the consequences of missing a shot with an Omega Laser Cannon was much more severe. The necessity of accumulating a huge amount of power before discharging it in a single powerful strike always took up a lot of time.

The problem with the Omega Thresher's configuration was that its weapon systems did not synergize particularly well.

Its Phase Destructor Guns could have served as an excellent complement to the Omega Laser Cannons.

The former could tear down transphasic energy shields with ease, the latter could cut right through solid metal.

It seemed obvious that the Omega Thresher was a mech designed to utilize both capabilities at once.

Yet in practice, the two were only effective together employed at short range.

The muzzle velocities of Omega Laser Cannon was equivalent to the speed of light.

The muzzle velocities of the Phase Disintegrator Guns were much slower and also a bit less precise at longer ranges to boot!

The Phase Disintegrator Guns had never been designed to kill or snipe. The Red Association asked for a support weapon, and that suited the Saint Commander fine.

The problem that many mech pilots faced when they tried to master the art of piloting this machine, it became too difficult to effectively use the Phase Disintegrator Guns together with the formidable Omega Laser Cannons.

The former launched energy bolts that could not fly exactly straight at all times. They always followed a randomly skewed trajectory that was subtle up close, but became increasingly more obvious at longer distances.

The relative slow muzzle velocities of the energy bolts also only really made them useful at closer ranges.

That severely limited the value proposition of the Omega Thresher model. It obviously possessed a configuration that excelled at ranged combat.

Why must it deliberately discard this advantage and fight opponents at a range that did not leverage the full potential of its devastating Omega Laser Cannons?

The best possible use of the Omega Threshers was to strike a distant target with its Phase Disintegrator Guns to sap away its energy shields before using the Omega Laser Cannons to inflict a large amount of material damage to the exposed enemy.

Yet as the mech pilots hired by the Premier Branch began to master the use of this RA mech model, they found that it was practically impossible to accomplish this feat on any target aside from one that was completely stationary.

As long as the range was far enough and as long as the target was moving and attempting to evade incoming fire, the difficulty of landing consistent hits with the Phase Disintegrator Guns drastically rose!

In fact, after the Larkinson mech pilots asked their colleagues over at the Bluejay Fleet for advice, they learned that even the RA's own highly trained and heavily augmented first-class mech pilots struggled to perfectly land the attacks in sequence.

Unless they became expert candidates or expert pilots, they had no hope of hitting distant enemy targets with the Phase Disintegrator Guns before immediately striking them with the Omega Laser Cannons!

The two weapon systems were drastically different from each other. Each of them demanded their own set of skills because the parameters related to firing them were not comparable to each other.

A mech pilot might be able to dedicate decades of training into mastering long-distance shooting with laser weapons.

However, the skills and instincts associated with them did not translate so easily to energy weapons with drastically different properties such as the Phase Disintegrator Guns.

This was a shame, as the combination made the Omega Thresher incredibly powerful in theory.

Its value drastically rose if it was able to pop transphasic energy shields with greater ease without relying on melee mechs with space suppressors to weaken distant enemies in advance.

Unless a first-class mech pilot dedicated his entire life to mastering the Omega Thresher's eccentric combination of armaments, it was unlikely for any of them to be able to use the mech model to its full potential.

This was why the performance of the bunker mechs was so much more astonishing to those who understood the nuances of the Omega Thresher design.

In the hands of regular mech pilots, the Omega Thresher was a deep machine that they could never fully tap due to their mortal limitations.

However, if an ace commander took direct control over their machines, her unnaturally high skill and intuition easily enabled her to accomplish this superhuman feat!

The Saint Commander's multitasking capabilities were so impressive that she did it 57 times in a single attack salvo!

What impressed everyone the most was not that she succeeded, but that she attained a 100 percent success rate!

This was a powerful indicator of her fine control and her ability to precisely guide the actions of multiple mechs to a very precise degree.

A brief lull ensued on the battlefield as both the humans and the aliens needed a bit of time to come to terms with the initial result.

Of the alien warships that suffered surface hits as well as more severe damage due to the premature detonation of live warheads, not all of them got crippled right away.

Only 9 hulls appeared to be in such bad shape that their burning and partially collapsed hulls already started to drift out of formation.

The other affected alien warships were a bit larger, tougher or did not load their tubes with powerful enough missiles.

These vessels had been spared the misery of their more injured cousins, but that did not mean they had been able to make it out unscathed.

Some had lost their azure energy shields. Others could no longer make use of some of their gun batteries anymore.

"AGAIN."

While everyone else was still busy with evaluating the damage of the previous devastating massed attack, the Viscounts were already firing their second salvo!

Phase Disruptor bolts surged from the bunkers of the Tortuous Scream and struck the damaged but still relatively intact warships.

Due to the disruptions caused by the secondary explosions on their hulls, the targeted warships were unable to respond in an adequate manner.

They turned into sitting ducks as they witnessed their segmented azure energy shields disappearing in a rapid sequence just before a handful of resonance-empowered Omega Laser Cannons and luminar crystal cannons fired their destructive beams straight through the gaps and bore deep into the hulls!

The damage was less severe than last time as the bunker mechs of the Tortuous Scream could no longer target any convenient missile launcher systems filled with explosive munitions.

"THIRD SALVO."

The modified Omega Threshers continued to fire their weapons at a rate of fire that was significantly faster than the base model!

The Omega Laser Cannon was a demanding energy weapon system. It had many problems related to energy supply and heat management.

It just so happened that hooking up an Omega Thresher to the systems of a capital ship easily mitigated all of these problems!

While it was still possible to overheat and damage the weapons by channeling too much into them, their upper limits had been raised to a whole new level!

This meant that the modified Omega Threshers could get away with doubling and maybe even tripling their firing rates! This was especially the case when Casella's true resonance toughened up the mechs even further, especially when she tapped the power of the brand new Dragon Scales resonating material!

In other words, the Omega Threshers increased their firing rates to a level that would have caused their weapons to overheat and explode if they kept this up a few more times!

Only the fact that they had temporarily gained the power that was equivalent to that of a mid-tier expert mechs kept their overstressed armaments and other systems in working condition.

Again and again, the Viscounts kept repeating the same routine on the same targets until a dozen or so warships eventually succumbed entirely.

Even if none of the resonance-empowered attacks was able to destroy a warship in a single hit, it was already enough to disable the alien vessels to the point where they could no longer contribute to the ongoing battle.

These hulls had lost too many essential systems and could no longer move under their own power.

As the Viscounts maintained their horrible firing rate, everyone eventually accepted the reality that Casella and the bunker mechs did not consume much energy and other resources by maintaining this performance.

This was one of the scariest aspects of a true ace commander!

Due to her presence and Command Field, the Tortuous Scream had undoubtedly established herself as the most powerful 'warship' on the battlefield.

She may as well be a dreadnought by how much she outclassed other warships in terms of firepower.

Although the raw damage output of the Omega Threshers could not match that of the primary gun battery of an alien battleship, mid-tier expert mech-level true resonance could turn any trash into treasure!

The aliens could do little to defend against this barrage. Many of their warships had moved forward in an attempt to pummel the outnumbered human warships and prevent them from escaping.

Now, this aggressiveness came back to haunt them as many of their vessels had lingered well within the effective range of the Tortuous Scream's bunker mechs!

The Saint Commander kept focusing on directing the highly effective and surgical firepower of her Viscounts. She had to release a bit of her attention on all of the Knights in the fields, but that was no issue, especially when her actions delivered repeated blows to their confidence and morale.

The alien phasefighters and warships outnumbered the human mechs and warships by a very considerable extent.

Yet because of the intervention of a single human false god, the disparity in numbers gave them no comfort or solution against this onslaught!

So long as the Saint Commander continued to Enfeoff her bunker mechs, the Tortuous Scream effectively wielded the raw firepower of 57 mid-tier expert mechs at the same time!

Although it sounded impressive, it had remained an abstract statement so long as no one actually fielded 57 identical expert mechs on the same battlefield.

It was only now that the Saint Commander actually realized this condition in reality that both humans and aliens finally understood how powerful her Viscounts could be when operating under favorable conditions.

"The aliens are faltering! They are growing more and more time and are confused by the second."

"They are not breaking, though. The aliens are still putting up a fight, though their heart is not in it anymore."

"If we keep up the pressure, the aliens will crack sooner or later. Maybe they will even choose to evacuate from the Screed Tanner System entirely! All of the spoils in this star system will belong to our clan!"

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Keep an eye out for those lesser phase lords. Many of them have run away, but a handful may still choose to return."

"Heh. That will translate into their demise. Saint Dise has kept chasing them in order to push them further and further away from the battlefield."

Just two ace pilots had managed to cow and demoralize the numerically superior aliens!

Although the human attackers did not enjoy a large safety margin, it was still incredibly impressive that they managed to whip the aliens into such a sorry state.

If the enemy worked harder to maintain morale among the troops, then there was still a chance that they could overpower the Tortuous Scream by recklessly throwing phasefighters and warships at the flagship.

Yet because the native aliens kept doubting and second-guessing their ideas, they failed oto make the correct response!

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