I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution-Chapter 125 : Encounter with the Church

Chapter 125: Encounter with the Church
Seris Federation immediately sent a protest to the Alliance on the main continent through the liaison channel left previously by the Suria Kingdom, protesting the Dmitria Church’s interference in the competition between nations on the subcontinent.
However, it was useless; the Seris Federation had not established diplomatic relations with any country in the Alliance, so the Federation’s protest was effectively a piece of worthless paper.
Although the Suria Kingdom spoke up on their behalf, the voice of a single kingdom was basically negligible.
Mitia herself had never expected much from this — five divisions positioned on the Paria border had already marched into the Kingdom of Paria and, under the name of allied reinforcements, began to intervene in the three-way war.
She had issued a third statement, not ruling out direct intervention in the war. The final ultimatum had been given: whether they listened or not did not matter — she had said it.
In any case, no nation could accept the presence of another powerful force entrenched nearby; its claws had to be cut off one way or another!
Of those five divisions, four were newly reorganized armored infantry regiments.
Infantry regiment 3100 personnel: 50-person regimental HQ, 3* infantry battalions, 1 field artillery company, 1 tank company, 1 recoilless gun company, reconnaissance platoon, engineer platoon, communications platoon.
The personnel count remained the previous 17,200, but the armored infantry regiments had been outfitted with 40 tracked armored personnel carriers and 30 light tanks as new supporting firepower.
The remaining formation was a newly formed Tank Training 1st Division.
The tank division was equipped with 260 light tanks, 200 armored transport vehicles, hundreds of all-terrain vehicles, one artillery regiment — in total armed with 36 152mm self-propelled howitzers, 18 towed 152mm howitzers — and five small plus one large, a total of 6 tactical airship squadrons; total troop strength was 11,700.
Sending this Tank Training Division out was also to test it in real combat and see the specific effects after reorganizing into armored mechanized forces.
Airship logistical hoists worked very quickly, while the small airships departed ahead to act as aerial scouts for the tank division, able at any time to frontline information to the tank units via high-power shipborne radios.
The initial assault on the Pralo Defensive Line required little effort from the Federation forces, because the majority of soldiers within the semi-permanent Pralo line had lost their combat capability owing to smallpox; when they encountered the arriving Seris Federation troops, they surrendered immediately.
This forced the Federation army to back and send some medical personnel to treat them, while the units reorganized on site.
Over the 500-kilometer march, of the 260 tanks in the tank division, 100 had broken down along the way; 20 of those were temporarily repaired, leaving an overall failure rate of about 30%.
Mitia felt faint at the sight — nothing had even happened yet, and an entire tank regiment was already gone?
Logistics was a discipline; at first Mitia had not deeply appreciated it, but now she truly felt it...
Not only had tanks in the tank division broken down, but the tank platoons in the four infantry divisions met similar fates, with failure rates as high as 50% in some cases.
The distance from the Pralo Defensive Line down to the gates of the Paria royal capital was nearly 1200㎞; by the time the tank division finished that march, perhaps only the crews would remain.
What could she do? Repair them! Send replacements!
While repairing broken tanks along the way, Mitia dispatched 200 more tanks; some arrived undamaged during transit, so by replenishing the tanks lost by the tank division this way, many were made up and some remained spare.
She ordered all of them to set off: if a tank broke, repair it; if it could not be fixed, leave it and wait for rear units to catch up to repair or tow it away.
Not all the news was bad — at least the 280-meter dedicated logistical airships truly performed their role: compared to trucks, airships had greater cargo capacity and could transport more spare parts and logistics personnel.
But there were disadvantages too: in strong crosswinds or high winds it was very difficult to perform fixed drops, and they could only deliver supplies by hoisting a few containers down.
Paria’s territory was either grassland or desert, and the armored tank division that Mitia had hoped would fire the world’s first shot suffered terribly.
The radial engines failed frequently under the desert’s high temperatures and sandstorms, and the rear continually adopted suggestions to add various extra fittings to the vehicles.
Mitia even began to reconsider whether advancing tank use now was too early.
But before she could decide, a arrived from the front: the advancing Tank Division One had run straight into two divisions of the Goddess of Light Church.
The contact battle lasted four hours and ended with the Church’s 6,000 troops surrendering.
Among them, tens of thousands of ordinary Church soldiers had been killed, one suspected senior officer was dead, thousands of mechanical bodies were destroyed, our side suffered over 6,000 casualties, and nearly a hundred tanks had been knocked out.
This battle immediately dispelled her doubts about tanks: build them! They must be built!
Time rewound
【..., officer! , officer — large numbers of fallen trees had appeared in the forest one kilometer ahead of you; suspected traces of a large unknown force were present. Prepare for combat!】
【Repeat, one kilometer ahead...】
Graf, bare-chested and gulping water from a canteen, sat bolt upright upon hearing the radio , grabbed the wireless and replied, “Copy! Immediately gain altitude and withdraw, maintain observation altitude for artillery spotting!”
【Copy!】
After speaking, he put down the handset and shouted to the radio operator who doubled as an observer in the front line, “Switch channels immediately, notify all crews to enter combat state! Quickly!”
Among the marching Church troops’ wagons, a white-robed mage frowned and told an officer who had his eyes closed in meditation, “General, my magic detected a large force ahead.”
The general opened his eyes: “A force? Are there still troops not infected by smallpox? Approximately how many?”
‘About half of our number.’
“Half? Where from? Never mind — tell the faithful to prepare for combat and capture them to question their situation.”
Their force had marched under the commander’s orders to take over the Pralo defensive line; Church intelligence only ed that the line’s garrison had almost entirely lost combat capability and did not mention other enemies.
One kilometer was neither short nor long; by the time both sides deployed, the distance between them was very close.
The Tank Division concentrated half of its tanks in the front line; behind each hull followed dozens of infantry, maintaining a steady speed as they pushed toward the forward sand dunes.
Graf took the wireless and began directing the tank crews: 【Advance at a steady pace, keep slow speed, we want to blow this place to pieces.】
【Keep vigilance ahead, advance, advance.】
The self-propelled howitzers remained stationary; the field guns had already lowered their chassis and recoil devices to the ground and were adjusting elevation.
【Sss...target confirmed, Goddess Church forces, artillery regiment coordinates confirmed: 2-9-6-6-1-1】
【2-9-6-6, input.】
【6-6-1-1, input, prepare to aim.】
【Fire!】
Fifty-four 152mm howitzers roared in unison; the shockwaves converged like the wrath of gods, and the curved ballistic trajectories slammed into the Church soldier formations.
Several large magic arrays rose before impact and enveloped the troops, intercepting and causing many shells to detonate prematurely, but the shells’ powerful lethality still blew soldiers within 20 meters to death through the air.
Shrapnel from the shells that were not deflected by the magic arrays struck the ground and instantly maimed or killed most soldiers within fifty meters; only isolated troops survived by hiding behind comrades.