Field Repair Unit — Firepower! Give Me More Firepower!
This matter occurred at a certain garage. It happened just a bit earlier.
「Please! Firepower! Give me more firepower!」
A wolf-type Familiar was clinging onto and pestering a tanuki-type Familiar who was part of the maintenance crew.
They were inside a repair and maintenance garage where countless broken fighter planes and tanks were lined up.
「But what you’re asking is impossible. Even if your machine is a new model, what else are you planning to slap onto it aside from its two 60 mm Gatling guns, exactly?」
「B-But it can only carry a total of four anti-tank missiles as additional armaments. That’s not enough at all man!」
「Now just hold on a bit, Heino-san. Didn’t you just get yourself shot down recently? In fact, you’ve gotten shot down multiple times already. You’re the current reigning king of getting blown out of the sky, so what good will getting more firepower do you anyway?」
「Kurt-san is out there fighting on the front line. This ain’t the time for me to be lazing around in here! I need more firepower! So, give this guy more weapons and upgrade its combat capabilities! I beg you!」
「Eeh? What do we do about this, Voy-san?」
Voy was the Familiar in charge of the entire field repair and maintenance unit.
And he did understand where Heino was coming from.
「I do get you, man. But y’see…… We’ve already messed with your machine quite a bit already. I can’t predict what’ll happen if we mess with it any further than this.」
「Y’see, the enemy tanks are using a new unknown armor material. You usually can’t bring them down unless you can get close and slash them with bladed melee weapons. Attack aircrafts have no other choice but to fire at them from directly above their turrets where the electromagnetic armor’s the thinnest.」
「You can still fire at them from other positions, right?」
「It’ll be useless if we don’t aim for the spot directly above the turret. Their guns can point up at a nearly 90-degree angle. You’d risk getting brought down by anti-aircraft railgun fire, but…… since the enemy tanks also employ high-dimensional projection armor, autocannons can’t pierce their defense.」
「But even so, you can just come back to resupply after firing all your anti-tank missiles, right? The auto-cannons are mostly just for defense.」
The two of them eventually got into a heated argument.
「Voy, what’s going on here?」
That’s when Kou made his appearance. He had just returned from the battlefield.
「Hm? Oh. It’s about this thing here, Kou.」
「Kurt-san’s newly developed attack aircraft, the Miran, huh?」
「It seems he used Kou’s Thunderclap as a reference point. And this damn wolf is kicking up a fuss about it. He says it doesn’t have enough firepower.」
「Firepower, huh? Let’s see……」
There were various types of machines inside the garage, from scrapped tanks to fighter planes awaiting maintenance.
Among those machines, one tank, in particular, caught Kou’s eye. It must have been shot from the side and incapacitated.
It seemed that the round that got it didn’t explode because it was a railgun round.
「It didn’t get blown to pieces, huh……?」
Muttering under his breath, Kou activated his terminal and presented it to Voy.
「How about this?」
「Now look here, Kou. It’s true that we can perform such a modification pretty quickly, but……」
Voy turned a skeptical look at the damaged tank.
「His aircraft might crash because of how bad the balance would get if we slapped that thing onto it.」
Heino looked at the terminal screen and was astonished.
This was because what he saw on screen was exactly what he wanted.
「No, this is it! This is great! Please, Voy-san. Please make this for me! All the parts we need are lying just over there!」
Heino exclaimed excitedly while pointing toward the damaged tank.
He was basically saying he wanted to equip the Miran with the tank’s main gun.
「You damn idiot! Don’t blame me if your machine falls apart in the air later!」
「I did propose it, but I think you shouldn’t go ahead with making it after all! It’s too reckless.」
Kou didn’t think Heino would become so interested in the design he proposed on a whim. Both Voy and Kou tried to dissuade Heino and make him change his mind.
「I don’t mind it one bit! I really need that extra firepower!」
「But……」
「It’s no good. This guy’s already in love with the thing. Can you refrain from making such crazy designs next time, Kou? I beg you.」
Voy grinned bitterly.
「That means–!」
「Alright, alright. It can’t be helped. If it gets dangerous, don’t hesitate to fall back.」
After conceding, Voy proceeded to modify Heino’s machine according to Kou’s proposal.
An Argoforce tank battalion was advancing toward Fortress Area P336. Their numbers were probably three times more than P336’s current troops.
Their flagship was a land battleship.
The battle for air superiority can be said to be in a stalemate.
They also suffered bombardment from the enemy railway guns, but the gathered tank forces managed to hold up well.
Hyoue was currently fighting together with Kurt’s Hrafnagud and the Badb Catha squadron that Kurt led.
Melee combat performed by Silhouettes was quite effective against tanks.
Flying above were the Falke and Edge Swift fighter jets. The Star Soldiers were currently engaged in battle.
Flying at a low altitude and advancing straight forward were Miran attack aircrafts.
Their wire-guided missiles were dealing effective damage to the T-04 tanks.
「We will never hand over our home again!」
Heino was flying at the tail end of the formation. He also fired his machine’s anti-tank missiles.
However, he was just getting started.
His Miran soared high up into the sky and quickly performed a sharp dive.
It was equipped with an artillery gun with an absurdly long barrel.
It was a tank’s main gun.
It was impossible for even an armored heavy attack aircraft like his Miran to completely deal with the 150 mm railgun’s recoil when firing.
However, Heino didn’t hesitate one bit. He took aim and fired.
The enemy was also using a railgun. That’s why no detonation was expected. However, it was a tank. Due to the structure of its turret, it was actually the tank’s weakest point.
The round fired from the 155 mm railgun gained more kinetic energy as it sailed through the air, increasing its penetrating power. It shot straight through the T-04.
The Miran lost its balance due to the shot, but Heino managed to regain control of the machine after a few moments.
「Heino! Don’t be so reckless!」
「Hehe. I’ve finally given these bastards a good blow, Kurt-san.」
「Just who made such crazy modifications to your machine anyway……?」
Even as a joke, it wasn’t a good idea by any stretch to equip an attack aircraft with a tank’s main gun.
「Big Boss did it for me. I call this beauty the Kanonenvogel (cannon-bird). He basically performed a bricolage just for me.」
「Kou-kun did that?」
「I can’t be any more grateful sir. He did try to stop me from going through with the mod several times though.」
「Understood. I suppose I should offer my thanks to him as well later.」
Due to its unexpected success in live combat, the “cannon-bird” eventually gained several more variations. However, Kurt was forced to recalculate each variation’s center of gravity every time another iteration was made.
They were engaged in a prolonged battle with the Argoforce tank battalion.
Therefore, the troops fighting on the front line also modified their weapons at times according to the combat situation.
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