Annaj Planet, under Volgograd-Kanidi's plan, voluntarily shut down its Planetary Shield to lure the Republic Expeditionary Force into launching a landing operation.
This strategy effectively split the Republic fleet's forces and left them overstretched, unable to concentrate all their strength on a frontal decisive battle against the Duchy of Dawn's fleet.
But the price was that Annaj Planet bore most of the Galactic Republic's firepower!
Having learned from earlier lessons, the Galactic Republic Expeditionary Force first subjected Annaj Planet to a brutal Orbital Bombardment before landing. Although Cassio Tagge, commander-in-chief of the Republic Expeditionary Force, wanted to use Annaj Planet as a forward base and therefore did not carry out a destructive bombardment intended to devastate the planet, it still inflicted severe damage.
To be fair, the firepower of Hunter Class Battlecruisers was somewhat inadequate for destroying a planet's surface. But the Republic Expeditionary Force had plenty of warships! With more than two hundred Hunter Class vessels conducting concentrated bombardment, they might not have been able to turn the surface into glass, but they could certainly blast Annaj Planet into a wasteland.
Yet Cassio Tagge still carried out targeted bombardments against Annaj Planet's military installations, as well as several major cities, to cover the troop landings.
After the landing operation began, the Republic fleet also actively conducted pinpoint Orbital Bombardments against every detected concentration of organized Annaj Planet defenders. Vast numbers of Republic fighters filled the skies, carrying out precision strikes and fire suppression. All of this caused severe devastation across the planet.
To resist the Galactic Republic's nearly unstoppable advance under its absolute aerial and space superiority, Volgograd-Kanidi resorted to every possible measure, even deploying T-Virus biological weapons on a massive scale. Once the biological weapons entered the battle, they inevitably affected local civilians. To destroy those weapons, Cassio