The Last Ring
"We need a force to draw the Peng Joe People's attention away from our landing point. They've changed their tactics and strategy, which is very bad for us."
At Naval Headquarters, senior officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force sat before a huge sand table. Several major officers were moving little models representing the forces on both sides across the table.
Nearby, a major general was explaining the situation to everyone.
"They're forming a ring of encirclement. They intend to confine our forces within this area."
"As long as we can't break through this blockade, we'll remain surrounded."
"But breaking through this blockade will be very difficult. They're constantly gathering troops to surround us, but their goal isn't to drive us into the sea. They want to create a battlefield here where they can annihilate our effective strength."
The major general gestured roughly at the area the Federation had occupied after landing.
From the others' perspective, what he said made perfect sense. The enemy forces they had detected had indeed surrounded the Federation troops in the center and established at least three lines of defense.
The first line of defense consisted of the numerous bunkers, landmines, barbed wire, and trenches currently engaged in fierce exchanges of fire with the Federation.
With artillery and air-support firepower added to the mix, breaking through this line without heavy weapons would be extremely difficult.
This line of defense lay roughly fifteen to twenty kilometers from the coastline, already at the edge of, or even beyond, the effective range of the gunboats. To avoid being too close to shore and suffering a surprise attack, the Federation's gunboats had stopped about five to ten kilometers from the coast.
At that distance, it wasn't impossible to use naval guns to eliminate the first