After returning to the flagship, Soshyan simply prepared a few things and went to the palace of General Mars to discuss cooperation with him in detail.
The closed-door meeting with General Mars lasted for 3 hours. In fact, from Soshyan's point of view, this foundry general was much worse than Reza's foundry director in terms of vision and temperament. Perhaps he was the perennial leader of the High Lords Council. The conspiracy poisoned him. In short, Soshiyang felt that this person was a typical type who forgets his life for small profits, even worse than Bangura.
However, this kind of person is indeed easy to deal with in a sense. The temptation of stc easily made the other party secretly transfer out the parts of the gene seed bank that belong to the star claw and tiger claw. After all, there is no one to supervise these things. More or less, no one will find out at all, let alone the rebel war group in the past, and even some ancient gene seeds have expired and have not been cleaned up. Soshyan feels that the foundry general should have a little psychological pressure when doing things. nor.
But this also made Soshyan feel very sad about the current situation of the empire. So many gene seeds were "rotted" in the warehouse. They should have created many warriors to defend the territory and people of the empire, but many warriors Even if the regiment defeated every soldier, they could not get the replenishment of the tithe they originally paid. The high lords who established a group of new battle groups were like misers, limiting the number to a very low level for fear of one more battle group. It's like the gang is going to kill their heads.
The gene-seed tithe was supposed to be a life-saving straw for the Chapter in the most critical moment, but it turned out to be a scythe that limited the scale of the Astartes. Just like the Astral Knights, they would rather rebuild a new Chapter than Being willing to replenish gene-seed to the old Chapters, it is not difficult to understand the resentment and hatred of many Chapters.
After talking about these, Soshyan simply talked about new cooperation with General Foundry.
Mainly battleships.
The Astral Knights still suffered some losses during this expedition. Although the Silver Redemption was captured, the total losses included the heavy cruiser Atonement, the strike cruisers Endeavor and Resolute, and the moon-class cruisers Absolute Force and Golden Wind. There were 5 capital ships. The battle group only had 14 capital ships when it started the expedition, which was equivalent to a loss of one-third of the fleet. The small battleships also lost 20, accounting for half of the total.
Mars, as the empire's main shipbuilding and repair base, is also the main location for mothballed ships, so Soshyan planned to "replace" some mothballed ships from Mars.
Maybe this sounds a bit strange. Although the empire needs fleets everywhere, why are there still ships mothballed?
In fact, even the navy cannot arbitrarily increase the size and number of fleets. The number of fleets and ships that a naval base can support is limited. Each huge warship means massive investment, not only in construction, but also in The cost of maintaining it and using it means that if the navy wants to replace new warships (the navy is generally counterintuitive in Warhammer, it does not get stronger as it gets older), it often needs to retire a certain number of old warships. New battleships and fleets free up budget and resources, but for an empire facing long-term war, it would be wasteful to directly dismantle the battleships, and it would also cause protests from the Mechanicus Order. The best way is to seal them up and let the machine souls sleep. , the hull is placed in the battleship graveyard to wait for reawakening.
Looking at the entire empire, there are not many airports that can store a large number of battleships. They are basically naval sector bases or forge world airports. Mars, as the largest forge world in the Solar Sector and the center of the Adeptus Mechanicus, naturally became the The largest shipyard in the entire star field.
However, new problems will soon arise after the storage of battleships accumulates over time. Since the maintenance costs during the storage phase all come from the Mechanicus, the Mechanicus "naturally" believes that these sleeping battleships have been "decommissioned". Soldiers, their ownership has been returned to the Adeptus Mechanicus during the sequestration stage, so they have the power to dispose of these warships. This immediately caused a backlash from the navy and other high lords. After a long game, the sequestration agreement was formulated. , the agreement stipulates a period of time, and the ownership of warships with a storage period of more than three thousand years belongs to the Adeptus Mechanicus. However, if the Navy needs it, and the warships are still in storage, they can still request it.
So after so many years, Mars has a lot of inventory, but Soshyan has to complain that the Mechanicus are all squirrels. They would rather rot in the warehouse than take it out to support those in need. These ships Also, many ships have been sealed for six or seven thousand years, and the Adeptus Mechanicus still let them lie there, as delicately as if they were their wives!
But complaints are complaints. There is no doubt that for the Astral Knights, who currently have less than ten capital ships, this is a very huge treasure trove. After all, there are so many enemies now, even if there are no big battles to be fought in the short term. You have to prepare for a rainy day. Although Reza, Ulan Huda, and even Zhao Akadana still have ships under construction, they still have to wait after all, and Mars has an existing ship, which can be taken away directly. kind.
After provoking Fulgrim, Soshyan now has a strong sense of crisis. He must not let go of the power that can be immediately enhanced. After all, only by being prepared can there be no danger. If something happens to the ship that is still being built in the dock, there will be no chance. I regret taking the medicine.
In the Martian ship cemetery, the main ones are Emperor-class battleships, Retribution-class battleships, Mars-class battlecruisers, Gothic-class cruisers, Avenger-class large cruisers, Exorcist-class large cruisers, etc.
They all have one characteristic, that is, they have a relatively old history. For example, the Retribution class, Avenger class, and Exorcist class are already relatively old ship types in design.
It's not that they are not powerful, but their design does not match the main tactics and mission requirements of the current Imperial fleet.
But no matter what, they are precious capital ships, the golden pimple in the eyes of the Adeptus Mechanicus, perhaps second only to the Titans.
Even though Soshyan had plenty of money and had extra stc templates to trade, it wasn't enough for him to buy too many ships.
After carefully browsing the status of each ship and thinking about the future needs of the battle group, Soshyan decided to exchange all the stc templates he carried this time and part of the "mysterious instruments" seized from the red pirates from the Foundry General for 2 A Mars-class battlecruiser and an Oberon-class battleship.
The reason for this choice is that both types of battleships have outstanding independent combat capabilities. The Mars-class battlecruiser had close contact with Soshyan during the Maelstrom Expedition. The coordination of the speed and firepower of this type of battleship gave him Very impressed.
Although the Nemesis-class battleship or the Avengers-class large cruiser are indeed very powerful and sturdy, they are too slow and bulky, and their lack of maneuverability makes them poor in independent combat capabilities and must be accompanied by large fleets. In order to attack, it is a decisive battle battleship, and the design concept of the Mars-class battlecruiser is to build a true all-rounder, hiding that it not only has excellent speed and maneuverability, but is also very good at orbital bombing, shipboard Close combat against ships and performing cover attack missions as an aircraft carrier, it is equivalent to a comprehensively enhanced Astartes strike cruiser. The price/performance ratio is very high, and it is also in line with the Astartes Chapter's quick attack and independent tactical thinking. and combat habits.
(End of chapter)
