The success of Operation Flash Tail and the conclusion of the Western Desert campaign had awarded Gu Hang with over twelve thousand points of grace.
This amount, in comparison to the number of enemy mechanical units destroyed, was actually a bit meager.
However, Gu Hang easily accepted this.
For one thing, the growth in the scale of the war and the increase in grace points awarded were not linear, something he had verified through previous experience; secondly, it seemed to the system that these mechanical units were not very 'valuable'.
As of now, Gu Hang had a total of over sixteen thousand points of grace at his disposal—the additional three thousand-plus points came from the monthly income just dispensed.
But he didn't use these points of grace.
He had to keep something in reserve.
Mainly for if situations worsened later, he needed to have enough grace points to train his troops.
One point of grace would train a hundred-man squad, which once seemed fairly cheap. But now, when the size of the army can easily amount to several hundreds of thousands, the grace points needed for a single training session would start in the thousands.
This was already no small sum and could not be ignored.
But if he was determined to flatten Blackbird Heavy Industries in the west of the continent with his strength, then such level of expenditure was necessary.
Did the Alliance have the capability to push through and level Blackbird Heavy Industries in the west of the continent?
After the issuance of the Level Two Mobilization Orders, the Alliance's manpower pool had reached seven hundred thousand. This was the number eligible for conscription, not including the four hundred and fifty thousand already in service, with over two hundred thousand remaining.
This was not a potential manpower tally; these over two hundred thousand people were already registered. Their addresses, occupations, workplaces, names, family situations... the Army's recruitment office was clear about all of these details.
The centralized and planned political system of the Alliance demonstrated its tremendous superiority here. If necessary, over two hundred thousand summons would be sent to these people's homes, and within a week they would all appear in the recruit camps.
With the Levelling Two Mobilization Orders in place, the Alliance's military industrial production was at full throttle, with the corresponding equipment being produced overtime; Gu Hang had nearly four thousand points of monthly grace points just handed down, and the over ten thousand points of grace he had just settled, all of which he hadn't frivolously used.
When necessary, he could surge in troop numbers.
Not just these two hundred thousand plus people,, but if necessary, they could enact Level One Mobilization Orders, and the reserve forces could directly reach the level of five hundred thousand.
Without even discussing higher-level mobilization orders, just surging these two hundred thousand troops to the frontline and giving it another month or two for the production of logistical supplies, the Alliance could launch another large-scale campaign—somewhat larger than Operation Flash Tail. They could possibly push into the heart of Blackbird territory.
But... such an action would certainly result in considerable losses.
Deep within the enemy-controlled region, the Alliance's supply lines would be very stretched; conversely, the enemy fighting on home turf would find resupplying much easier. It would no longer be possible to seize the kind of great chance they had during Operation Flash Tail to engage in large-scale annihilative battles.
Indeed, if they really waited for a month to launch such a large-scale offensive, the enemy forces would likely have recovered a great deal.
Fortunately, the Blade Tiger in orbit was constantly bombarding the Western Desert.
Although the core area of Blackbird City was enveloped by an energy shield and could not be destroyed, its suburbs had nearly been flattened.
Later, through the Starport, the Blade Tiger resupplied its ammunition on the surface and resumed the bombardment. This time they circled around the orbit above Blackbird City, dropped a few bombs, found that there was not much left to bomb in the outskirts, and then shifted targets to bomb some high-value targets that had been identified by the Alliance's intelligence officers active in the West Road.
They even took the time, during and after Operation Flash Tail, to locate and bomb some of the enemy forces that were retreating and had gathered together.
However, the firepower of the Blade Tiger was still somewhat insufficient, and the results of the bombing... were just so-so.
Objectively speaking, the help was significant. Because, one can't just look at their kill records; one has to consider, for instance, the huge damage to Blackbird Heavy Industries' productivity after bombing Blackbird City;
It posed a great threat to Blackbird Heavy Industries' supplies as well, forcing their supply convoys to refrain from transporting troops and materials in large and concentrated groups, or they might get bombed;
It also posed a great threat to Blackbird's frontline forces—if any Blackbird troops were found assembling in the wilderness, in areas with good visibility, and detected by the Alliance's air force, the coordinates would quickly be uploaded, and they would soon be struck by the Blade Tiger. This prevented Blackbird's Mechanical Legion from daring to assemble large forces in advance; even in assembly, they could not be too dense and had to camouflage as much as possible to avoid detection, to minimize losses if they were bombed...
All these indeed caused considerable trouble for Blackbird.
But, that was all there was to it.
It did not constitute a fatal blow, nor directly tip the scales of victory.
Ultimately, the Blade Tiger was not fierce enough, and the help it provided was limited; the main combat still required the bravery of the Alliance's warriors to seize victory.
Gu Hang had already prepared for the worst. If it came to it, the Alliance would go all out. For the sake of capturing ultimate victory, they would not hesitate to pay a higher price.
But before that, Gu Hang still needed to make one final effort from other aspects.