I can upgrade the shelter-Chapter 786 - 684 Strategic Stalemate

After arranging personnel to capture extraterrestrial creatures that have never appeared in the homeland on the European battlefield, Chen Xin calmed down to think about how to strengthen the combat capabilities of the frontline troops.

Although the result of this inspection was that the frontline troops were already able to repel the attacks of the alien creatures and demonstrated a certain level of composure, this did not mean they did not need to enhance their combat capabilities.

While staying in Europe for the past few months, Chen Xin hadn’t been able to access much domestic information, but every week briefs from the homeland would still be sent over, and instant communication was smooth, so he was informed of what he needed to know.

Currently, the Dongting Lake Battlefield has shifted from defense to offense. Although the offensives are not strong, and several attacks have failed to achieve results, being repelled by alien creatures, it is evident that offense and defense have shifted.

With Land Ships and Mobile Bases providing strategic support, Titans paired with Power Armor units serving as a force for breakthroughs, even regular soldiers equipped with exoskeletons carrying heavy machine guns and jet packs ensure firepower and mobility, the Flame Country army’s combat capability has formed a significant generation gap compared to European countries.

Although Europe has also started to equip Power Armors and exoskeletons, whether in terms of quantity or application strategy, Europe shows significant disparity compared to the Flame Country.

Despite Europe gradually recovering from its previous precarious situation owing to Flame Country’s support, and being able to withstand alien invasions, clearly merely repelling alien attacks is far from enough.

Humans will inevitably and must counterattack because this is humanity’s home, which cannot be left to alien creatures to occupy.

If it’s only about isolating disasters, both Flame Country and European nations have already accomplished that.

With solid defenses and the army’s fierce battles, they have blocked the alien invasion disaster, keeping it outside the defenses.

Though this has resulted in enormous military expenditure, and humans have to spend a lot of their living power resisting alien attacks, they have nonetheless managed to block it.

For those lacking ambition and responsibility, who only wish to maintain the status quo, this is already enough.

After all, these people do not have many ideas beyond maintaining their current lifestyle without being affected; as for the future of humanity or civilian life, these issues never concern those big figures.

Perhaps someone might aim to turn this war into a so-called perpetual war to extract endless profit and benefits, but this offers no benefit at all for humanity.

In the eyes of truly insightful individuals, such ideas are absolutely unacceptable.

Chen Xin harbors no such intentions, nor does Flame Country’s leadership.

In their view, building and development are what they need; taking advantage of ongoing warfare for private gain at the expense of the country’s and humanity’s interests is something they would never consider or choose.

This is why Flame Country’s army launched a counterattack with an almost urgent eagerness as soon as they gained the capability to do so.

Because in the view of the leadership, the war against alien creatures has severely slowed Flame Country’s path to construction and development, greatly affecting the production and life of the populace. Resolving the alien threat as soon as possible will allow the nation to redirect resources and focus back to construction and development sooner.

Even though this hasty offense may bring about some unnecessary losses, compared to the consumption caused by maintaining a war state, these losses are within tolerable limits.

However, while Flame Country is capable of counterattack, Europe has only just escaped a passive beating situation, taking a breath, and barely able to handle alien attacks.

Although the presence of Chen Xin, who aids Flame Country with advantageous setups, plays a role, the situation in Europe is indeed disastrously bad.

If it weren’t for Chen Xin’s hard work during this period, alongside the efforts of the European Assistance Fleet and Flame Country’s substantial aid, Europe would be impossible to recover in such a short time.

So expecting Europe to have the capability for counterattack in a short period is unrealistic.

If labeled by Flame Country’s founding father’s division of the three war stages in "On Protracted Warfare," Flame Country has already entered the strategic counteroffensive stage, while Europe is only transitioning from strategic defense to strategic stalemate.

During this period, Europe should gather strength as much as possible in preparation for a counterattack.

For this reason, Chen Xin has exerted great effort to rectify Europe’s chaotic order and establish a set of effective security maintenance systems, along with organizations like militia and knight corps that can serve as reserve forces, to cultivate Europe’s sufficient reserve forces.

In this way, when Europe transitions to the strategic counteroffensive stage, it can quickly arm enough troops to participate in the counterattack.

But if a counterattack is desired, relying solely on reserve forces is insufficient.

Although Europe’s resource production has recovered considerably, thanks to the European Assistance Fleet’s efforts, barely meeting frontline consumption and civilian needs, clearly this cannot accumulate resources for a counterattack.

To allow Europe to accumulate the strength needed for a strategic counterattack, it’s required to maximize current resource output, letting production exceed consumption, and simultaneously try to minimize current consumption.

Although reducing civilian living material consumption seems unwanted, in fact during wartime, this part is usually the first pressed to its limits.

Although unwilling, Chen Xin must admit that even with improvements in material production, the living conditions of European civilians won’t improve anytime soon.

Despite limited control over their countries, autonomous cities can essentially be said to be out of control, but they are able to scrape resources from the bottom tier of the populace to the limit.

This holds true for autonomous cities as well. After all, their critical point for not being treated as hostile forces by national governments is that they continue to pay taxes to the national authorities.

By slightly increasing taxes within the tolerance of autonomous cities, they can incessantly squeeze them, as long as it’s kept within a degree that doesn’t trigger backlash from the autonomous cities, it won’t pose a problem.

Thus, if Chen Xin wants to reduce current consumption, he can only try to find methods from the frontline.

How to reduce consumption as much as possible without weakening, or even while enhancing, frontline combat capability is what Chen Xin needs to consider.