I can upgrade the shelter-Chapter 796 - 694: Drilling Downwards

If the military’s plan were executed according to their original schedule, taking three years for a gradual and solid advancement, although the material investment and consumption would still be astonishing, the overall consumption, despite being large, would remain within the country’s bearable range due to the three-year timeframe.

However, when the whole plan had to be accelerated, shortening from three years to six months, with the overall consumption unchanged or even increased due to the hastened pace, this plan exceeded the limits of what the country could bear.

Although Chen Xin’s efforts in Europe allowed the aid fleet from Europe to transport a large amount of resources to the homeland daily, and many small mines that were put back into operation domestically could produce an astonishing total of minerals, it still could not support the military’s massive plan.

After all, according to the military’s requirements, the troops had to build a small supply point nearly every few kilometers to secure the conquered caves, and every ten kilometers or so, a large strategic support point had to be constructed to stabilize the surroundings...

Considering that the alien creatures had dug at least a thousand meters deep under Dongting Lake and built a huge three-dimensional cave network along the water system covering the surrounding provinces and cities of Dongting Lake, it can be imagined how many supply points need to be built according to the military’s method.

Therefore, even if Chen Xin could meet the requirements proposed by the military, ultimately, this plan would still be vetoed by the upper echelons due to excessive consumption.

So, after careful consideration, Chen Xin proposed another idea.

The reason the military had to build so many supply points and strategic support points was mainly due to the dense underground tunnel network and the vast number of alien creatures spread throughout each tunnel.

Faced with such a pure numerical advantage, they had no choice but to adopt a method akin to building strong fortifications and fighting a dull battle, advancing layer by layer, step by step solidly, capturing and holding each section to ensure the smooth progress of the cleanup operation.

But Chen Xin’s idea went in a completely different direction.

Too many tunnels dug by alien creatures? Ignore them; their tunnels are theirs. We’ll dig a new path down!

This tactical thinking is diametrically opposed to the military’s thought process. The military intends to eliminate all alien creatures; hence they clear level by level from top to bottom. However, Chen Xin’s idea was to first dig a tunnel to the deepest level, eliminate the alien creatures’ mothers used for reproduction, cut off their supply lines, and then reverse to gobble up the opposing forces.

Chen Xin’s rationale for this idea came from the real-time strategy games he used to play.

After all, in games, as long as there are resources, troops are just a matter of clicking on production buildings a few more times, and no matter how many soldiers die on the front line, as long as the economy in the rear is not affected, it’s not a problem.

In those real-time strategy games, the only constraints on the size of the troops are the population limits set by the game and the total amount of resources on the map.

If there were no population and resource constraints, the tactics devised by those crazy real-time strategy players could cause the computer to emit the aroma of a roasted graphics card.

But if the economy is cut off and production buildings are damaged, affecting the economy, the player will soon face the embarrassment of not being able to sustain the supply line, then lose the strategic advantage, and quickly hit GG.

This is also the biggest difference between real-world warfare and game warfare.

In real-world warfare, during the cold weapons era, the focus was on how to kill more enemies and reduce the opponent’s forces, while in the hot weapons era, wars were more about overall national strength, seeing whose country could last longer.

After World War I and World War II, wars essentially became about driving entire countries to bankruptcy, seeing who could exhaust their last ounce of war potential first.

As for the impact of troop losses and economic losses on war, of course, there is an influence, but it’s not so evident, and more of a gradual loss of strategic advantage.

Game warfare is different; it’s about who can destroy the opponent’s economy faster, preventing them from obtaining more resources and producing more troops.

The military still adopts the war mindset fostered by real-world warfare, constructing attack plans with tactics such as purging and occupation.

But for non-traditional individuals like Chen Xin, whose unorthodox operations exceed normal ones as a game player, especially when he can realize his ideas, he is more able to break away from the existing frameworks and come up with tactics that traditional military personnel couldn’t imagine.

Even though Chen Xin’s tactic of drilling a hole to directly attack the alien biological reproductive base is essentially a decapitation tactic seen in modern warfare and is even described in one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems as ancient warfare wisdom, this indeed qualifies as a remarkable innovation.

After all, the military personnel, despite racking their brains, didn’t think of digging their own tunnel, bypassing the caverns already dug by the aliens, reaching deep into the alien nests.

In the end, it’s not that they couldn’t come up with such a tactic, but there was no offensive strategy involving drilling hundreds or thousands of meters deep tunnels in their cognition.

In fact, if Chen Xin didn’t have a system at his disposal to realize some of his crazy ideas, he wouldn’t be able to come up with such tactics himself.

Once the tactic is in place, realizing it becomes much easier.

For others, this idea might be very difficult to achieve, but for Chen Xin, the most challenging part is coming up with the idea, not realizing it.

To dig downward, the simplest method would be to use a drill.

With the technology currently mastered by humans, drilling a hole one or two thousand meters deep isn’t a difficult task, but obviously a narrow hole that only one person can go down is meaningless.

To meet the combat needs, at least a hole as large as a subway tunnel must be dug.

And to dig such a large hole, a boring machine is clearly a very useful tool, though under normal circumstances, boring machines are used horizontally, and there are almost no cases of using them to dig down vertically, because there’s generally no need for boring machines to dig downward.

Moreover, even if a boring machine is used to dig down, we still need to consider how to deal with various situations like hitting a void, encountering existing caverns, and meeting enemies...

These issues involve many aspects, and many are unprecedented attempts and breakthroughs.

Even with the system in Chen Xin’s hand, allowing him to solve problems others couldn’t with wild imagination, he still has to handle these issues cautiously and carefully.

Especially since it’s not just a matter of drilling a hole; it also requires consideration of how the troops should advance.

After all, while drilling a hole is simple, the troops can’t just rappel down the hole with ropes stretching a thousand meters, right?