What does the Federation need? The Federation needs everything.
The publicly announced casualty figure for the first landing battle was 100,000, but the actual number of deaths exceeded 300,000.
If not for the Federation's highly developed medical technology, which meant that anyone who came back alive had a high chance of being saved, this number would likely have been several times higher. As for those captured by the bugs, it is basically impossible to have prisoners, so under normal circumstances, those missing are also counted as dead.
Even so, the Federation was still hesitant about some expensive equipment. For example, after successfully securing a rifle order, Annette's Cherry Military Industry also mentioned equipping Federal soldiers with more advanced exoskeleton power armor to ensure soldiers had stronger combat capabilities and were also more likely to survive the war.
But the Federation was very hesitant about the new exoskeleton armor, not questioning whether Cherry Military Industry could manufacture new exoskeletons, but rather that this elite equipment would definitely be very expensive. Was this type of equipment truly suitable for widespread distribution throughout the army?
"Let's take our time with the exoskeleton armor. Even if the Federation decides to order it, it will be a small batch custom order to form small-scale elite units. As for widespread adoption throughout the army, it's unrealistic for now."
Ethan waved his hand. Annette might overlook these things. After all, she wasn't a true businesswoman or politician, but a scientist. Her first thought was always that good things didn't need to worry about not selling, and that price shouldn't be an obstacle.
But in reality, price often determines many things.
After all, the supposedly powerful US military, built up with money and advanced equipment, often does things in equipment procurement that are jaw-dropping.
For example, when the military ordered Beretta pistols, the competing P226 was actually superior, but it was rejected due to price factors, and many subsequent actions were aimed at saving money, leading to various bizarre problems with the newly issued pistols, drawing intense complaints from soldiers.
However, elite units like the SEALs would purchase the P226. Therefore, the equipment to be issued to the entire army must be the one with the lowest price while ensuring a certain level of quality.
Annette sighed speechlessly. She also realized this now. Cherry Military Industry's exoskeleton armor wasn't approved, but another large corporation's new armor received a second large order. The military believed the equipment they provided already met the current needs, so they placed an additional order to supply more and more soldiers.
"However, we still need to continuously research this kind of elite equipment, because this battle cannot end in a short time. After all, the most terrifying thing about the Zerg is their almost endless numbers."
In the early stages, humans were not at a disadvantage in terms of numbers. Although each battle saw overwhelming swarms of bugs on the other side, when large human forces were mobilized, they were also densely packed and overwhelming.
Only when the war progressed to a certain extent, and the number of human deaths continued to increase, reaching a point where every soldier was precious, would the Federation begin to pursue a more elite force. At that time, the training and equipment costs for each soldier would increase exponentially, and how to preserve the lives of these elites would become a major issue.
"At that stage, exoskeleton armor will become standard equipment."
Instead of considering that, it would be better to consider developing a weapon that could cooperate with infantry.
Originally, human ground warfare had various vehicles, but this war was taking place on an alien planet, and many Earth vehicles couldn't adapt to various complex environments. This is one reason why the current human ground forces are all infantry.
"Manufacturing vehicles?"
"Vehicles are an option. I've thought of another piece of equipment that is very suitable for coordinating with infantry."
Ethan was thinking of the Iron Monger, a small mech derived from Tony's Iron Man suit, which was actually an excellent weapon of war.
The Iron Monger's size wasn't small, but not huge either. It could carry enough support weapons to provide a considerable amount of firepower to infantry squads.
At the same time, its own armor was thick enough to provide some defense, and it could serve as cover for infantry when necessary.
The weapons mounted on the Iron Monger could strike both ground and air targets simultaneously, and its structure could adapt to most terrains.
It could be said that the Iron Monger was a true weapon of war. Compared to Tony's Iron Man suit, the Iron Monger was designed from the outset with deployment on the battlefield in mind.
As for power, this wasn't a problem in the Starship Troopers world. Even without Ethan's involvement, the energy technology in the Starship Troopers world was sufficient to ensure they could independently develop similar weapon equipment.
In the subsequent plot, human mechs and vehicles gradually increased, but in the early stages, because these pieces of equipment had no reference points, the first few generations of equipment had various flaws and were slowly improved through repeated actual combat.
Relatively speaking, Ethan and their advantage was having existing technology in hand and knowing what problems existed, allowing them to make targeted improvements in advance.
They could also copy technology from other worlds. Anyway, no one cared what the inside of these mechanical devices looked like, as long as they could achieve the initially intended effect.
For example, they could try to imitate some Terran equipment from StarCraft.
"After getting the rifle order, are we now focusing on producing rifles, while also trying to manufacture exoskeleton armor, medium mechs that can provide fire support to infantry, and all-terrain multi-purpose infantry vehicles?"
All-terrain vehicles are a good project. As long as a basic framework can be developed, this thing can be modified into various types of equipment for combat, command, and transportation, and the demand is also huge.
However, it will likely be difficult for Cherry Military Industry to compete with those large corporations for this equipment.
"Let's focus on rifles and armor first. We can also promote mechs on the side, selling as many as we can. The most important thing is to take advantage of this to get various energy technologies from this world."
The technological level of Starship Troopers is quite high. Annette has been collecting as much technical data as possible during this time. For things that can't be bought on the market but are urgently needed, she'll have Ada get them. Even with various patent protections, Ethan and the others won't care.
They just won't use it in this world. No matter how strict the patent laws of your Starship Troopers world are, they can't control other universes.
While the few of them were talking, Modred and Galahad, who had been playing outside all day, also returned.
As soon as they knew Ethan was here, they ran over.
Because they were at a growing age and also at the age most receptive to new things, Modred's changes were obvious.
Although her height hadn't increased much, her appearance had matured considerably, and coupled with her extensive experience, her temperament had also changed somewhat. She had become wilder.
She wore ripped jeans with a few tears and a casual tank top, her golden hair tied back in a simple ponytail. As soon as she saw Ethan, she happily declared that this world was so much fun.
Galahad shook his head helplessly. Since coming to this world, Modred was like a mad dog let off its leash. Whenever experimenting with new weapons or killing bugs was mentioned, she became more excited than anyone else.
She had stated more than once that as soon as she reached the Federation's age standard, she would go straight into the army. As for co-ed showers and the like, Modred didn't care about such things at all.
But Galahad knew that a consensus had long been reached within the Federation army. They would absolutely not recruit this lunatic.
"We must keep this world. That way, when I'm in a bad mood, I can come over and hack bugs."
It was cool to keep shooting with the new rifle, but Modred preferred to use cold weapons to slice bugs into pieces. She loved the looks the soldiers gave her. That look of disbelief gave her a great sense of accomplishment.
"Basically, this world will be bound for a long time."
In the past, there weren't many worlds Ethan could bind long-term. At that time, he relied more on the spatial pointer to record coordinates and leave anchor points in certain worlds, and the number of worlds where spatial anchor points could be left was limited, so he had always used this function cautiously.
However, this function was no longer very meaningful now. As his strength increased, even without the spatial pointer's records, he could accurately find the specific coordinates of the worlds he had visited.
According to this situation, by further improving his strength, he could completely stop relying on the spatial pointer's ability and use his own magic to travel between planes.
However, this situation made him consider again. Should he create the magic circle, or teleportation device, that would allow everyone to travel freely on their own ahead of time?
If everyone needed to travel frequently to a specific world, even if they couldn't freely choose which world to go to, a specific world channel like the one to Starship Troopers should still be established.
The few of them chatted for a while longer. At this moment, Ethan suddenly remembered someone.
"Oh, right, where's Nebula?"
He had forgotten that there was an alien with a completely different appearance in his team. He had overlooked this when she was sent over. With Nebula's appearance, she probably couldn't move freely in this world, right?
"Thank you very much for remembering me!"
A white woman over 1.8 meters tall with golden hair suddenly walked in.
Ethan turned his head and immediately recognized this as Nebula's original appearance without all the makeup. Coupled with the familiar voice, it was clearly Nebula.
"It seems you have ways to deal with this kind of situation."
Thinking about it, it made sense. Nebula had been wandering the universe for so many years and occasionally needed to hide her appearance and racial characteristics. It wasn't hard to understand that she had such methods. Nebula had a lot of equipment installed on her body that could create projections to conceal her true appearance.
However, Nebula's physique was too special, and there were indeed many things she couldn't do in this world. So, like Modred, she was a weapon test subject for Cherry Military Industry.
(To be continued.)