The initial attack against the fortified positions of the Manchurians was taken up by the landships, experimental constructions of the National Revolutionary Army's engineers and commanders. While mobilized for the Tsingkan War after fears of an escalation against the Soviets, they never ended up seeing field combat and were instead kept for continued testing and improvement.

This came to an end as they encountered Manchurian infantry and armor. The entire fleet of the landships had been released by Peking for this war, and initially both fronts found themselves advancing. The landships immense size and armor protected it from a significant portion of the Manchurians weapons, and the landships gigantic batteries would also find their use soon as it returned fire on the unsuspecting battalions and artillery of the Manchurians. The slower and much more aggressive landships that focused on the strongest of the Manchurian enemies would find themselves much better prepared for the actuality of combat. Eventually one of the two fronts would be exploited by the quick and powerful in their own right mecha corps. The other's assault would be halted as a portion of their front's landships would be caught overextended and get immobilized or destroyed. Teams would have to be sent to extract the ones that were still operational for repair rather than push forward, and halt the offense. With the situation better understood and the front widened, the Republic of China will continue to make significant progress towards destroying the Cossacks.