Empire Conquest-Chapter 715 - 31: Overwhelming

Deep in the desert.

At the end of the road, a massive military convoy had already come to a stop.

In fact, there were no actual roads in the desert, what they called roads were really just the tracks crushed into being by vehicles.

Once the guard troops had dispersed, the officers and soldiers of the convoy became busy, their main task was to deploy the eight-axle heavy-duty truck’s air search radar.

To get the radar working properly, other auxiliary vehicles were needed, like the power supply truck.

This set of mobile deployable air search radar had been acquired last year at great expense from the Tiaoman Empire, mainly to fill the gaps in the air defense network.

In reality, this radar was one of the few pieces of advanced equipment in the Iraqi forces imported from the Tiaoman Empire.

The majority of Iraq’s main battle equipment was imported from the Luosha Democratic Republic or from Locke Country, and they also purchased some from the Raleigh Kingdom.

The reason behind this was that the Empire’s weaponry was extremely expensive, many items being "not for sale." 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Had there not been an urgent need, and had other countries’ radar systems been insufficient, Iraq would not have spent a huge sum to bring in this radar.

Simply put, during the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq’s air defense system targeted Boi Country, with air defense radars deployed along the northern borders — facing south, towards Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, there were very few air defense radars across the hundreds of kilometers of border.

During the Iran-Iraq War, there was no need to guard against southern neighbors.

It was precisely because of this that when the decision was made to invade Kuwait, Iraq procured four sets of mobile deployable radars to plug the holes in their air defense network.

To date, only this one unit had been delivered, and the other three had not yet arrived.

The value of this radar lay in its "mobile deployment."

Theoretically, this radar system needed to be set up in predetermined positions, but in actual combat, positions were often arranged temporarily.

Of course, in Iraq’s deserts, there was no such thing as predetermined positions.

Even without any preparation, it would only take thirty minutes to transition the radar from marching to operational status.

What’s more, the radar vehicle could evacuate the deployment site within fifteen minutes.

The greatest benefit this afforded was the ability to activate the radar as needed and maintain a concealed state when not.

Should there be a risk of attack, it also allowed for frequent relocation of deployment sites.

However, Abdullah knew very well that this radar was inevitably a thorn in the enemy’s side.

As the commander of the battalion, Abdullah had gone to the Tiaoman Empire last year and underwent training for over half a year, which included basic tactics.

Before returning home, he spent another three months as an observer with the Tiaoman military, taking part in joint military exercises.

The key was that in the Tiaoman forces, these mobile deployable air defense radars were actually incorporated into Group Army air defense units, undertaking field air defense missions to provide air cover for armored assault forces during strikes, not to carry out strategic air defense duties.

This led to the problem that the radar didn’t have a long continuous working time and had lower reliability.

Tactical usage required not to keep the radar working for an extended period and it was best used in conjunction with other air defense systems.

Obviously, in the Tiaoman armed forces, this was not an issue.

They had enough long-range search radars and a considerable number of early warning and control aircrafts; the Group Army’s air defense radars did not need to act as the main force.

They would usually activate after receiving an early warning.

Such a system was simply non-existent in the Iraqi military.

It was precisely for this reason that the Iraqi air defense troops developed a whole new set of tactics with the help of Tiaoman advisors.

Simply put, they would power up the radar at irregular intervals, search for fifteen minutes to half an hour, and then move to a new deployment site to avoid staying too long in one place.

Unless in a combat state, the radar should never remain at one site for more than an hour.

Even in the event of combat, such as detecting an incoming enemy Plane Group, every effort should be made to keep deployment time within an hour and a half.

Even if the enemy had strong electronic reconnaissance capabilities, it would be very difficult to launch an attack in time.

This tactic sounded simple, but its actual implementation was extremely challenging.

The key was that often the duration of deployment at a site was not determined by Abdullah but by higher-level commanders.

If combat had already broken out and there were no supporting forces nearby, higher command would definitely keep the radar operating.

Indeed, that had been the case for the past few days.

Because there were too few radars facing Saudi Arabia, and they were being jammed by Liangxia Air Force’s electronic reconnaissance aircraft, nearby fixed radars weren’t functioning normally. This meant Abdullah’s radar had to perform alert duties, resulting in deployment times at each site exceeding six hours, and the transfer distances were not far, or rather, the radar’s range of motion was severely restricted.

Essentially, this meant they were just moving in circles between four sites.

Due to this, Abdullah had been worried that Liangxia Air Force had grasped their deployment pattern, so continuing to stay in this area was extremely risky.

For this reason, Abdullah had requested in the afternoon to move the deployment site 50 kilometers northward.

Regrettably, the request was denied.