Empire Conquest-Chapter 720 - 33: The Door-Kicking Battle_2

Feelings aside, spending 40 million Gold Yuan to purchase the "Z-10A" was solely for the purpose of transporting and launching anti-tank missiles worth 200,000!

It must be said, there is hardly any comparability with past exercises.

However, this was indeed war, and modern warfare at that!

Perhaps next time they were called into action, they could fire missiles at enemy tanks within visual range.

...

Above Lian Mingyang, 4 "Attack-11" aircraft flew north in the cover of night, in the opposite direction of the helicopters.

Although they were flying at an altitude of 8,000 meters, the fireballs from explosions on the ground were still visible.

So many missiles, like blazing meteors, struck the vehicles stopped in the desert in succession, the resulting fireballs even illuminating the night sky.

It’s not just pilots wearing night-vision goggles, even with the naked eye, one could see clearly.

For the pilots of the 4 "Attack-11s," they were just spectators, not taking the battle happening below too seriously.

Their target was to the north, in the urban district of Baghdad!

Among all the combat aircraft of the Liangxia Empire, only the "Attack-11" could penetrate the airspace over Baghdad, protected by dozens of air defense missile systems and thousands of high-altitude guns, and drop laser-guided bombs on closely guarded strategic targets without cover.

Other combat aircraft would be struck by air defense missiles before they even reached Baghdad’s airspace.

More than a decade ago in the Boi War, it was proven that even a super-low-level breakthrough posed great risks in the face of modern air defense systems.

Not to mention combat aircraft, even cruise missiles had a high probability of being shot down.

This capacity to delve deep into enemy lines and decapitate an admiral was the "Attack-11’s" unique forte.

The Empire’s Air Force spent tens of billions of Gold Yuan to research and acquire 72 "Attack-11" aircraft, with an average price of 170 million Gold Yuan each, which is triple the price of a "War-11B," all to possess an assassin of the skies capable of penetrating the tightest air defense and delivering a fatal blow to the enemy at the start of a war.

At least in the past joint exercises, "Attack-11" had without exception proven its capabilities.

In actuality, it was less than 45 minutes of flight.

Perhaps, they received news, or the radar detected something, but as the first formation of two "Attack-11" aircraft reached the airspace over Baghdad, this city with over six million people in Boss Bay – the largest in the region with thousands of years of splendid history – had turned into a churning "volcano," erupting not lava, but high-altitude gun shells coated with tracer powder!

Additionally, there were air defense missiles rising into the night sky with long trailing flames.

It was a frightening sight, but just that – frightening.

Experienced pilots could tell at a glance that those missiles and shells had no precise targets; the air defense troops were firing blindly.

Most telling was that the air defense missiles shot straight up into the sky, without changing direction after launch.

If the radars were active, providing guidance, the missiles would have veered towards the target after ascending.

The same was true for the high-altitude guns.

Relatively speaking, high-altitude guns posed a somewhat greater threat, mainly because of their sheer number, surely several thousand.

Judging by the trajectories of the tracer bullets, not a single high-altitude gun had a clear target; all were firing randomly into the sky.

It seemed they were relying on luck!

Obviously, there was no luck to speak of.

The "Attack-11" aircraft were flying at an altitude of about 8,000 meters, while nearly all high-altitude guns had a maximum range of less than 5,000 meters. Those large-caliber high-altitude guns that could reach above 5,000 meters had, following the birth of air defense missiles, mostly ended up in military museums.

At around 1:50 AM, the leader "Attack-11" opened its bomb bay doors first, sequentially dropping two 1,000-kilogram class laser-guided bombs.

Actually, it was all over in half a minute.

Then, the second "Attack-11" also dropped its bombs.

The two "Attack-11" did not turn to return but continued flying northward because they still needed to use the laser indicators to target.

Only after the bombs hit the targets could they turn back.

Through the infrared imaging camera installed above the nose of the aircraft, the target was clearly visible, and it was possible to accurately determine whether the bombs had hit the targets.

In fact, that infrared imaging camera was the only sighting device on the "Attack-11."

To achieve stealth and avoid revealing their whereabouts by using electronic devices, the "Attack-11" not only lacked radar but even its radio was specially made.

In addition, unless there was a special reason, the "Attack-11" would not use radio to contact the outside world during missions.

Indeed, this was the most unsatisfactory aspect for the rear commanders.

They always had to wait for the "Attack-11" to return to base, or after flying out of the dangerous airspace, to find out if the bombing mission had been accomplished.

To solve this problem, the Air Force had already invested in the development of low-intercept radios.

Although the bombs relied entirely on inertial flight, the bombing distance was only more than 10 kilometers, and it took approximately one minute to hit the target.

If one minute later, the target still had not been hit, then it definitely had missed.

All four bombs hit with precision!

A few minutes later, the reserve squadron of two "Attack-11" also entered the attack corridor, dropping laser-guided bombs on four secondary targets.

In fact, it was only after the President Mansion, the Republic Guard’s command, the Capital Air Defense Headquarters, and the national telecommunications center building were hit by bombs that Baghdad’s air defense troops were fully awakened, realizing that the Liangxia Empire’s fighters had arrived and dropped bombs.

At this moment, Baghdad’s air defense firepower had clearly increased several fold.

If before it had seemed like a volcano, now Baghdad had become an exploded arsenal, with dazzling flashes of light everywhere.

Viewed from thousands of meters in the sky, it even appeared similar to the imperial cities during the Spring Festival!

The blindly firing high-altitude guns posed no threat, resembling more of the fireworks and firecrackers set off as a send-off for the "Attack-11".

...

About half an hour later, around 1:30 am, eight cruise missiles launched by the "Han River" arrived over Baghdad.

Afterward, dozens more cruise missiles arrived in succession.

Although the cruise missiles flew at ultra-low altitudes, even over land their flight altitude was below 500 meters, but cruise missiles flew slowly, with a cruise phase of only 0.8 Mach and a sprint phase of only 0.95 Mach, and they were very conspicuous in the night sky.

As long as they were spotted in time, they were easy to intercept.

To address this issue, the Imperial Army’s approach was also rather brutal.

Against carefully protected significant targets, a few cruise missiles were used, planning different flight routes to attack simultaneously from multiple directions.

Even if they were intercepted, there would always be one or several cruise missiles that would break through the air defense network and hit the target.

For example, to deal with the Tarawar Air Force Base on the outskirts of Baghdad, 12 cruise missiles were used to target only the base’s command center.

It was for this reason that the Joint Force Headquarters was able to announce that the evening’s cruise missile strike had a target destruction probability of 86%.

Clearly, the missile hit rate was nowhere near that high.

If all the shot-down missiles were included, the breakthrough probability of the cruise missiles would not have exceeded 65%.

That night, of the 78 cruise missiles fired at Baghdad, at least 14 were shot down en route, and another 3 failed shortly after launch, leaving only 61 that completed their flight, and the number that struck the target would not exceed 55. Of the 14 cruise missiles shot down, at least 12 were brought down by small-caliber high-altitude guns or high-altitude machine guns, and another 2 might have been hit by man-portable air defense missiles.

This casualty report was enough to prove that cruise missiles had fairly obvious flaws and still had considerable room for improvement.

The key point was that the cruise missiles had attacked targets located in the suburbs and had not penetrated into the city proper.

The reason was quite simple; there were too many high-altitude guns in the city.

According to pre-war statistics, the Iraq military had deployed at least 6,000 high-altitude guns in Baghdad, and almost all were small-caliber machine guns.

With so many high-altitude guns, any aircraft attempting an ultra-low altitude breakthrough became a sitting duck!

Targets in the suburbs were much easier to deal with.

However, the cruise missile assault more resembled a ploy to draw enemy fire, to lure air defense missiles and high-altitude guns into action, exposing the air defense troops.

This also proved that cruise missiles were a "system" weapon, highly dependent on the military system or, in other words, their combat efficiency was determined by the system’s level of advancement.

In other words, cruise missiles were a breakthrough weapon in the hands of a great power, but nothing more than decorative in the hands of smaller nations.

Following the cruise missiles came the massive Attack Aircraft Group.

Flying at the vanguard was the anti-air suppression squadron nicknamed "Snowy Owl"!