Empire Conquest-Chapter 724 - 35: Clearing Inventory_2
The Navy’s ship-borne aircraft mainly bombed the outskirts of Basra and the invading Iraqi forces in Kuwait. Only a few "Attack-5" aircraft with adequate operational radius flew to Baghdad, and they primarily targeted secondary objectives to minimize combat losses as much as possible.
The oldest tactical aircraft in service in the participating combat aircraft was the "Attack-5" of the Imperial Navy.
In fact, one could tell from the model number.
If the "Attack-8" carrier aircraft project had not been aborted prematurely, actually failing to meet weight reduction targets, the "Attack-5" would have been retired 20 years ago.
According to Navy planning, the "Attack-5" needs to battle on for at least another 10 years, waiting for the "Attack X" project to reach fruition before gracefully stepping back. As for the highly regarded "War-12," which replaces the "Attack-6" light attack aircraft, it is not yet qualified to replace heavy attack aircraft.
Fortunately, the Imperial Army had already completed the integration of its command system, allowing the Air Force’s early warning and command aircraft to provide support for the Navy’s ship-borne aircraft.
After standing guard until dawn and receiving the final summary report, Ding Zhennan finally returned to the barracks to rest.
The first round of bombings ended at 4:30 am, but it was only around 5:30 am, just before or around dawn, that the last batch of combat aircraft returning from their bombing missions to the "Zhu Shijian" carrier enabled the Joint Force Headquarter to produce a summary report.
Preliminary statistics, including the "Door-Kicking Action," showed the first round of air strikes achieved an efficiency of 84%, with 234 out of 422 designated targets completely destroyed or severely damaged, another 86 crippled, and an additional 33 largely incapacitated.
The precise results would need to be confirmed after the reconnaissance planes returned, and there would certainly be some discrepancies.
What Ding Zhennan was concerned about, in reality, were the operational losses.
However, this was also the least of his worries.
Among all the combat aircraft that participated in the operation, only 17 failed to return or make contact with the rear. Since they had exceeded the tactical aircraft’s maximum endurance, it was reasonable to assume that these 17 combat aircraft had been shot down or had crashed over Iraq.
Additionally, there were 11 combat aircraft that returned damaged, with a very high probability of being written off.
Five ship-borne aircraft were unable to land safely on the fleet due to malfunctions or damage upon their return, with three of them already forced to make emergency landings, while the remaining two flew to a Qatar Air Force base.
Even taking all into account, a total of only 33 combat aircraft were lost, with 17 being direct combat losses.
For a first strike that required facing the enemy’s air defense systems head-on, this loss was by no means serious—in fact, it was extremely low!
Before this, Ding Zhennan had estimated that the first strike would result in the loss of 40 to 50 combat aircraft.
At one point, the outside world thought that the Joint Forces would lose up to 100 aircraft on the first day of the war, with at least 80!
In any case, Iraq possessed the most comprehensive air defense system in the Boss Bay area. The performance of their main air defense weapons, especially the air defense missiles, was not inferior.
Of course, the detailed combat report would not be available until the afternoon.
Still, the air strikes were far from over.
As Ding Zhennan went off to sleep soundly, the second round of air assault had already begun.
However, this time the main force was neither tactical nor bomber aircraft.
Just before or at dawn, more than 60 strategic bombers took off from Imperial mainland, Bakistan’s Air Force bases, and the central Diego military base in the Fan Flame Ocean. After flying for as long as 8 hours, or as short as 3 hours, they all reached the designated airspace above the Mua Sea.
Then, the 62 bombers, divided into 4 formations, consecutively released their cruise missiles.
A total of 68 bombers were planned for deployment, with 2 unable to take off and another 4 returning early due to malfunctions after takeoff.
However, these were accounted for in the plan, so a few extra bombers had been arranged.
Within just over 20 minutes, these bombers dropped nearly 700 "Snake Spear" cruise missiles.
As previously mentioned, when developing the "Spear," there was a conflict with the Navy regarding external dimensions and other issues, and since the Army also supported the Navy’s plan, the Air Force withdrew from the "Spear" project, using funds from the Ministry of Defense to start from scratch and invest in the development of a specialized air-launched cruise missile.
This kind of air-launched cruise missile is known as the "Snake Spear" or "KD-20."
In fact, the primary difference between the "Snake Spear" and the "Spear" is their external dimensions.
Since it is air-launched and does not need to consider acceleration after launch, the "Snake Spear" does not have rocket boosters, significantly reducing its length.
To be precise, they had actually replaced the space originally meant for rocket boosters with additional fuel tank capacity and enlarged the warhead.
Furthermore, to accommodate the bomber’s left-handed pylon, "Snake Spear" underwent necessary modifications.
Put simply, the cross-section of the "Snake Spear" missile body is actually an isosceles trapezoid with certain dimensions, or you could say it is a fan shape with the center portion removed. By doing this, the greatest advantage was the ability to hang six missiles on a single left-handed pylon without increasing the space needed.
This modification allowed the "Snake Spear" to adopt folding rotary wings.
There was also another benefit that nobody had anticipated.
The RCS (Radar Cross Section) of the "Snake Spear" was nearly an order of magnitude lower than that of the cylindrical "Spear," which used a cylindrical missile body!
For this reason, the Imperial Air Force claimed that the "Snake Spear" was the world’s first stealth cruise missile.
In reality, this was just boasting. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
This was an unexpected gain, and through "Snake Spear," the Imperial Air Force had gained a much more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of stealth shapes.
Because the rocket boosters had been eliminated, the "Snake Spear’s" launch weight was just over 1000 kilograms.
Similarly, since it could gain sufficient initial speed from the launching platform, the bomber, the "Snake Spear" was equipped with a much less powerful turbofan engine. Because the turbofan engine’s fuel consumption was much lower, the "Snake Spear" needed less fuel to achieve a range comparable to the "Spear."
In terms of range and warhead mass, there was hardly any difference between "Snake Spear" and "Spear."
Additionally, to increase standardization and save on development costs, the warhead of the "Snake Spear" was the same as that of the "Spear," meaning the warheads of both missiles were interchangeable; the "Snake Spear" could use the half armor-piercing warheads developed by the Navy for the "Spear," and the "Spear" could use the child-mother warheads developed by the Air Force for the "Snake Spear." As for the high-explosive warheads developed by the Army, they were the primary model.
Sending out more than 60 strategic bombers to launch nearly 700 cruise missiles at once was definitely a grand gesture!
Even Ding Zhennan felt it was wasteful.
The "Snake Spear" was actually more expensive than the "Spear," with a factory price exceeding 1 million Gold Yuan, while the previous batch of "Spears" had only cost 800,000 Gold Yuan.
The cost was mainly in the engine.
This single move burned through nearly 700 million Gold Yuan!
The 33 tactical aircraft lost in the battle had a procurement price of only 600 million Gold Yuan.
Of course, the main purpose of this was to validate the strategic bombing capabilities of the Air Force.
Let’s not forget, in the new era of strategic bombing, bombers no longer dropped bombs; they launched cruise missiles!
Moreover, before cruise missiles became the main force, there had never been a battle necessitating the launch of hundreds of missiles in one go!
In other words, no one knew what the effect would be of simultaneously launching several hundred cruise missiles, let alone the potential efficiency of such an attack.
Most importantly, someone was footing the bill.
When Shi Shouliang told Ding Zhennan to adjust the combat deployment and increase the Air Force’s cruise missile launch volume, he informed him that the Ministry of Defense had authorized them to use up nearly 2,500 air-launched cruise missiles stored in the arsenal, along with almost 3,000 sea-and land-based cruise missiles in this war.
There was only one reason for this.
The Saiyi Authority, which was unwilling to send troops to directly participate in combat operations, had agreed to bear a greater share of the war expenses, raising their contribution from 15% agreed upon previously to 30%, and possibly further negotiating to exceed 40%, which meant an additional several hundred billion Gold Yuan.
With several hundred billion more in the military budget, would they need to worry about the missiles being too expensive?
In Shi Shouliang’s words, this was about clearing the Imperial Army’s storage, making room in the weapons warehouses for new munitions with better performance.
Besides, the average storage time for these cruise missiles was already close to 10 years, and the effective storage period for such high-performance ammunition was only about 20 years.
Among them, the earliest batch purchased would expire in a few more years.
Another key point was that even if the electronic equipment inside the missiles had not been damaged by long-term storage, it would be outdated after 20 years.
Clearly, it was time to use them up quickly!
