Empire Conquest-Chapter 726 - 36: Someone Else Pays the Bill_2
Although one "War-11B" pilot insisted that the "KK-6M" he had fired had caught up with an MG-25, there was no evidence of a shootdown.
From the radar detection, it seemed likely that after being attacked, the MG-25 had evaded by diving from an altitude of 20,000 meters to below 5,000 meters, moving out of the "War-11B" radar detection area and possibly escaping the pursuit of the "KK-6M" missile.
Indeed, this was not surprising.
Throughout the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqi Air Force’s only challenge to the Boi Air Force’s F-14A was the MG-25. Even with poor maneuverability, it could easily evade enemy missiles fired from tens of kilometers away with a top speed exceeding Mach 3.
This was also the only praiseworthy reprisal action by the Iraqi Air Force on the first day of the war.
During the day, the alliance army launched two larger-scale bombing operations.
However, compared to the first round of surprise attacks at dawn, these fell short.
Daytime sorties were primarily to maintain air pressure and not give the Iraqi military a chance to breathe.
According to Ding Zhennan’s arrangement, bombings targeting key objectives were all concentrated at night, making the most use of the darkness for concealment.
This change was also a result of technological advancements.
In the Boi War over a decade ago, bombings were almost exclusively conducted during the day, mainly due to the lack of means to search for and aim at targets at night.
Of course, it was also related to the predominant use of unguided ammunition at the time.
With the emergence and rapid dissemination of low-light night vision devices and infrared imaging systems, the difficulty of nighttime bombing significantly decreased.
Additionally, it was related to the current air defense systems.
Although air defense missiles had replaced high-altitude guns as the primary air defense weapons, in countries like Iraq, there were still many high-altitude guns.
Actually, even in the Liangxia military, high-altitude guns still played a key role in field air defense.
For Iraqi high-altitude gun units lacking nighttime observation methods, intercepting enemy fighters in the night sky was almost impossible.
That was why Ding Zhennan arranged all high-risk bombing operations for nighttime.
For strategic targets, "Attack-12" was still the mainstay.
For the numerous ordinary targets, traditional tactics were mainly used for bombing.
This arrangement was because, firstly, the Liangxia military didn’t have a large reserve of precision-guided bombs; secondly, there were limited combat fighters that could carry and deploy precision-guided bombs; and thirdly, there was too much stockpiled ammunition that needed to be used.
Especially the third point, which Ding Zhennan found very frustrating.
When planning and deploying tactical missions, the most troublesome issue Ding Zhennan faced was figuring out how to use up the mountains of ammunition stockpiled in the empire’s arsenals.
This was a matter of necessity.
Don’t forget, after the end of the Boi War, the empire had not initiated or participated in regional wars for over a decade. The operations against Sri Lanka’s rebellion weren’t even wars, barely conflicts. During the subsequent Iran-Iraq War, the empire was just a spectator.
However, the empire’s arms factories couldn’t just shut down completely due to the lack of wars.
In fact, to keep production lines active, or rather, to maintain a necessary workforce, the empire’s major arms factories had to operate during peacetime.
As a result, the large quantities of weapons and ammunition produced were only stored in arsenals.
The storage of weapons was manageable, but ammunition was critical.
Most high-tech ammunition had an ideal storage life of only 20 years and often could not be stored for that long.
Moreover, technological equipment stored for 20 years would definitely become outdated.
After ammunition was stored for over 10 years, routine maintenance became very bothersome, and maintenance costs could increase several times.
It was evident that the overcrowded domestic arsenals were one of the main reasons driving the imperial authorities to deploy troops to Boss Bay.
This was why it was necessary to use up as much stockpiled ammunition as possible during the war.
Among these, unguided bombs of various types were the most abundant!
During the Boi War, the empire’s arms factories were operating at full capacity, producing various types of Air bombs according to the intensity of the great war. The amount of ammunition used in this war exceeded even that of the Second Global War, making it the war with the highest ammunition consumption to date.
According to the statistics of the Imperial Army, during the 14 years of the Boi War, the Imperial Army used 10 million tons of ammunition.
That included 450 billion bullets alone!
Still, that couldn’t keep up with the production speed of the Imperial ammunition factories.
By the end of the Boi War, there were about 6 million tons of unused ammunition left, including 4.5 million tons of air bombs.
For the next decade, production and accumulation continued, and now, the Empire’s ammunition reserves had reached nearly 10 million tons, including 7 million tons of air bombs.
The key point was that this was the result after massively cutting down the bomb production!
What was more fatal was that in high-tech modern warfare, the consumption of ammunition had not increased; instead, it had decreased by several orders of magnitude!
According to conclusions drawn from past joint military exercises and relevant deductions, in modern wars that primarily employ precision-guided ammunition, the demand for large types of ammunition like air bombs would decrease by at least two orders of magnitude, and even necessitate deliberately reducing the scale of attacks.
A few years ago, the Air Force took the lead in introducing the concept of "small caliber ammunition."
The reason was simple: it was necessary to reduce the collateral damage caused by firepower.
As a result, even if the Imperial Air Force and Navy Air Force had explicitly decided not to purchase new guided bombs and to focus on guidance components—namely, obtaining precision-guided ammunition by installing guidance components on stockpiled bombs—unless there was a large-scale regional war or a global war, it would be impossible to use up the stockpiled ammunition within its shelf life.
According to the statistics made last year, even if the consumption for exercises and training was doubled and exports were increased, it would still take at least 30 years to deplete the stock.
The Ministry of Defense had already drafted a plan to invest 1 billion Gold Yuan, commissioning several domestic military enterprises to develop an advanced storage technology that could prolong the storage time of the ammunition without compromising reliability and reduce the dependence on personnel.
Even though purchasing this equipment would definitely cost money, it would still be much more economical than directly disposing of the ammunition as waste.
In fact, over the past decade, especially in recent years, the Empire had to dispose of batches of ammunition that had expired each year. Just last year, they had destroyed about 100,000 tons of air bombs produced during the late stages of the last war, which failed the random inspections. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶
With this war, there was no reason not to increase the consumption of ammunition.
Moreover, the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom and Ao Country had already reached a compromise on sharing the costs of the war, agreeing to provide more war funds to offset the issues of deploying troops.
Additionally, several other Allies had similar plans.
Since it was using someone else’s money to fight, what else was there to regret?
However, Ding Zhennan didn’t think so.
Using conventional ammunition not only increased the burden on the combat troops—that is, requiring more sorties of combat aircraft to achieve the same effects—but also significantly heightened the casualty rate of the combat aircraft, which very likely, or rather certainly, meant losing more combat aircraft.
Clearly, the value of combat aircraft was definitely far greater than that of ammunition.
Even if the losses of combat aircraft were also included in the war expenses, paid for by the Allies unwilling to deploy troops, the safety of the pilots had to be considered.
Clearly, the Allies would certainly not pay for the casualties among the pilots.
Even if someone did pay, it wasn’t right to sacrifice the pilots.
A skilled pilot was as valuable as the most advanced fighter of the same period, and training a pilot required a lot of time.
Unfortunately, the decision-making power wasn’t in Ding Zhennan’s hands.
Not even Shi Shouliang could make the decision.
According to the orders from the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff Department, whether Ding Zhennan liked it or not, he had to use up all the ammunition sent to Saudi Arabia!
Of course, Ding Zhennan wasn’t completely without control.
What he could do was assign the most difficult, highest-loss, and most arduous tasks to advanced fighters like the "Attack-12," mainly using laser-guided bombs.
Of course, he could also opt for the Navy and Air Force’s cruise missiles.
If absolutely necessary, there were also the Army’s cruise missiles as a backup.
However, on the first day of the war, accurately speaking, during the night of the 6th, after the day’s news had cooled down, the world’s attention turned to Daman and Jubail.
That evening, the first armored unit of the Imperial Army reached Saudi Arabia!
