Empire Conquest-Chapter 728 - 37 Ground Forces_2
During peacetime, these infrastructures were the economic pillars of the Lusha Federation Republic.
In wartime, tens of thousands of kilometers of railways and tens of thousands of kilometers of highways would become major arteries for military transport, providing the Imperial Army the foundation for combat operations.
Regrettably, the conditions around Boss Bay were not as favorable.
This was also a key reason why numerous allies needed to participate in ground combat.
Among the seven allied nations that had agreed to send troops for ground combat operations, only the Gaoju Kingdom, Damman Kingdom, and Bakistan had sent combat forces; the other four countries sent logistic support troops. In fact, only the Gaoju Kingdom had agreed to attack Iraq, promising to deploy at least one Armored Brigade to the front line before the ground war began and to handle the transportation and other aspects by themselves.
For logistical support, Ding Zhennan left this brigade from the Gaoju Kingdom in the coastal area and did not let it join the Imperial Army’s Armored Forces in combat.
As a result, although nominally there were several hundred thousand troops, more than 300,000 of them were "logistic support troops!"
This situation also directly determined the scale of the ground war.
To put it bluntly, unless the Imperial Authority agreed to commit more troops and send a few more divisions, the scope of the ground war had to be confined to around Kuwait.
Go take down Baghdad?
Don’t be fooled by Shi Shouliang’s confidence, but if that were truly the objective, he would fly back to the Imperial Capital at the first opportunity to lament to the Grand Secretary that the troops were insufficient.
It wasn’t that he was cowardly, but rather that under insufficient troop strength, there would undoubtedly be greater casualties in the ground war.
A good Commander definitely would not let his troops make meaningless sacrifices.
In fact, Shi Shouliang had always been known for protecting his shortfalls.
The strength of two divisions, even just for liberating Kuwait, seemed a bit stretched.
The key point was, liberation could not merely be for the sake of liberating Kuwait.
To put it bluntly, one could not focus solely on Kuwait for the sake of liberating it and strictly limit the combat zone within Kuwaiti territory.
When doing the planning, Ding Zhennan had mentioned this issue multiple times.
This battle aimed not only to liberate Kuwait but also to completely annihilate the invading Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and it had to be annihilation, not a pursuit battle.
Simply put, the invading Iraqi forces in Kuwait could not be allowed to escape!
As such, there needed to be an encirclement battle, which required a breakthrough from the west, therefore the strength of two Armored Divisions was indeed insufficient!
Fortunately, there were the Marine Corps.
In fact, at the very beginning, the Marine Corps wanted to take full responsibility, offering to deploy up to three divisions to the Boss Bay area.
Regrettably, this was clearly not likely.
Let alone that Shi Shouliang was an Army Admiral who wouldn’t let the Army combat troops be sidelined, even the Grand Secretary Zhou Yongtao would not allow the Marine Corps to outshine.
Moreover, the Marine Corps were actually boasting.
The reason was simple: The Marine Corps’ standing combat forces consisted of only five divisions.
The First Marine Division was responsible for guarding all the strategic bases from Scapa Bay to Diego in the Sunset Ocean and Fan Flame Ocean. The Second Marine Division was in charge of guarding the several dozen military bases on the chain of islands spanning from the Aleu Islands to the Cook Islands in the central part of the East Ocean. These two Marine Divisions were strategic-level garrison forces, and not only during peacetime— even after a major war broke out, they could not be redeployed until replacement troops were in place.
Obviously, the Marine Corps could actually mobilize the strength of only three divisions.
Actually, it was less than three divisions.
The Fourth Marine Division, stationed in the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom, North Ma Islands, and Tuk Fortress, could at most deploy the strength of one brigade. The Third Marine Division, stationed in Sri Lanka and the southeast region, could only deploy one brigade as well, so the actual deployable force amounted to one division and two brigades. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
The Fifth Marine Division, which could mobilize in full force, was still a Reserve Team.
Although different from the Army, the Marine Corps’ five divisions did not experience a shortage of personnel, but the readiness rate of the Fifth Marine Division, which acted as a reserve force, was never very high.
During peacetime, only about 60% of the officers and soldiers of the Fifth Marine Division were on duty.
Of course, this was also related to the Marine Corps’ rotation system.
However, that didn’t mean the Marine Corps couldn’t commit the strength of three divisions; to truly deploy three divisions, they would have to immediately mobilize.
Within the Marine Corps’ organizational system, there were also five operational reserve divisions.
However, these five divisions really only had headquarters staff, with routine personnel numbering under 3,000; they would need to call up soldiers from the Reserve Forces.
Although theoretically, it was possible to complete the entire assembly in a maximum of 15 days, the Empire had never called up these five Marine Divisions after a major war.
The reason was simple: it was too troublesome, and the expense was too great.
The key wasn’t the personnel; it was the main battle equipment.
Since only the command framework was retained during peacetime, these five reserve divisions were not equipped with main battle equipment and could only activate sealed equipment when reorganizing.
Not to mention the performance of the sealed equipment, just activating it was very troublesome, and it required a substantial amount of funds.
After using it, re-sealing it again would cost a considerable sum of money.
It was for this reason that the Marine Corps established a unique rotation system. In peacetime, the system allowed the officers and soldiers of each Marine Division to alternate in rotation, thereby relying on about 60% of the main battle equipment to ensure all active-duty personnel received sufficient training time and maintained a high combat readiness.
Of course, if not three divisions, deploying one to engage in combat was still no problem.
However, the problem lied exactly here.
Which division would it be!?
Even now, the Marine Corps had not sent confirmation, only a guarantee that they would definitely be able to deploy one Marine Division before launching the ground attack.
In fact, Ding Zhennan only needed the strength of one Marine Division.
According to the battle plan that he personally drafted and had been affirmed by Shi Shouliang, during the ground warfare phase, the Marine Corps would conduct an amphibious landing at the two rivers mouth.
Simply put, that meant landing southeast of Basra and posing as if to mount a strong attack on the city.
In truth, landing was all that was needed.
The No. 3 highway south of Basra was the only high-grade road to Kuwait, and the Iraqi army’s invasion of Kuwait relied entirely on this road.
That is to say, as long as the Marine Corps landed at the river mouth delta, the Iraqi forces must launch a reprisal.
Whether to continue occupying Kuwait, to decide the battle with the Joint Forces on this side, or to withdraw from Kuwait, the Iraqi army must staunchly defend the No. 3 highway.
Actually, this was enough.
Ding Zhennan did not count on the Marine Corps to liberate Kuwait, and strategically speaking, the two rivers mouth was not particularly suited for large-scale armored battles.
The main force was still the two Armored Divisions of the Army.
As for tactics, that was hardly a secret either.
Simply put, it involved the Marine Corps feigning an attack from the east while Armored Forces from the Army launched a surprise attack from the west, moving around to the rear of the Iraqi forces.
This tactic had already received Shi Shouliang’s endorsement.
However, the specific plan had yet to be determined.
The primary issue was actually the scope of the flanking maneuver.
The division commanders and senior officers of the two Armored Divisions wished to expand the scope somewhat, aiming at attacking Basra, not merely focusing on annihilating the Iraqi forces invading Kuwait. Shi Shouliang believed that it was more prudent to act cautiously when the troop investment was insufficient, and logistical support might not keep up.
Ding Zhennan also thought there was no need to make it too big.
It wasn’t about fear of losing battles, but politically, it was not permissible to capture Basra. Even if they succeeded, they would still have to withdraw.
Then, why attack Basra?
If it was to strike at the Iraqi forces, a large-scale bombing was sufficient.
Moreover, Basra was not a city that one could simply decide to capture and do so successfully.
According to Ding Zhennan’s evaluation, even if two divisions were deployed and fire support was not a problem, the difficulty of assaulting Basra was extremely high.
If not handled well, it was quite possible to suffer a major setback there.
This was also Shi Shouliang’s greatest concern!
Of course, the most critical was the preparation time in the early stage.
If they prepared for an assault on Basra, more time would be needed to stockpile combat materials, especially the fuel and ammunition that Armored Forces heavily relied on. This meant that the second phase of combat operations would need to be extended, requiring more resources to be consumed during the aerial assault stage.
Logistical support was already difficult to keep up with, and if more materials were to be expended before and after, this posed even more of a problem!
Lowering the objective a bit would significantly reduce the pressure on logistical support!
However, how exactly to fight was not determined by Ding Zhennan, nor by Shi Shouliang, but by the Grand Secretary far away in the Imperial Capital.
