Empire Conquest-Chapter 729 - 38: The Fighter Escape

August 9th, night at the Prime Minister Mansion in the Imperial Capital.

In the afternoon, Zhou Yongtao received a call from Shi Shouliang from the front lines, planning to complete the first phase of the "all-out" operation in one week, which had been basically accomplished in less than 3 days, meaning the large-scale concentrated bombing would officially conclude at the dawn of the 10th.

The next step would focus on weakening Iraq’s military strength as the priority.

The aerial strikes went so smoothly, which was intimately linked to the enormous investments made.

Among them, the key was the use of cruise missiles, which had increased in quantity several times over.

In these less than 3 days, about 1,500 cruise missiles had been used, with over 800 fired just on the first day of the operation.

Actually, when planning, no one thought that so many cruise missiles would be used!

Indeed, during the planning phase, traditional bombing tactics were predominant. When dealing with high-risk targets, attack aircraft definitely couldn’t match the efficiency of cruise missiles.

Of course, this also proved from one aspect that the efficiency of unguided munitions used by fighter jets was no longer keeping up with the demands of the times.

It was based on the efficiency of the bombing that Ding Zhennan scheduled the first phase of the striking mission to last for 7 days.

During these 7 days, focused attacks on Iraqi strategic targets, such as government and military functional departments, national telecommunications companies, power plants and substations (the electric power infrastructure), and transportation hubs like stations, would completely cripple Iraq’s national defense capabilities.

Additionally, there was the task of striking the hideouts of Iraq’s military dictator, which were the presidential palaces scattered across the country.

The result was that, because of the large-scale use of cruise missiles, the efficiency of aerial strikes was greatly improved, and with the operational efficiency of the Air Force also higher than expected, the tasks initially planned for 7 days were completed in just under 3 days.

This brought about a very prominent problem.

The preparations for the second phase of the striking operation were not yet in place!

According to the reports from the Joint Force Headquarters, about one-third of the air power scheduled to participate in the second phase of the attack was still in the deployment phase, meaning they were not yet fully in place. Among these, there were hundreds of fighters from the Imperial Air Force still in the process of being allocated.

It wasn’t that the Imperial Army lacked experience, but rather that Sha countries like Saudi Arabia offered too few bases.

Take King Khalid Military City, for instance. In name, it was Saudi Arabia’s top military fortress in the northeastern region, able to host tens of thousands of troops, including 3 brigades, but the Air Force base only had fewer than 200 aircraft parking spots and only about 20 reinforced hangars.

This scale could at most accommodate fewer than 400 combat planes.

As a result, the Imperial Air Force had to deploy engineering troops to open a second airport outside the Military City.

Although funding wasn’t an issue, since the Saudi Royal Family had already agreed to bear all the costs, construction would certainly require a considerable amount of time.

Furthermore, logistical support was also problematic.

Due to insufficient transport capacity, the Joint Forces had reached an agreement with Saudi authorities to borrow Sha Army’s stockpile of munitions to be returned later in full.

However, Saudi Arabia’s stockpile consisted of ordinary munitions, lacking precision-guided munitions, and even less of advanced munitions like air-to-ground missiles.

Even fuel was an issue.

Saudi Arabia was only an oil-producing country, not an industrial one. The few petrochemical enterprises it had were simply incapable of meeting the operational needs of hundreds of thousands of troops.

Eighty percent of the fuel had to be transported from the Empire itself!

In terms of the strike platform, there were also considerable shortages.

For instance, the Air Force originally planned to deploy 64 "Attack-12" stealth attack aircraft to Saudi Arabia, but to date, only 20 had been put into position. Even under the most optimistic estimates, it would take about half a month for the remaining 40-something planes to be fully deployed. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

In light of these issues, the Joint Forces headquarters had made adjustments.

Still, as Shi Shouliang said, it would be necessary to delay the start of the precision strike operations by 24 hours, officially commencing at dawn on the 11th.

Zhou Yongtao didn’t object to this.

How to fight was Shi Shouliang’s business, after all, Shi Shouliang was the Commander-in-chief of the Joint Forces.

The Navy’s carrier battle groups participating in combat operations also needed this day, namely to resupply their expended ammunition.

What Zhou Yongtao was actually considering were the war expenses, which had already significantly exceeded expectations.

In just 3 days, the cost of ammunition used had reached 5 billion Gold Yuan, with those 1,500 cruise missiles alone valued at more than 1 billion!

In addition, the loss of fighter jets and the burnt fuel were worth several billion Gold Yuan.

According to incomplete estimates, the operational expenditures of the first 3 days had already approached 100 billion Gold Yuan.

With such a burn rate, who could afford it!?

According to the plan submitted by Shi Shouliang, the "all-out" operation was expected to continue for 45 to 50 days. Even if the duration of the operation could be reduced to 30 days thanks to improved combat efficiency, the expense of aerial strikes alone, based on the rate of expenditure of the first 3 days, would reach a staggering 1,000 billion Gold Yuan.

Of course, this was just the cost of consumables.

If one accounted for the depreciation of combat aircraft, as well as the operational costs of bases, wear and tear on logistical support, and the expenses of deploying ground troops to the front lines, the operational expenditures during the "all-out" operation would exceed 1,500 billion Yuan, tripling the initial estimates.

But it didn’t end there.