Empire Conquest-Chapter 750 - 47 Aerial Defense Line_2

After the modifications, these tanks would be able to continue in service for at least another 20 years before being replaced by the next generation of main battle tanks.

By doing so, they could save at least 30 billion Gold Yuan.

The Empire’s Army dared to do this because, according to current combat theories, the value of main battle tanks in strategic defensive operations was not significant.

Tanks are powerful tactical platforms, but modern warfare requires strategic platforms.

Do not forget, from the moment tanks were born, they constituted the most powerful ground assault weapons, their value lying in their offensive capabilities.

Moreover, tanks had met their formidable adversary: the armed helicopter.

From another perspective, it could also be seen as a helpless choice for the Empire’s Army.

To put it bluntly, without enough tanks and facing the armored flood from the West Continent, the Empire’s Army had to find solutions in other areas.

By comparison, the Land Air Force’s armed helicopters performed most notably.

Theoretically, a Z-10A could carry up to 16 heavy anti-tank missiles, destroying 16 armored targets in one sortie!

Factoring in the missile hit rate and other factors, an armed helicopter could theoretically destroy over 20 armored targets before being shot down.

In fact, besides armed helicopters, the Empire’s Army had other anti-tank methods.

The most representative were the light anti-tank missiles issued to frontline troops and the anti-tank rocket launchers directly supplied to squads, which did not count towards the official tally.

However, what the Army truly valued were the laser-guided artillery shells, which had not yet been used in actual combat.

This new type of ammunition, mass-produced only three years ago and provided to combat troops for testing, had increased the combat efficiency of the artillery by hundreds of times!

In the past, destroying a tank required hundreds of shells; now only one was needed!

The problem was that laser-guided shells were not cheap, and the possibility of large-scale deployment was not great, at least the senior army officials didn’t think it necessary.

Although the hit rate of laser-guided shells was hundreds of times higher than regular shells, their cost was a thousand times higher too, making it economically unfeasible.

Furthermore, laser-guided shells had fairly high operational requirements.

In summary, up to now, the primary anti-armor method of the Empire’s Army was the armed helicopter.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have invested a lot of money to research and purchase the Z-10A.

Unfortunately, the production of the Z-10A hadn’t ramped up.

Ultimately, they were just too expensive.

In ordering 450 units, the unit price of the Z-10A was four times that of the Z-7W, and its maintenance costs were much higher.

Clearly, no matter how powerful, the Z-10A’s combat efficiency could certainly not reach four times that of the Z-7W.

As a result, the production of the Z-10A was less than 100 units, temporarily provided only to a few elite troops in the Northwest, western, and Southern Battle Zones.

The majority were still Z-7Ws.

Among the 120 armed helicopters currently deployed in Changala, only 30 were Z-10As; the rest were all Z-7Ws that had been in service for more than 10 years.

Fortunately, these Z-7Ws had undergone necessary upgrades, capable of carrying and utilizing heavy anti-tank missiles.

Of course, it wasn’t that the Z-7W had no merit.

Compared to the Z-10A, the biggest advantage of the Z-7W, only considered as a light armed helicopter, was actually its lower dependency on logistical support, its ability to be deployed at forward bases for a long duration, and it consumed considerably less fuel and other materials per sortie than the heavy armored helicopters.

In intense anti-armor combat, the Z-7W was the backbone force.

Actually, Lian Mingyang and his team were only temporarily stationed at the Changala base.

By October 1, if the great war had not erupted, they would return to Boss Bay to participate in the liberation of Kuwait, that is, the combat operations against Iraq.

Because it was only a temporary deployment, in addition to helicopters, only essential support equipment was sent.

After the outbreak of the war, other support equipment would be delivered by air.

It only required five flights of strategic transporters; hence, even if the deployment was not completely in place, it would not have too much impact.

In addition, Lian Mingyang had also received assurances from the Battle Zone Headquarter.

As soon as the great war broke out, they would arrange transporters immediately to send all the necessary supplies and personnel for prolonged combat to Changala.

Of course, whether there were guarantees or not didn’t matter.

After the outbreak of the war, Changala would become the strategic support point in that direction, so the Battle Zone Headquarter would definitely strengthen military deployments there.

To block the armored flood of the West Continent group, they would have to rely on the armed helicopters deployed there.

Of course, this also included the frontline Air Force also deployed in Changala.

If armed helicopters were considered the nemesis of tanks, then the Air Force’s frontline Air Force was a nightmare for all ground forces.

Unlike the West Continent group’s frontline Air Force, the Empire’s frontline Air Force primarily used attack aircraft.

As for the fighters responsible for air superiority, they were all incorporated into the Tactical Air Force and deployed as far back as possible at rear airfields.

The reason was simple—to avoid competing for the limited number of advanced airfields with the frontline Air Force.

Of course, this was related to the Empire’s fighters generally having a longer range.

Whether it was "War-10" or "War-11", both had an operational radius of over 1000 kilometers, which could even reach 1500 kilometers under pure air superiority missions.

Relatively, the Empire’s Air Force attack aircraft did not have such a long operational radius.

As the main attack aircraft, the "Attack-9" had an operational radius of just 600 kilometers under standard ground support loadout and was best kept within 400 kilometers.

Interestingly, the "Attack-9A" did not have air refueling capabilities, and the production of the "Attack-9B", which was equipped with an air refueling system, had not yet ramped up. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

This meant that most "Attack-9" aircraft lacked air refueling capabilities.

Obviously, the idea was that refueling attack aircraft at the frontline was too risky, and dedicated attack aircraft could not be deployed too far back.

However, the "Attack-9’s" anti-tank capability was extremely powerful—borderline overpowered.

This sort of attack aircraft, designed from the start with the mindset of "destroying tanks", could be seen as a flying 40-millimeter Gatling machine gun.

Simply put, the design work for the "Attack-9" revolved around the 40-millimeter, six-barrel Gatling machine gun.

For this Gatling machine gun, the designers had to go through a lot of twists and turns.

Because of its heavy weight and the astonishing recoil when firing, it could only be mounted on the belly of the aircraft, forcing the nose of the aircraft to be raised by half a meter. Originally intended to be installed in the rear fuselage, the two engines were pushed outward, installed at 60-degree angles at the front top side of the horizontal tail, while the vertical tail had to be split in two and installed at the ends of the horizontal tail. The front fuselage had to be adjusted to provide a better field of vision for the pilot, moving the cockpit to the nose of the aircraft.

In summary, the "Attack-9’s" appearance could be described as extraordinarily ugly.

Yet, it was worth it.

The 40-millimeter machine gun was designed with one requirement: to penetrate the top armor of tanks.

With tungsten core armor-piercing bullets, it could penetrate 200 millimeters of homogenous armor. Forget about earlier tanks, even the latest "ZT-99B" had an equivalent top armor thickness of just 150 millimeters, which was specifically reinforced during the design.

With this machine gun and 1200 rounds of ammunition, one "Attack-9" could annihilate an armored battalion.

Moreover, to improve survivability, or rather given its design for low-altitude operations, it would inevitably face numerous small-caliber high-altitude guns and machine guns, so critical parts of the "Attack-9" were fitted with composite armor, theoretically capable of resisting direct hits from 30-millimeter high-explosive shells.

Further, all critical facilities of the "Attack-9" were highly redundant in design.

Theoretically, it only needed one engine to maintain sufficient flight speed, and its flat wing had an exceedingly high lift-to-drag ratio.

In summary, after its appearance, the "Attack-9" immediately gained the favor of the Air Force.

If there was a flaw, it was that the first four batches of "Attack-9A" lacked the capability to use guided weapons and could only execute strike missions with iron bombs and rockets. It was only the last three batches of "Attack-9A" and "Attack-9B" that had the ability to carry and use air-to-ground missiles.

Fortunately, in the Northwest War Zone, all were from the latest batches of "Attack-9A", while the first few batches of "Attack-9A" were concentrated in the Reserve Forces.

It is clear that supporting the defense line of the Northwest, in fact, was primarily the air power composed of Land Air Force armed helicopters and Air Force frontline attack aircraft.

This defensive system, entirely dominated by air power, had not faced the test of war in the past decade. All related theoretical tactics came solely from exercises and deduction.

Perhaps, the opportunity to test them was about to come!