Empire Conquest-Chapter 751 - 48 The Great War Erupts

Just like the previous days, Lian Mingyang was up before 3 am and had called all his pilots and support personnel to wake up shortly after.

Taking 15 minutes to finish breakfast, by 3:20 am, all the officers and soldiers began preparing for deployment.

In fact, it was mainly a routine check.

Compared to the "Z-7W", the "Zhi-10A" not only had greater combat power, but also more, or rather, more troublesome, daily maintenance items.

The biggest issue was the engine.

The batch of "Zhi-10A" helicopters under Lian Mingyang were using the "WZ-6F" type engine which, although its power reached 1100 kilowatts and wasn’t much lower than the nominal 1150 kilowatts of the "WZ-9A," this engine, designed over two decades ago and improved many times since, had already reached its performance limits.

The problem this caused was that the "WZ-6F" had extremely high thermal loads and its reliability had always been an issue.

This problem had been plaguing these initially delivered "Zhi-10A" helicopters and it couldn’t be resolved until the "WZ-9A" went into mass production.

As for when the "WZ-9A" would enter mass production, there was still no set time.

In this regard, the situation was slightly better in Changala.

Because the temperature was lower, the engine’s thermal load was much less, which also meant a considerably lower probability of malfunction under normal usage.

In fact, this was also key to why Shi Shouliang had dispatched Lian Mingyang’s troops back to the Northwest War Zone.

On the contrary, the "Z-7W" didn’t have that many issues.

Although it also used the "WZ-6" engine, it was the D model, which only had an output of 750 kilowatts, hence much lower thermal load.

In daily use, the availability rate of the "Z-7W" was much higher than that of the "Zhi-10A".

To maintain a sufficiently high availability rate, considerable effort had to be put into logistic support.

Fortunately, they had always operated this way, so everyone was already accustomed to a life of "waking earlier than the chickens and sleeping later than the dogs."

Moreover, the current situation was anything but ordinary in terms of tension!

Just yesterday, the Tiaoman Authority issued a final ultimatum, demanding that the Alliance Army led by the Empire end its military action against Iraq within one day, before 8 am today, to withdraw unconditionally from the Boss Bay area and acknowledge Kuwait as a province of Iraq.

In addition, it also demanded that the Empire immediately stop reinforcing the Luosha Federation Republic, hand over approximately 4 million illegal immigrants stranded in the territory of the Luosha Federation Republic unconditionally, and agree to the reunification of East and West Luosha based on the predominance of the Luosha Democratic Republic.

The Imperial Authority would never agree to such demands!

Similarly, a few hours later yesterday, the Imperial Authority issued a statement, declaring it would never withdraw from Boss Bay and certainly would not give up on the Luosha Federation Republic. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

As for handing over those West Luosha citizens who applied for political asylum in East Luosha, that was a matter for the government of East Luosha, with no relation to the Liangxia Empire.

Whether or not to reunify East and West Luosha, and by what means, that was a matter for the people of Luosha.

The Liangxia Empire’s stance was also very clear: respect the choice of the Luosha people and oppose all forms of strong-arm politics.

Following this, the General Staff Department issued the highest-level combat readiness order.

As a result, there hadn’t been a moment of stillness all night.

Although the Tactical Air Force was stationed in the rear, last night, 8 fighter jets landed in Changala due to nearly depleted fuel reserves.

According to these fighter pilots, the situation at the border was very tense, and a standoff could turn into a conflict and combat at any moment.

In fact, the only thing missing now was the first shot.

If it was just a standoff, then there was no need for such a fuss.

In the past several decades, this kind of scenario was not uncommon, with several escalations into conflicts that were eventually quelled.

But this time was different!

From the Air Force’s side, the only two "Zhi-10A" had already been dispatched here, stationed in Omsk, just over 1000 kilometers from the front line. If necessary, the Air Force could also call over the Joint Command Aircraft stationed in Boss Bay to strengthen surveillance here.

Judging by the performance of the "Zhi-10A" on the Boss Bay battlefield, the Joint Command Aircraft had an immense and irreplaceable value in terms of air-ground coordination.

Moreover, the air force base in Omsk had always been the Air Force’s headquarters in the Northwest War Zone, primarily for deploying large support aircraft like Early Warning Aircraft.

The reason was simple: the base was just beyond the range of the West Continent group’s land-based cruise missiles and medium-range ballistic missiles.

In fact, after the outbreak of war, the most significant threat to look out for would be a missile attack from the West Continent group.

This was why the Empire’s Air Force always emphasized the combat radius of fighter jets and why they tried to deploy them as far to the rear as possible.

If you were to concentrate the combat aircraft at forward airfields, there was a very real possibility that they would be completely destroyed in the enemy’s first surprise attack.

For this reason, the Air Force had also constructed many Field Airports in the forward areas to compensate for the lack of capacity in forward airfields, which were incapable of supporting all tactical aircraft.

No matter what, the message brought by the fighter pilots was that the situation was extremely tense, and combat could break out at any time.

Actually, that wasn’t quite accurate.

According to Lian Xusheng’s judgment, it was more likely for the West Continent group to launch an offensive after daybreak, with preparations for fire support potentially starting just before or at dawn.

Following standard offensive tactics which include 2 hours of fire support before ground troops launched an assault to cross the Volga River, that would be the most appropriate.

Of course, it would surely begin with a missile assault.