Empire Conquest-Chapter 752 - 48 The Great War Erupts_2
According to the military exercises conducted by the West Continent Group over the years, especially in recent ones, at the beginning of the campaign, the firepower assault mainly relies on up to tens of thousands of cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. After the missile assault, which is when the defensive air power of the Eastern Group has been heavily damaged, that the Air Force would sorties to carry out large-scale bombing on the major military bases within the depth of the campaign.
However, regardless of how the attack is launched, ground advances must be carried out during the day.
The reason is simple.
Because the West Continent Group’s ground forces lack night fighting equipment and basically have no night combat capability, they tend to avoid launching attacks at night.
To increase the intensity of the initial attack, the time to commence the assault is usually scheduled for dawn.
In fact, the fighting in Boss Bay has already illustrated this.
The Iraqi Army, armed with a full set of West Continent Group’s equipment, hardly has any significant night fighting capability to speak of.
This is especially true for the Army!
Although the T-72M sold to Iraq was a downgraded export version and much inferior to the T-72B used by the Luosha Democratic Republic, not to mention the Luosha Army also has high-end equipment like the T-64 and T-80, there has always been a significant deficiency in the critical area of electronic technology in western Luosha.
In fact, the entire West Continent Group doesn’t have much to boast about in the field of electronics.
For example, the "Leclerc" main battle tank developed by Locke and finally determined to be standard last year has not gone into mass production because the accompanying electronic equipment hasn’t passed acceptance checks; its claimed world’s most advanced "Hunter-Killer" system has failed multiple tests to meet military performance specifications.
Even the Tiaoman Empire’s "Leopard 2" has the same problem.
According to the Tiaoman Army’s plans, only the A4 model will be equipped with an accompanying infrared imaging night vision device, and then the models produced previously will be upgraded.
Similarly constrained by electronic equipment, the West Continent Group hasn’t developed any formidable armed helicopters to this date!
Their most advanced armed helicopter is the "Little Antelope" AS341 designed and produced by Locke, which strictly speaking, with a maximum takeoff weight of less than two tons, doesn’t really have anything to do with "armed" and seems more like an emergency substitute or a placeholder.
The situation with the Tiaoman Army is even more desperate; they simply install a launching system on a civilian small helicopter, hang a few anti-tank missiles, and claim it as an armed helicopter.
Relatively speaking, the western Luosha is more reliable; its MI-24 "Hind" production has already surpassed 2,000 units.
However, the "Hind’s" night combat capability remains very weak and it mainly operates during the day.
Because of this, Lian Mingyang got up at 3 a.m. to ensure that he was ready for combat by 4 a.m.
If war could not be avoided, it would certainly not be postponed until 8 a.m. Bailin time, which is 12 noon eastern Luosha time.
Theoretically, it would start at least 6 hours earlier, and possibly even 8 hours earlier.
That is to say, the West Continent Group’s forces could launch an attack as early as 4 a.m. eastern Luosha time, opening with a firepower preparation.
Fortunately, the Imperial Air Force had already made arrangements.
At the combat meeting held last night, the Base Commander mentioned that the Air Force’s "Zhi-10A" would take off at dawn to ensure continuous surveillance of the West Continent Group’s forward troops, and the Military Intelligence Bureau had adjusted the surveillance satellite orbits to provide a report every two hours.
In addition, there were the forward-deployed electronic reconnaissance units.
Simply put, the probability of being caught off guard was extremely low.
As the Base Commander stated, even if the West Continent Group used the fastest ballistic missiles for a first-round surprise attack, there would be at least a 15-minute warning period.
For the fully prepared Army Aviation, 15 minutes was enough to fly out tens of kilometers.
Because of this, the Base Commander required all combat units to be ready for combat before 4 a.m. to ensure they could immediately sortie upon receiving orders.
For this reason, last night, Lian Mingyang had the ground crew complete all maintenance work.
What needed to be done in the early morning was actually a routine check.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to complete everything in just 30 minutes.
At 3:50 a.m., Lian Mingyang climbed into the cockpit of the "Z-10A," completed the pre-flight checks, and then had the engine warm up.
Because the specifics were unclear, or to say apart from tanks, there were many targets that didn’t require heavy anti-tank missiles to destroy, the "Z-10A" used the standard loadout, 8 heavy anti-tank missiles and 2 pods of 17-tube 80 millimeter rocket launchers.
In addition, there were 1350 rounds of 30 millimeter machine gun ammunition.
Of course, Lian Mingyang didn’t forget to have the ground crew fill up the fuel.
This was actual combat, not an exercise, so including Lian Mingyang, all crew members were equipped with self-defense weapons as per regulations.
The pilot had a 9 millimeter automatic pistol, and the front seat weapon system operator had a submachine gun that fired pistol rounds.
If shot down during combat and unfortunately landing in enemy territory or surrounded by enemies, the only thing to rely on would be their self-defense weapons.
Waiting for rescue?
In a large-scale war, that’s simply wishful thinking!
Not to mention anything else, Changala alone has 120 armed helicopters and nearly 200 attack aircraft in two wings!
As soon as the war breaks out, all these armed helicopters and attack aircraft will take off en masse, like moths to a flame, to meet the steel tide rolling in from the west.
The question won’t be how many are shot down, but how many will be able to return to base.
Moreover, the Changala base is certain to be a key target for the enemy’s intensive strikes, meaning all stationed general-purpose helicopters will have to evacuate urgently.
Even with engineer soldiers, it’s unlikely the base could resume operations promptly.
In theory, just clearing the timed bombs dropped by the enemy could take several days.
So for quite a long time afterwards, it might be impossible to dispatch troops to carry out rescue missions on the front lines.
In fact, in the throes of large-scale warfare, the life and death of a few pilots are of no concern to anyone.
Fighting courageously for the Empire, that’s the mission of all soldiers!
Furthermore, Lian Mingyang brought along some extra rations.
Although according to operational plans, the Land Air Force’s activities are strictly limited to the east bank of the Volga River, that is, within the territory of the Lusha Federation Republic, with no need to fly to the Luosha Democratic Republic, Lian Mingyang still felt it’s not necessarily a bad idea to bring more food.
Flying west to bomb military targets on the west bank of the Volga River is the job of attack aircraft.
A drought lasting the better half of a year had even the Lusha Federation Republic, known for its not too low grain output, suffering severely.
According to the servicemen at the base, over on the west side of Lusha, grain was almost as valuable as hard currency. It was due to starvation that millions from West Lusha had fled to the East in the past few months.
Lian Mingyang’s partner, the weapons operator Jiang Shanggui, even specifically found a logistics officer at the base and got a translation dictionary comparing their language with the language of Lusha.
In his words, if he unfortunately landed behind enemy lines, he could use it to communicate with civilians.
Lian Mingyang, however, believed it’s better to bring more Gold Yuan cash.
Actually, among the pilot’s survival gear, there’s a stack of Gold Yuan totaling over 1000, mainly for the purpose of bribing civilians when escaping.
Of course, no matter what, one must be fully prepared.
Speaking of which, the wait wasn’t actually long.
Just past 4 o’clock, the communication channel started to come alive, or to be precise, was filled with noise.
Electronic interference!
Yes, it was electronic interference from the enemy.
Though the Imperial Army had never clashed with the forces of the Western Group since the end of the last war, based on modern common combat tactics, deploying electronic interference at the onset of an assault is the most basic, and even indispensable, tactic.
Soon after, the alarm sounded.
Air raid sirens!
It’s more likely that the incoming ones are ballistic missiles!
Without a moment’s hesitation, Lian Mingyang immediately issued an emergency takeoff order.
Three minutes later, just after 4:05, the Z-10A piloted by Lian Mingyang was the first to take off, followed by more than 20 armed helicopters.
Actually, in just those few brief minutes, the entire base had awoken from its slumber.
As he piloted the helicopter away from the base, Lian Mingyang clearly saw the first wave of more than ten Attack-9As, paired in twos, ascending into the night sky with bright tail flames.
Clearly, the Air Force on the frontlines had been ready for combat for quite some time.
"Boss, look ahead!"
In the western night sky, dozens of bright streaks tore through, shining much more brilliantly than shooting stars. They were not meteors; their glow was hundreds of times brighter.
Those were ballistic missiles slamming down from outside the atmosphere!
The Global War had finally erupted!
