According to the original plan, it would take at least five days to attack Jaiselmeier, so the arrangements related to it, especially the logistical support, were all prepared according to the five-day assault battle. Unexpectedly, on the night of the 21st, the 17th Panzer Division advanced outside the city, and the Van army guarding Jaiselmeir raised a white flag. By the early morning of the next day, the vanguard of the 17th Panzer Division had moved into Ceyselmer.

In the end, more than 60,000 Vatican troops surrendered their weapons.

In other words, with the exception of those who had been wiped out in the previous battle and the troops sent to Theo, almost all of the Vatican forces guarding Jayselmel had surrendered.

Actually, there is nothing surprising about this.

Jaiselmer is in the heart of the Van Loe Desert, more than 100 kilometers to the east before the town, and the railways and roads are under the heavy care of the Imperial Air Force, and the previous several armies that tried to leave Jaiselmer were attacked by air on the way, and all the vehicles were destroyed.

Without a vehicle, with only two legs, he would definitely die in the Van Roe Desert.

Besides, even if you flee back, there may not be a good result, and most of them will be treated as deserters and punished on the spot.

In addition to this, there is a very crucial reason.

Jayselmer's inhabitants are almost all military dependents, and are mostly military officers' families, who need a high enough income to support their families. If you really defend Jayselmer, the unlucky ones will definitely be the inhabitants of the city, and I am afraid that none of them will be able to escape by then.

Even if you want to escape, you can't flee with your wife and children.

It's just that tens of thousands of Vatican officers and soldiers surrendered when they said they would surrender, which caught the 17th Armored Division a little off guard.

The main ammunition sent to the front line is for attacking fortifications, with tens of thousands of 240-mm mortar shells alone, and countless large-caliber grenades.

Fortunately, none of these munitions are needed, and what is needed is supplies for humanitarian relief, especially medicines and medical equipment for wound treatment. Of the more than 60,000 Vatican officers and soldiers who surrendered, more than 10,000 were wounded, and thousands of wounded were captured before that.

In addition to setting up a field hospital in the prisoner of war camp to treat wounded prisoners of war on the spot, Fu Weimin had to arrange for helicopters to send some of the seriously wounded, especially officers, to the rear, and let the logistics troops transport equipment to the front line to build a temporary camp, and build a camp outside Jaiselmeier as soon as possible. Not only to settle prisoners of war, but also to build a transit center here to support the next offensive operations.

Don't forget, Ding Zhennan arranged for the 17th Panzer Division to storm Jaiselmer, which was the railroad that connected to Jaipur.

To support 50,000 troops fighting on the front line, it was necessary to control the railway.

If we rely entirely on highways, even if all the way is unimpeded, we will have to mobilize more support personnel and increase the burden of logistical support.

It's just that there's a key issue here.

How can supplies be delivered from the forward base near the Pakistan-rail border to Jaiselmer?

To the east of Jaiselmer, there was not even a road, not to mention a railway, only a desert road trodden by caravans to the border town of Shaghel.

In fact, the 17th Panzer Division marched along this desert road to Jaiselmer.

It's just that the capacity of this road is extremely poor.

Not to mention anything else, but in the past few days, in order to deliver ammunition and supplies to the front line, the 178th Logistics Support Brigade has broken thousands of tires on this desert road. In order to allow the convoy to pass smoothly, the 178th Brigade also set up more than a dozen repair stations along the route to deal with broken vehicles.

However, compared to the rate of attrition of the 17th Panzer Division, the supplies provided by the desert roads were actually a drop in the bucket.

The 17th Armored Division has been preparing for several months, and it is only in the case of a large explosion of transportation capacity that it can rush all the way to Jaiselmeier, and this state of explosion will definitely not be able to be maintained for a long time. According to pre-war estimates, if no means were taken to increase the capacity, the delivery of supplies by desert roads would have been reduced by two-thirds after the 25th. By December, it will be reduced by half, and by then it will be possible to maintain a maximum of one brigade fighting on the front line.

Fortunately, Ding Zhennan had long considered this problem, or the Imperial Army had always had great worries about the logistics support in wartime.

Of course, the concern before that was not to fight in the Van Rou Desert in the Southern Subcontinent.

To tell the truth, before the outbreak of the Third Global War, the Imperial Army did not regard the Southern Subcontinent as a major battlefield, and never took the Vatican Army seriously.

In the past few decades, the Imperial Army has always been mainly engaged in the continental theater, and it has to face a very acute problem in the strategic defense phase, as well as in the subsequent strategic counterattack phase. How can we overcome geographical obstacles and deliver supplies to combat troops hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away?

Actually, this is not just a problem for the Imperial Army.

For decades, the Imperial Air Force insisted on developing transport aviation and building the world's largest transport fleet, which also had a lot to do with this.

Of course, the Imperial Army was also figuring out a way.

For the continental battlefield, especially in winter operations, the Imperial Army developed several tracked transporters that could drive on the snow fields and have a good carrying capacity.

In addition, investment was made in the development of engineering equipment capable of quickly paving roads in wartime.

If anything, that's the point.

It was originally conceived that the main operational directions would be to augment the field transport capacity by paving roads, and the tracked transport vehicles would only be responsible for delivering supplies to remote defensive positions. Although it is still necessary to rely on the existing railways and highways, and it is certainly impossible to build a complete battlefield transportation system with temporarily paved roads, the main value of battlefield roads is actually to solve the problem of the last few tens of kilometers of the forward position.

In the traditional battlefield transportation system, it is actually the last few tens of kilometers that limit the transportation efficiency.

If the last few tens of kilometers can only be carried on the shoulders or on animal power, then no matter how fast the supplies can be delivered to the terminal of the railway, it will be of no use to the front-line combat troops, and the efficiency of the entire supply chain will naturally not be much higher.

In essence, a field road is actually an elongated runway for a field airfield, and even the paving materials used are exactly the same as those used for field airfields. The difference, i.e. the width is only 5 meters, and the roadbed does not have to be tamped before the pavement is laid.

As a result, the carrying capacity of the field road is very limited, not only can not allow tanks and combat vehicles to pass, but also has to limit the single-axle load capacity of military trucks to less than 10 tons. However, because there is no need to tamp the roadbed, the difficulty of engineering work is greatly reduced, and the speed of laying can be accelerated. Under normal circumstances, an engineering battalion is capable of laying 20 kilometers of field roads in one day.

In fact, in the hinterland of the huge continent, there is no need to tamp the roadbed in winter. In spring, especially during the rainy season at the turn of spring and summer, even if the roadbed is tamped, it is meaningless, after all, the rain that lasts for more than ten days, or even dozens of days, can turn any field project into a muddy swamp.

It is also the lowering of the load standard, so the field road is particularly suitable for use in harsh environments.

In the hinterland of the continental battlefield, the imperial army laid dozens of field roads, which greatly eased the burden of supporting the front-line defense bases.

In addition, it also provided a strong guarantee for the upcoming winter counterattack operation.

Obviously, the same is true here in the Southern Subcontinent.

In the early morning of the 17th, that is, after the 17th Armored Division launched an attack, the 1717th Special Engineering Battalion, which was temporarily dispatched and directly subordinate to the division headquarters, was mobilized and set off in front of the main force. However, after a few hours, it was overtaken by the main forces.

The battalion's mission was to convert the desert road to Jaiselmeir into a field road.

According to the plan, this field road can be completed on the 27th at the earliest, and at the latest on the 30th, and then it will be able to deliver combat materials to Jaiselmeier with no less than 300 vehicles per day, that is, 6,000 tons per day, which is almost two-thirds of the average daily consumption of the 17th Armored Division.

The other third, as for it, can only be flown by helicopter and transport aircraft.

It was precisely because of this that even if Jaiselmel was captured on the 22nd, the 17th Panzer Division would only send the vanguard to advance eastward.

In order to avoid premature encounters with the main force of the Vatican army, Fu Weimin also specially told the commander of the vanguard to control the speed of the march.

It must be said that Fu Weimin's worries are not unreasonable.

In Jodhpur there are more than a dozen divisions of the Central Army of the Vatican Army, and several of them must be ace armored divisions, and their combat effectiveness should definitely not be underestimated.

Crucially, after the fall of Jaiselmer, the Vatican army will definitely transfer a part of its combat forces from Jodhpur to the north to reinforce Pelodi and hold this town of great military value, preventing the 17th Panzer Division from moving north to attack Bikaner, which is located east of the city.

In addition, reconnaissance intelligence provided by the Air Force has also confirmed that as early as the 19th, a Vatican armored unit left Jodhpur.

Because there were still more than 200 kilometers away from Pelodi, even if the vanguard of the 17th Panzer Division attacked at full speed, it would not be able to reach the Van army in time.

What's more, between Polodi and Jaiselmeier, there is also Bogren, which is guarded by the Vatican army.

As a result, the vanguard of more than 100 kilometers from Jaiselmeier to Bogren, consisting of five battalions, walked for three days and arrived on the afternoon of the 25th.

It's just that what happened next took the officers and soldiers of the vanguard by surprise.

While the vanguard was preparing for the attack, the mayor of Borglenn came to the front and told the front commander that the Vatican troops stationed here had been evacuated three days earlier, and all of them had gone to Polodi, and that all those who remained in the town were old and young, women and children, hoping that the imperial army would open the net.

The Vatican army retreated without a fight!?

After the capture of Borglen, the front-line commander contacted Fu Weimin and suggested that the Vatican army was likely to hold on to Pelodi, and that the vanguard should rush over as soon as possible. Even if there is no way to defeat Pelody's Van army, it can still hold back the Van army and create favorable conditions for the next attack on Polodi.

It's a pity that Fu Weimin didn't agree, but let the vanguard stay in Bogren and wait for the big army to arrive.

If you want to say, Fu Weimin's decision is not wrong.

The Van army would definitely defend Pelaudius and intend to fight the 17th Panzer Division here, and several divisions were already in place before the 25th. If the vanguard rushes over, even if it stays on the periphery and does not take the initiative to attack, it may be besieged by the Van army.

Crucially, Peloddy is another tough bone after Jaiselmeer.

Although Pellody's defense deployment is far inferior to that of Jaiselmeer, after all, there has been no military invasion of Van Roe in the past few decades, but it is the main force of the Central Army that is stationed in Pelodi, and it is actually the border guards deployed in Jaiselmeier.

Even the 11th Armored Division and the 34th Mechanized Infantry Division were only incorporated into the Central Army not long ago and upgraded to the main force, and the three armored battalions assigned to the 11th Armored Division were all from other units of the Central Army, and the main battle equipment, including the M1A1, was only transferred after the outbreak of the war. Otherwise, the 11th Panzer Division and the 34th Mechanized Infantry Division would not have fared so badly in Jaiselmeier.

Obviously, the combat effectiveness of the Central Army and the border guards is not at all on the same level.

There is enough reason to believe that attacking Pelodi is a tough battle.

In addition, there is a key factor in this.

The Vatican army had at least three divisions from Jodhpur to reinforce the Polodi, and they were probably all ace armored units, so they had to be annihilated at the Polodi.

If these 3 ace troops are allowed to slip away, such as retreating to Jodhpur, then the next attack on Jodhpur will lead to even greater trouble.

Don't forget that Jodhpur is the most important military fortress to the south of Jaipur, and the Vatican army will inevitably defend it.

Unless a major change in the battle plan was made, the 17th Panzer Division would have to take Jodhpur before it could advance into Jaipur.

It can be seen that no matter how difficult it is, the Vatican army of Pelodi must be surrounded and annihilated.

Until then, we must not be caught aware.

As a result, it was not until the 28th that the main forces of the 17th Panzer Division, the 171st Panzer Brigade and the 174th Mechanized Infantry Brigade to be precise, reached Bogren.

That's fast enough, if anything.

Do not forget that the field road was only repaired to Jaiselmer on the 27th, and the 2 combat brigades completed the supply in only one day and marched more than 100 kilometers.

With the arrival of the main forces, the vanguard left Borglen on the night of the 28th.

In fact, the five battalions that make up the vanguard are all from the 171st Armored Brigade and the 174th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, that is, these two brigades are the ones who rushed to the front. As for the other 3 combat brigades, they departed from Jaiselmeir only on the night of the 28th, about 1 day later than the vanguard.

Of course, in the days before that, the Air Force and Army had been bombing Pelodi.

Probably the air attack was very fierce, and it was also related to the previous battle, that is, in Jaiselmeier, it was through fierce air strikes that the main force of the Vatican army was incapacitated, so when marching into Pelodi, including Fu Weimin, no one thought that it would encounter stubborn resistance, or no one thought that the Van army could organize a campaign-level counterattack under the condition of high-intensity air strikes.

The officers and men of the 17th Panzer Division also made a very serious mistake by ignoring a strong enemy who threatened even greater, but had not shown itself in that direction before.

That's right, it's the Nuland Expeditionary Air Force.

It was precisely in this way that on the night of the 28th, no one thought that the 171st Armored Brigade and the 174th Mechanized Infantry Brigade were rushing towards the enemy's carefully arranged battlefield in the Sea of Blood.