In the early hours of 17 September, after six days of preparation, the third phase of the Polish-Iranian War, the liberation of Kuwait and the ground war against Iraq, began.

At 2 o'clock in the morning, Ding Zhennan gave the signal that the combat operation had officially begun.

The first to be carried out is still the preparation of firepower in the early stage, with the aviation unit fighting the main force.

Although the main force on the Posha Bay side is naval aviation, six carrier-based aircraft wings deployed at ground bases, the air force has not left it alone, and still has enough support aircraft, including eight "Finger-8C" and dozens of large tankers equipped with hose refueling systems.

In addition, there are 3 "Finger-10A".

In addition to the one that was the first to be stationed at King Khalid Military City and participated in the early strikes, the other two were stationed last month.

Previously, these three joint command aircraft played a key role in the search for Iraq's ballistic missile launchers.

For more than a month, the search for and elimination of Iraq's ballistic missile launchers had been the number one task of the coalition forces.

After the complete defeat of the air force and the destruction of the air defense system, short- and medium-range ballistic missiles became the only counterattack weapon of the Hussein junta.

Of course, there is a great threat from these thousands of ballistic missiles.

In early August, the Iraqi army launched a series of missile attacks, all of which were aimed at major cities such as the capital of Saudi Arabia.

In the Iran-Iraq war, more than 80 percent of the thousands of ballistic missiles fired by both sides were fired at each other's cities, and less than 20 percent were used to strike military targets.

Actual combat has long proven that these ballistic missiles, with an error of several hundred meters or even thousands of meters, are not suitable for dealing with small point targets, and the effect of striking cities is more ideal, and attacking cities can hit the fighting spirit and confidence of the people of the enemy country.

Fortunately, during that time, the Imperial Air Force and Navy went all out to destroy all the fixed-deployment ballistic missile launchers, as well as hundreds of ballistic missiles that had not had time to be transferred, leaving Iraq without the ability to launch a large-scale missile attack.

The ballistic missiles fired at Saudi Arabia either missed their targets or were intercepted by the "sharpshooters".

It's just that the Iraqi army still has dozens of missile launchers.

These missile launchers have become a major problem for the coalition forces.

On the night of 13 August, Iraqi forces launched a surprise attack by firing a ballistic missile with a range of 900 kilometres from a launch position deployed in the northern part of the mainland to a coalition camp in northern Saudi Arabia, near the border.

This camp is close to the border and is not under the protection of the "archers".

At that time, the Imperial Air Force deployed only 3 sets of "Sharpshooter" air defense systems in Saudi Arabia, respectively to protect the capital Riyadh, the King Khalid Military City, where the headquarters of the coalition forces is located, and the equally important port of Dammam, and there was no redundant "Sharpshooter" system to protect the combat units deployed at the front.

Besides, the Imperial Air Force did not develop and purchase the "Sharpshooter" air defense system to protect field troops.

The point is that the ballistic missile did not deviate from its target.

This is a "Hussein" ballistic missile produced on the basis of the "Scud", in order to achieve a range of 900 kilometers, the warhead weighing 1 ton has been reduced to less than 500 kilograms, and several hundred kilograms of extra fuel has been carried, and almost nothing else has been changed.

Theoretically, the deviation of this missile in the maximum range is more than 500 meters, and it is even possible to reach 1000 meters.

As a result, the missile directly hit the barracks, which is less than 100,000 square meters, and it happened to land in the barracks area.

This missile alone killed more than 300 officers and soldiers and injured nearly 1,000 people!

And that's not all.

A week later, another Hussein missile hit a foreign affairs hotel in downtown Riyadh, less than 1,000 meters from the Liangxia embassy. In addition to hundreds of casualties, a large number of buildings were destroyed and the impact was devastating.

After the incident, the king of Saudi Arabia left the royal palace on the outskirts of Riyadh with the members of the royal family and hid in the desert.

About half a month later, after the Imperial Air Force deployed an additional "Sharpshooter" system and intensified the hunting of missile launchers, King Saudi returned to Riyadh.

In fact, it is very likely that this missile went to the embassy in Liangxia.

In fact, this attack is tantamount to proving that the "Sharpshooter" is not a flawless anti-missile system, and there are still many flaws.

Although according to the information released by the Imperial Air Force, the "Sharpshooter" has a single-shot interception rate of up to 80 percent against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles such as the "Scud" and "Hussein" with a range of less than 1,000 kilometers, in fact, it has not even reached 40 percent.

It is often necessary to intercept one missile with two "sharpshooters" to have a probability of about 60% of the shot.

Of course, it can also be said that there is a difference in statistical caliber, that is, the Imperial Air Force counts those ballistic missiles that have been intercepted and then deviated from the target in the range of "shot down", and many of these missiles actually deviate from the target because of too large a mistake.

In addition, the damage effect of the "Sharpshooter" on ballistic missiles is not very satisfactory.

The most important thing is actually to use the fragmentation warhead used in anti-aircraft missiles, relying on the fragments generated by the explosion to destroy the target.

Against aircraft tens of kilometers, or even hundreds of kilometers away, the fragmentation warhead is completely sufficient.

However, it is certainly not enough to deal with ballistic missiles that have already reached the sky overhead and are diving down at 10 or even 20 times the speed of sound.

Many of the intercepted "Scuds" and "Hussein", even if they were hit by the "Sharpshooters", their wreckage fell near the target.

According to unconfirmed information, the missile that hit the "Imperial Hotel" in Riyadh has been intercepted, hitting the hotel by a fuel tank that fell off the body of the missile after being intercepted, and there was also some toxic chemical fuel inside.

In any case, Iraq's ballistic missiles are indeed a serious problem.

In order to deal with these ballistic missiles, and in order to stabilize Saudi Arabia and other allies, the Imperial Air Force has invested dozens of "Battle-16A" to hunt and kill ballistic missile launchers.

Of course, we also achieved very good results.

By September, in the first half month, the number of ballistic missile strikes had significantly decreased, and it was less than a third of what it was in August.

A key role is played by the Finger-10A joint command aircraft.

According to the battle report submitted by the Imperial Air Force, almost two-thirds of the missile launchers were discovered by the "Zh-10A" and guided by the "Zh-16A" to launch an attack.

Of course, the value of the Finger-10A doesn't stop there.

As the world's first joint command aircraft, the Finger-10A is an indispensable air command platform in the air-ground joint operations vigorously promoted by the Empire.

To put it simply, the "Finger-10A" is the link and bridge between the Air Force and the Army.

Although the "Finger-10A" is assigned to the Air Force, on each "Finger-10A" there are several army officers responsible for coordination.

Assisting the Army in winning a ground war is the number one task of the Finger-10A.

As for guiding the fighters and attack planes of the Air Force to carry out ground strike missions, even if there is no "Finger-10A" and "Finger-8C", it can be done.

After entering the stage of ground warfare, the value of the "Finger-10A" was demonstrated.

More than three hours before dawn, more than 300 "Zhan-12," "Attack-5," and "Attack-6" sorties, under the guidance of the "Finger-10A," concentrated on bombing the Iraqi troops entrenched in Kuwait and the elite units deployed in southern Iraq.

In just over three hours, thousands of military targets were destroyed.

To say, this is largely the credit of the intelligence agencies.

Without accurate intelligence, there is absolutely no way to achieve such a high strike efficiency.

This is also the main work of the military intelligence agencies headed by the Military Intelligence Agency, as well as the intelligence services of the Joint Forces, in the past month or so.

Seek out and calibrate suspicious targets and confirm the nature of suspicious targets.

In addition, it has a lot to do with the large-scale use of precision-guided munitions.

Of the more than 300 fighters dispatched, half were "Zhan-12", and almost all of them used laser-guided bombs.

In fact, the "Zhan-12" is the only carrier-based aircraft equipped by the Imperial Naval Air Force that can use laser-guided bombs on its own.

The key is actually a tactical reconnaissance pod jointly developed by the Air Force and the Navy.

This tactical reconnaissance pod is a set of two, one of which is equipped with a multi-spectrum camera, which can be used day and night, and can display the captured images directly on the screen of a combat aircraft with supporting equipment. The other one, which is equipped with a high-power laser designator, also has a ranging function, and can irradiate targets 20 kilometers away, while the throwing distance of laser-guided bombs generally does not exceed 20 kilometers.

At present, only the "Battle-10", "Battle-12" and "Battle-16" multi-role fighters can be used for the time being.

Not because the tactical reconnaissance pod is too big, but because it needs data bus support. For older fighters and attack aircraft that do not have a data bus, they cannot directly use tactical reconnaissance pods, so even if they are equipped with laser-guided bombs, they need to be cooperated with other combat aircraft.

It is precisely for this reason that in the air strike stage, the "Attack-5" and "Attack-6" and other old attack aircraft are almost all using unguided bombs to fight. Even if laser-guided bombs had to be used, they would form a formation of two bombs, one of which would be used exclusively to illuminate the target with a laser designator.

For this purpose, the Imperial Navy specially developed a laser designation pod that did not require a data bus.

The large-scale use of laser-guided bombs can be regarded as the experience of the Imperial Air Force in improving strike efficiency summed up by actual combat in the past month before this.

In the battle to hunt missile launchers, the "Battle-16A" mainly uses laser-guided bombs.

In addition, the Air Force found that laser-guided bombs have the ability to deal with low-altitude, slow-flying targets.

According to operational reports, on at least 2 occasions, the "Battle-16A" attacked enemy helicopters with laser-guided bombs, and also destroyed them. In one case, because the helicopter flew close to the ground, and at noon, the temperature on the desert surface was too high for the fighter jet's combat missile to lock onto the helicopter, and then the pilot authorized the weapon operator in the back seat to launch an attack with a laser-guided bomb.

Of course, the greatest value of laser-guided bombs is actually to enable combat aircraft to drop bombs at medium and high altitudes that are beyond the reach of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns and individual anti-aircraft missiles, and to ensure sufficient hitting accuracy, and there is no longer a need to risk at low altitudes in order to improve hitting accuracy.

If anything, that's the point.

In the past month or so, especially after the end of the first phase of air strikes, almost all of the combat planes lost by the coalition forces were shot down by small-caliber anti-aircraft guns or individual anti-aircraft missiles when flying at ultra-low or low altitudes, and almost all of them were ambushed.

Up to now, the only anti-aircraft weapons that the Iraqi army can use are small-caliber antiaircraft guns and individual anti-aircraft missiles.

It is precisely for this reason that in late August, the Air Force explicitly demanded that all combat patrols carried out theater patrol missions should not fly at an altitude of less than 6,000 meters, and the bomb drop altitude should not be less than 4,000 meters. After the loss of several fighters, the latter was also raised to 5000 meters.

To put it bluntly, as long as you fly high enough, you don't have to worry about being knocked down.

Of course, this also means that ground strike operations rely more on laser-guided bombs.

Dropping a bomb at an altitude of 5,000 meters, even if a bomb with wind deviation correction ability is used, the deviation of its landing point may exceed 200 meters.

Fortunately, after the outbreak of the Great War, especially after the Imperial Military increased the scale of procurement, the price of laser guidance components has dropped.

Here, it must be admitted that the Imperial Air Force and Naval Aviation were indeed prescient.

In the development of guided weapons, the Air Force and the Navy clearly demanded that they must use ammunition from their stocks, especially several standard-caliber bombs.

The point is, the inventory is just too big!

Before the Poshawan War, there were about 16 million 500-kilogram bombs in stockpile, and 20 million 250-kilogram bombs.

If anything, this is still an all-time low for inventories.

Because of the staggering amount of ammunition consumed and the fact that no one believed it would end soon, by the end of the Polish-Iraqi War, the total number of bombs in the Reich's stockpile exceeded 50 million tons. At that time, the ammunition stored at the forward bases alone exceeded 15 million tons.

The point is also that in the case of mothballing, the "shelf life" of these bombs is at least 50 years.

Obviously, you can't just scrap it and dispose of it.

In addition, 250 kg, 500 kg, 1,000 kg and 2,000 kg are the standard calibers of the Eastern Bloc, and all combat aircraft are designed to carry these bombs. For example, the load-bearing capacity of fighters and attack aircraft is based on the caliber of the bomb.

That is, there is no talk of scrapping bombs of these calibers.

Even if it is consumed, the same bombs will be produced in the future.

It is precisely for this reason that the Imperial Air Force and the Navy have made it clear that these stockpiled bombs will be turned into guided bombs by developing guidance components.

Of course, the so-called guidance assembly is mainly a seeker and the aerodynamic surface controlled by the seeker.

The guidance assembly for bombs of the 500 kg class, with a mass of less than 50 kg, does not exceed the upper limit of redundancy, can be used directly on pylons with standard interfaces.

Of course, the biggest benefit of using guidance components is actually to make guided bombs cheaper.

Before the outbreak of the Great War, the price of a 500-kilogram laser-guided bomb was 50,000 gold dollars, and after the outbreak of the Great War, it was directly reduced to 5,000 gold dollars. When production ramps up, that is, when the scale of production is expanded, the purchase price of guidance components will be reduced by two-thirds.

Since it's so cheap, there's no reason not to use it in large quantities!

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