In just one night, Astrakhan's outer defenses were broken by the enemy, beyond everyone's expectations.

Thankfully, the situation is not as bad as it seems.

In order to break through this line of defense, the Xilu Group also paid an extremely heavy price.

After dawn, the Air Force dispatched reconnaissance planes to conduct an all-area reconnaissance of the front on the east bank of the Volga River.

The Western Continent Group mobilized not only three armored brigades, but also one army-affiliated artillery brigade, one rocket artillery battalion, and at least three battalion-level low-altitude assault units.

The total number of troops participating in the battle exceeded 18,000, and countless types of main battle weapons were used.

Of these, there are more than 500 main battle tanks alone.

Near the main position at the eastern end of the line alone, there were close to the wreckage of 100 T-series main battle tanks, and near the main position at the western end, there were even more wreckage of tank fighting vehicles.

The three armored brigades invested by the Western Continent Group have basically lost their combat capability.

So far, on this offensive route from Volgograd to Astrakhan alone, the Western Continent Group lost almost 1000 main battle tanks.

Here's the key.

In this direction, the Western Continent Group has a total of only 3 division-level armored units, and even if you count other units, the main battle tanks that can be used are between 1,500 and 1,800. The point is that hundreds of tanks have been lost in previous battles.

That is, the Western Continent group, in this direction, lost about two-thirds of its main battle tanks.

This means that the ground forces of the Western Continent Group have basically lost their ability to attack, and even if they can still attack, it will be the end of the crossbow.

Now, there are only two options before the Sairiku group.

The first is to attack Astrakhan without adequate preparation, and fight to the death against the defenders of the Eastern Bloc, who will not surrender, in this city that has been turned into a fortress.

It may be possible to take Astrakhan, or it may suffer a strategic defeat here.

The second is to temporarily stop the offensive and wait for the reserves to catch up, and then attack Astrakhan.

Obviously, commanders with a little brains will choose the latter.

But the question is, when will the reserves keep up?

Although in all directions, the armies of the Western Continent Group had made breakthroughs, the losses were not small, and the reserves were used in advance.

On the side of Novorossiysk, for example, the reserves have replaced the main forces.

If it's just one direction that goes wrong, there's nothing to worry about.

In the early stage of the offensive, it is actually the campaign-level reserve, that is, the reserve at the group army level, whose main task is to provide support for the main force in the battle-level battle to ensure that the campaign objectives are achieved.

Above, there are strategic reserves.

In the West Luosha Army, the Strategic Reserve is the 9th Army.

The army group was deployed west of Volgograd, had a peacetime strength rate of 60 percent, and was able to complete mobilization within 72 hours and reach full strength.

The key is that the group army has a full set of main battle equipment and can go to the battlefield after completing mobilization.

Before the outbreak of the war, the army group had completed its mobilization, with a total strength of 150,000 troops, and its main force was 1 armored division and 3 infantry divisions.

Here, 3 infantry divisions are lightly armored units.

In fact, this is also a characteristic of the reserve force, which has a strong strategic mobility capability and is able to appear in key places at critical moments.

But the problem is that there is only such a 1 army group.

In the battle plan of the Western Luosha Army, the number one task of the 9th Army was to assist the 1st Army in the front to attack Astrakhan, or to continue to attack eastward before the Eastern Group completed its deployment adjustment after the 1st Army took Astrakhan.

When there is a problem in all directions, relying only on 1 group army is definitely a drop in the bucket.

Besides, the 9th Army itself is not very strong.

Among the five main armies in Xiluosha, the strongest was definitely the 1st Army, which not only had a staggering 350,000 troops at full strength, but also had a peacetime rate of 95 percent, and was able to fight at almost any time, and there was no problem of taking time to mobilize.

The other three main army groups have a total strength of between 250,000 and 300,000, and the establishment rate is not less than 90%.

It can be seen that the 9th Army was the weakest.

Now, it is obviously difficult to rely on the 9th Army to plug all the loopholes.

What's even worse is that in the first phase of the strategic offensive, the number one task of the Western Luosha Army is not to take Astrakhan in the north of the broad sea, but to march into Novorossiysk, seize this port in the northeast of the Mohai Sea, and cut off the shipping route between the Liangxia Empire and the Eastern Luosha.

The ultimate goal is still to sweep away the shackles of roads and bridges, and attack and occupy the Badong oil fields.

In order to achieve its goal, the Western Continent Group not only invested two main army groups in the direction of the shackled land bridge, that is, the 3rd and 7th Group Armies, but also invested nearly half of the supplies, and even the 9th Army sent a mechanized infantry division over to guard the logistics supply line.

In addition, the offensive operations on the side of the land bridge took up too much transport force.

As a result, when the advance on Astrakhan ran into trouble, the Western Continent simply did not have enough capacity to send the reserves up.

Of course, there are not enough reserves available.

If you want to say, this is the credit of the Imperial Air Force.

In the previous days, the tactical aviation of the Imperial Air Force was dominated by interdiction bombing.

Although it suffered extremely heavy losses, hundreds of multi-role fighters were shot down alone, and one large early warning command plane was lost because of a sneak attack, and nearly 1,000 pilots were killed and missing, but the results achieved were also outstanding, destroying about two-thirds of the locomotives within a range of 1,500 kilometers, destroying countless train cars, and by bombing bridges and tunnels, the volume of railway transportation from the hinterland of Xiluosha to the front line was directly reduced by 6 percent. And it is difficult to recover in a period of time.

Relying on road transport is better than nothing.

Although the armored forces mainly rely on roads to advance, in a large-scale war, they still have to rely mainly on railways, and roads are auxiliary.

This is also the basic situation of the continental battlefield.

On the east and west banks of the Volga, traffic is based on railways, which are connected by road from stations along the way, and then by road.

Both the attackers and the defenders are highly dependent on the railway.

The reason is also very simple, in the hinterland of the mainland, where shipping and inland shipping are unreliable, only railways can undertake massive transportation tasks.

And, of course, there is the question of troops.

With the current situation, Xi Luosha can send up to two divisions of the 9th Army, which will take at least three days, and there is no guarantee that these two divisions will receive sufficient supplies. Based on the performance of the previous days, such as the combat loss rate, 2 divisions will definitely not help.

In order to maintain the offensive momentum, it is necessary to rely on the other countries of the Western Continent Group, especially the Empire.

According to the information obtained by the Military Intelligence Agency, the Empire and other members of the Western Continent Group made a commitment to Xiluosha that they would send ground troops to the war after the war began.

The key is how many troops to send into battle.

According to a more reliable theory, the Riman Empire will invest at least one army, while the other major member states, namely the Raleigh Kingdom, the Locke Kingdom, the Spann Kingdom and the Bran Kingdom, will not invest less than one division, and many second-rate allies will also invest more troops above the brigade level.

If this is the case, the strength provided by the allies is about 2 armies.

In fact, most of these troops are the occupation forces deployed in West Luosha, and only the armies of the Locke Kingdom and the Bran Kingdom are not deployed in the territory of West Luosha.

2 armies are not small, not to mention that they are both elite troops that have been deployed on the front line for a long time.

But the problem is that the combat units of these allies are actually strategic reserves, and they will not participate in the first round of assault missions in the plan.

The reason for this is that the armies of the allies need more time to complete the pre-war mobilization.

Even the garrison, which has a high level of daily combat readiness, takes a week to complete the mobilization and then a few days to the front.

For this reason, the time when the allied forces of the Western Continent Group entered the war on a large scale was actually half a month after the start of the war.

If anything, the West Luosha Army is also prepared according to this standard, that is, the first round of assault lasts 15 days, and the minimum goal is to capture Astrakhan.

After taking the city, you can stop and wait for reinforcements from your allies to arrive.

The problem now is that the army of Western Luosha will not be able to take Astrakhan in 15 days in any case, and it will not be possible to complete the combat mission as planned.

Wait for reinforcements from your allies to arrive before attacking?

Obviously, this is very unrealistic.

The key is that the Eastern Bloc will not sit idly by, and in addition to using this time to strengthen its defensive deployments, it may also launch a counterattack.

If the Eastern Bloc is allowed to launch a counterattack smoothly, the consequences will be unimaginable.

At that time, even if it withstands the counterattack of the Eastern Bloc, it can only abandon offensive operations and switch to strategic defense in advance.

Unfortunately, this is also the result that the West Luosha authorities are most reluctant to accept.

Perhaps, the Empire wanted to use this war to eliminate the internal contradictions of the Western Continent Group and consolidate its own position, so as to maintain its hegemony.

However, what the authorities in Xiluosha want to achieve is to reunify themselves.

It is necessary not only to take Astrakhan, but also to occupy the entire Eastern Luosha.

Switch to defense in advance, then Xi Luosha will get nothing.

Between continuing the offensive and halting the advance, the authorities in West Luosha will inevitably choose the former, even if they know that they will lose the opportunity for a greater victory.

Combined with the battlefield information obtained by the Air Force, it is not difficult to judge that the enemy will stay for a day at most, and perhaps after half a day, he will launch a new attack.

It's just that the number of troops invested will not be too much.

The Eastern Bloc was also unable to devote enough troops to withstand the enemy's attack.

It is precisely like this, on the morning of the 13th, after returning to Atyrau, Lian Mingyang received news from Zheng Zhishuang that they had half a day to adjust their status.

The loss of helicopter gunships, don't think about it for the time being.

Not to mention the "Z-10A", now there is not even a "Z-7W", and it is expected to wait until the end of the month at the earliest, and it is expected to receive a replenished armed helicopter.

However, there are enough transport helicopters, and there is a lack of pilots.

The helicopters were all transported by rail, and mainly "Z-4", some of which were even semi-mothballed.

In fact, these helicopters were originally stored in the desert east of Dongluosha.

With the exception of the early models, the Z-4, which was produced and equipped in the late stages of the Polish-Iranian War, was mothballed after being decommissioned and stored in the Kizilkum Desert in East Luosha

The reason is simple: it is the driest place in the world, with less than 40 mm of annual precipitation.

The so-called "sealing" is actually to dismantle the vulnerable parts, do anti-rust treatment, and then wrap them in canvas, rather than really sealing.

Because it is very dry, it is not a big problem even if it is placed in the open air.

After unsealing, it is only necessary to do the necessary inspections, replace the consumables that are easy to age, and carry out the necessary tests, and then it can be delivered to the troops.

More than a dozen Z-4Ds have been assembled and overhauled.

Lian Mingyang did not compete with other pilots, not because he was generous, but because the "Z-10A" he piloted exploded an engine on the way back, and it would not be repaired at all for a while and a half.

For Lian Mingyang, flying the "Z-4D" did not have any challenges.

"Z-4D" is a trainer helicopter of the Imperial Army Flight Academy, all pilots have to fly this helicopter for 50 hours before graduation, before they can participate in the final assessment, and in dozens of flight assessment projects, this helicopter is also used.

For the same reason, the "Z-4D" is not only cheap, but also very durable.

In fact, the weapon operator also needs to master the flying skills, because in special situations, the weapon operator needs to fly the helicopter.

Because he only controls the helicopter at an emergency moment, a weapon operator like Jiang Shanggui also receives flight training on the "Z-4D". In peacetime, weapons operators undergo an annual training camp, the main of which consists of flying a helicopter alone.

Here, Lian Mingyang received a new task.

Do your best to deliver troops and supplies to Astrakhan, and pick up the seriously wounded on the return voyage and take them to the field hospital in the rear.

Don't look at the "Z-4D" can only carry more than 1 ton of cargo at a time, but it only takes 2 hours to fly back and forth.

The key is that the "Zhi-4D" is known for its solid skin.

During the Polish-Iranian War, the Z-4D proved to be an extremely reliable transport helicopter with extremely high sortie intensity. In the combat record of the Imperial Army Aviation, one "Z-4D" set a record of 42 sorties and a total of 56 flight hours in three days of fighting.

So far, this record has not been broken!

In the words of the Army pilot, as long as the pilot does not get tired, then the "Z-4D" can fly all the time!

Without this extremely reliable helicopter, the Polish-Iranian War would not have lasted more than a decade, and at most it would only take a few years to force the Reich to withdraw.

In fact, it is precisely because of its reliability that the Imperial Army has mothballed most of the "Z-4D".

Now, these mothballed helicopters are starting to show their residual heat.

After receiving the task, Lian Mingyang and Jiang Shanggui went to "receive" a "Z-4D", and then recruited 2 machine gunners in the ground support unit.

Subsequently, when the logistics support troops were loaded with goods, the two rushed to breakfast.

As for the installation of the door machine gun, the machine gunner is responsible, and there is no need for the pilot to personally ask about it, and it is not too late to check it when it is time to set off.

At this time, it was already past 10 o'clock in the morning.

In fact, when they stopped, Lian Mingyang and Jiang Shanggui felt hungry, as if their whole body had been hollowed out, and they didn't have any strength in their bodies.