Although as soon as he received the news, Lei Zhenting contacted the officers and soldiers of the third squad who stayed at Nanqiaotou and sent the three special forces back, but he still couldn't catch up, and before the three special forces returned to Nanqiaotou, the battle on the south bank began.

The special forces fired first, not with general-purpose machine guns, but with anti-tank missiles.

Even on the north bank of the Euphrates, you can clearly see the fire from the explosion when the missile hits the target.

Now, a fierce battle is inevitable.

With this colleague, the command of the coalition forces in the military city of King Khaled.

When Ding Zhennan arrived, the staff officer was processing the information he had just received, and the battlefield information was displayed on the projection screen in the middle.

The first to discover the enemy's situation was the "Finger-10A," which patrolled more than 200 kilometers southeast of the battlefield.

At around 5:40 a.m., a convoy of Iraqi army armoured vehicles appeared on the southern bank of Shinafiyah and headed quickly towards the Euphrates River bridge.

In total, there were 5 two-axle wheeled armored vehicles, which were supposed to be an armored reconnaissance unit.

When he received the news, Ding Zhennan realized that this armored reconnaissance unit must have set off from Sinafye in the middle of the night yesterday to carry out a reconnaissance mission on the south bank of the Euphrates River before the "Finger-10A" of the coalition forces took advantage of the change of shift of the coalition forces' joint command planes.

Otherwise, it would not have been possible for 5 armored vehicles to leave Sinafye unnoticed.

Actually, this illustrates a very serious problem.

There are too few joint command aircraft!

In the direction of Posha Bay, there were only 3 "Finger-10A" in total.

Although theoretically, the three joint command planes can maintain 24-hour uninterrupted patrols in the direction of a campaign, they can only last for seven days at most, that is, after a short period of deployment, it will definitely need to carry out comprehensive maintenance that takes a longer time, and there is no way to ensure continuous sorties.

It is precisely for this that 4 joint command aircraft are often deployed in one campaign direction.

In addition, on the side of Posha Bay, there are actually 2 battle directions. The southern area is centered on bus X, and the central area around Bag X.

The spatial span of the two campaign directions exceeded 350 kilometers.

If anything, this is already beyond the coverage of the "Finger-10A", and 4 joint command aircraft should be deployed in each of the two tactical directions.

It's a pity that the Air Force simply doesn't have that many joint command aircraft. The newly produced "Finger-10A" must be given priority to the Northwest Theater, and then the southern subcontinent must be considered, not to mention obtaining 5 aircraft in the near future, and even adding 1 aircraft is unlikely.

In fact, before the ground war began, the Air Force had already sent one additional "Finger-10A" to the Poshawan area.

The staff officer in charge of aviation operations came up with a way to deploy the Finger-10A halfway between Bag X and Bus X, that is, south of Semavo.

In this way, it is possible to take care of both directions at the same time.

However, the problems caused by this are also prominent.

The most serious is the increased workload, which leads to an increase in the failure rate of radars and shortens the deployment time of patrols per sortie.

Although the "Finger-10A" uses an AESA radar with a synthetic aperture imaging function in the X-band, the detection range and detection accuracy are very good, and it can also directly generate images, so that the commander can accurately grasp the battlefield situation, but in order to control the cost, it is also related to the miniaturization technology of electronic equipment is not good enough, and the single-sided array is used to change the pitch angle through a set of mechanical equipment to control the deflection angle, and realize azimuth control. As a result, only one side of the fuselage can be scanned and probed at the same time.

To put it bluntly, even if the "Finger-10A" is deployed between Bag X and Bus X, it cannot monitor both directions at the same time, and it must be emphasized.

Of course, most of the time it's focused on the Bag X direction.

Because of the need to frequently adjust the radar pointing and constantly adjust the flight route, the deployment time of the "Finger-10A" in a mission cycle cannot reach 8 hours at all, usually about 7 hours, resulting in a window period of about half an hour at the time of handover.

In response to this problem, the coalition command made arrangements.

The main thing is to extend or shorten the duration of the mission and schedule the handover at different times, so that the deployment of the joint command aircraft becomes untraceable.

If you don't have a pattern, you can avoid being caught by the enemy.

However, this is only a temporary stopgap measure.

Although Iraq's air defense system has long been destroyed, all long-range air warning and search radars have been destroyed, and there is no way to grasp the movements of the joint command plane, the Iraqi army can obtain battlefield information through other channels, and it is possible to deduce the pattern of the joint command plane's activities.

For example, the reconnaissance satellites of the Republic of Nuland have been monitoring the military city of King Khaled. If we know the timing of the departure and return of the Finger-10A, we will be able to guess when it will be handed over. Another example is the Nuland early warning plane, which has been patrolling near the border in Poland, and can use radar to detect the "Finger-10A" hovering near Nasiriyah, and can also grasp the pattern of its activities.

With the covert support of the Nuland Republic, the Iraqi army will certainly be able to seize the window of time.

Of course, it is also possible that the five armoured reconnaissance vehicles came from the troops on the south bank of the Euphrates, but only after the assault force of the 173rd Mechanized Infantry Brigade approached, they withdrew from the front line and prepared to retreat to the north bank of the Euphrates River to defend the Euphrates bridge with the infantry units there.

In any case, on the south bank of the Euphrates there was only one reinforced infantry battalion.

Even if the battle is very large, the number of troops is so small, if it is a strong attack, it will definitely not be able to take the bridge.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, the processed radar imaging photos were received.

Because of the need for post-processing, such as making the picture clearer, and adding annotations that everyone can understand, it was delayed for more than ten minutes.

The battle has begun, but it's not as bad as it seems.

At the southern end of the bridge, outside the bridgehead, five armored reconnaissance vehicles were neatly placed. Although it is not possible to see the specific situation, the information marked afterwards has already mentioned that the five armored reconnaissance vehicles have been destroyed, and the first one was destroyed by anti-tank missiles.

The three special squads that seized the bridge each carried one set of individual anti-tank missiles.

Because it is a light anti-tank missile, the range is not too far, within 1500 meters, but it is definitely more than enough to deal with armored reconnaissance vehicles.

The main battlefield is on the north bank of the bridge.

As soon as the battle on the South Bank began, the Iraqi army in the North Bank barracks sprang into action and sent out a company-sized force.

Unfortunately, as soon as he left the barracks, he was ambushed.

The special forces of the squad that were lying in ambush outside the barracks took the enemy by surprise.

Although the casualties suffered by the Iraqi army were not large during the brief exchange of fire, they had to retreat to the barracks after being frustrated.

The point is, the Euphrates Bridge is safe and sound!

That is, the special forces dismantled the explosives on the bridge in time, at least the detonating device, otherwise the Iraqi army would definitely blow up the bridge after the battle began.

It was precisely because of this that Ding Zhennan secretly breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the photo.

As long as the bridge is still there, then everything is easy to say.

Moreover, the special forces have already thwarted the morale of the Iraqi army. Even if you start organizing and launching an attack immediately, it will take half an hour at the earliest. By that time, the air assault unit responsible for reinforcements had arrived, helping the special forces to consolidate the bridgehead positions.

As long as nothing else, the infantry battalion advancing on the south bank will arrive in about one hour.

No matter how much the Iraqi army can fight, even if all the officers and soldiers are fighting desperately to the death, it is impossible to recapture the Euphrates River Bridge within 1 hour!

It's just that before Ding Zhennan was happy, the communications staff officer sent the latest news.

Northwest of Semavo and about 80 kilometres south-east of Sinafyeh, a helicopter group of the Air Assault Force was ambushed on the north bank of the Euphrates River, five utility helicopters were shot down by small-calibre anti-aircraft guns or individual anti-aircraft missiles, and three helicopters were damaged.

Although the accompanying helicopter gunships immediately launched a counterattack and eliminated the enemy who ambushed the helicopter group, the 17th Panzer Division had already sent the assault force back to reinforce the special forces after regrouping, given the heavy losses suffered by the assault force and the unclear situation ahead.

Such a toss will be delayed for at least 3 hours!

Ding Zhennan didn't think much about it at all, and immediately called Fu Weimin.

After asking about the situation, that is, whether the air assault force could continue to fight, Ding Zhennan directly ordered Fu Weimin to immediately send a second air assault force, and promised that air forces would be arranged in advance to suppress the enemy near the helicopter flight line.

Subsequently, Ding Zhennan asked the staff officer to make adjustments to the air strike operation.

Although Fu Weimin then made arrangements for the second air assault force to set off immediately after making preparations, the delay would definitely not be able to be recovered, and even if everything went well, the second air assault force would not arrive until more than an hour later.

As the saying goes, there is no single line of disaster.

When Ding Zhennan handled the matter of the air assault troops, the situation on the battlefield changed again.

At around 6:15 a.m., about 15 minutes after the first company had been repulsed outside the barracks, Iraqi forces launched another counterattack.

This time, a whole infantry battalion was dispatched.

There are also more than a dozen armored vehicles.

Although according to the feedback of the special forces, the Iraqi army actually used armed vehicles, mainly reinforced with steel plates and equipped with pickup trucks with heavy machine guns, which could not be compared with real armored vehicles, but these vehicles were equipped with heavy machine guns and remained in the rear to provide fire support for the infantry.

The infantry division stationed in Shinafye itself is a second-line unit, not to mention tank fighting vehicles, and there are not many trucks to transport infantry. It's good to be able to find some working pickups, arm them with heavy machine guns, and convert them into combat vehicles.

Suppressed by more than 10 heavy machine guns, the special forces were unable to fire back at all.

While reporting on the battle situation, Lei Zhenting also called for fire support.

According to his meaning, just destroy those armed pickups and they will be able to repel the enemy's infantry!

It was only at this time that Ding Zhennan learned from his staff officer that the 17313th Battalion, which was assaulting on the south bank of the Euphrates River, was still 20 kilometers downstream.

At this distance, the maximum range of a 120-mm mortar is exceeded!

In fact, the accuracy of the mortar at the maximum range could not ensure the destruction of the enemy's armed pickups.

In order for the mortar to achieve the desired accuracy, it is best to control the range within 10 kilometers.

Fortunately, when the air attack began to be adjusted, the staff officer in charge had already asked a squad of "Attack-6F" to go to the vicinity of Sinafye to stand by.

Although there are only four of them, each "Attack-6F" has six 250-kilogram bombs and two rocket launchers, and can also use 30-mm machine guns to strafe ground targets if necessary.

Against more than 10 armed pickups, it is certainly more than enough.

It's just that these attack aircraft arrived around 6:25.

Will the special forces be able to hold 10 minutes?

Strictly speaking, there are no 10 minutes.

It took about 5 minutes for the Iraqi army to come out of the barracks and reach the northern bridgehead. If it is blocked, it will take some more time.

There is enough reason to believe that the special forces will make full use of all sorts of favorable conditions.

It is precisely like this, Ding Zhennan is very calm.

It's useless to rush!

When it was almost 6:25 a.m., Ding Zhennan asked the aviation operations staff officer whether the "Attack-6F" team of HNA had arrived.

3 minutes later, a message came from the front.

More than 10 armed pickup trucks were destroyed by air strikes, and the Iraqi army has abandoned assault operations after losing suppressive firepower.

It's just that the special forces also suffered a lot of casualties.

Several special forces were killed, and all other special forces, including Lei Zhenting, were wounded.

The key is still reinforcements.

Although the Iraqi army suffered heavy casualties and more than 300 officers and soldiers were killed or wounded in the bombing, it may not give up its counteroffensive operations.

In addition, those 4 "Attack-6F" flew away after the bomb was dropped!

It's not that the ammunition is used up, but there is not much fuel left, and there are no tankers on the front line, so there is no way to refuel attack aircraft in the air.

The next batch of attack planes will arrive in 30 minutes at the earliest.

Don't forget, Ding Zhennan made adjustments before, allowing the attack aircraft to sweep the flight path of the air assault force.

In this way, as soon as the commander of the Iraqi army finds that the coalition forces are temporarily unable to launch an air strike, they will certainly launch a third counterattack immediately.

In addition, all your troops will be used!

If they can't recapture the bridge, their troops will be used as cannon fodder even if they withdraw.

In the Iran-Iraq war, Hussein was not polite at all to those generals who fled because they were afraid of death!

As long as there is a glimmer of hope, the Iraqi army will launch a counterattack to try to retake the bridge before the main coalition forces arrive. If it doesn't work, we must find a way to blow up the bridge and prevent the coalition assault forces from joining forces on the north and south banks of the Euphrates River.

At this time, Ding Zhennan's tactical command talent was reflected.

At half past six, he issued an order for HNA to urgently send a squad of "Attack-5H" to Shinafye, to be precise, to be on standby near the war zone.

He then gave a second order.

One company of troops from the 7th Panzer Division, transported by 12 utility helicopters, came to the aid of Shinafye under the cover of four helicopter gunships.

At that time, many staff officers could not understand.

The first order is okay to say, after all, what the special forces need most now is air support.

However, will the air assault units of the 7th Panzer Division be able to arrive in time?

If not, then what's the point of sending the past?

Ding Zhennan did not explain, and he did not need to explain his combat intentions to his staff officers.