The imperial military will not admit to the act of "clearing stocks", especially when calculating war expenditures, in order to make other countries pay for the cruise missiles purchased more than 10 years ago at the current purchase price, as well as the cost of maintenance and maintenance.

This round of cruise missile assault, in fact, there is not much to say.

According to the battle report released by the Joint Forces Command later that day, the total number of cruise missiles used was as high as 92 percent, the probability of damage to the target was as high as 77 percent, and the overall reliability of the cruise missiles was an astonishing 96 percent.

The point is that there is no problem of battle damage and casualties in the use of cruise missiles.

Although the outside world is skeptical of the battle report released by the joint forces command, no one can deny that after two rounds of assaults on 6 June, the Iraqi air force has been crawled down by the joint forces, and the air defense system, which the Hussein regime is proud of, has not only not been able to withstand the wanton and indiscriminate bombardment of the joint forces, but after two consecutive rounds of high-intensity strikes, it has also been riddled with holes and can no longer protect Iraq's airspace.

Of course, that's an exaggeration.

During the day on the 6th, the Iraqi Air Force launched several counterattacks and claimed to have shot down one carrier-based aircraft of the Liangxia Navy in the battle.

That's right, it's a carrier-based fighter of the "Battle-12A" type.

According to information released by the Iraqi Air Force, the battle took place on the afternoon of the 6th.

At that time, two "Zhan-12A" of the Liangxia Navy were carrying out a bombing mission south of Basra, bombing an Iraqi transport convoy bound for Kuwait. The Iraqi Air Force actively attacked, sending two MG-25s to intercept them, and during the engagement, they shot down one "Battle-12A" with air-to-air missiles, forcing the other to drop the bomb ahead of schedule. It was precisely because the MG-25 arrived in time that the convoy survived.

After that, two "Zhan-9B" of the Liangxia Navy were killed and locked on to the MG-25 with radar, so the Iraqi fighters did not risk pursuing the fleeing "Zhan-12A".

However, the joint forces and the Imperial Navy successively claimed that they did not engage Iraqi fighters in the afternoon.

In addition, at that time, there was actually an "Attack-6" group operating south of Basra, and there were no "Battle-12A" operating in the area.

As for the "Battle-9B" that intercepted the MG-25, there are indeed quite a few, but there is no record of engaging the MG-25.

To put it simply, the Iraqi Air Force is lying.

Of course, the external propaganda must be in their favor.

Ding Zhennan returned to the command center in the evening, and the first thing the staff officer on duty told him was the air battle that took place southeast of Basra.

One "Battle-12A" was indeed attacked, and it was shot down by Iraqi fighters.

The hapless carrier-based plane crashed into Posha Bay, and the pilot also ejected and parachuted in time, and was subsequently rescued by the helicopter that arrived.

By order of the upper echelons of the Reich, the Combined Forces Command blocked the message.

As for the course of the fighting, there is a slight discrepancy with the information released by the Iraqi Air Force.

Naval aviation should not be responsible for this air war, and the main responsibility actually lies with the air force.

At that time, the "Finger-8C," which was carrying out patrol missions in this direction, did not immediately pay attention to the two MG-25s, for example, they did not send the nearby "Zhan-11B" to intercept them, but only warned the naval carrier-based aircraft carrying out bombing missions in the area, and then handed over the relevant command work to the naval carrier-based early warning planes that were still flying in this direction hundreds of kilometers away.

According to the investigation done later, it was the commander of the "Finger-8C" who gave the order to return home.

The reason is that the AWACS command plane has been patrolling for 16 hours and has carried out an in-flight refueling, and it is planned that it should return two hours before the flight.

According to the plan, the Navy's "Finger-6C" will come to replace it at about 15 o'clock in the afternoon, and the "Finger-8C" will be withdrawn by 17 o'clock in the afternoon.

However, the Navy cannot be blamed for this.

At noon, the Navy had already sent out the news that because the three aircraft carriers in Posha Bay and Mua Hai were in trouble receiving the returning carrier-based aircraft, the recovery operation took longer than expected, and it was impossible to send AWACS aircraft to carry out patrol missions as originally planned.

The Joint Forces Command has also made adjustments accordingly, and the Air Force is not unaware.

Otherwise, the "Finger-8C" will not be allowed to refuel in the air before 13 o'clock.

That is, because of this in-flight refueling, this "Finger-8C" does not have the problem of having to return immediately due to lack of fuel.

When the Finger-8C returned to the airport, it still had 12 tons of fuel left and could continue to fly for four hours.

In fact, there is only a 15-minute difference between the front and back.

The Air Force's Finger-8C turned to evacuation at 5:05 p.m., and at about 17:15, turned off the radar, which had been operating for 16 hours.

Later, the Air Force used the excuse of "the radar runs for too long" to clear the responsibility of the captain of the "Finger-8C".

The Navy's "Finger-6C" activated the radar at 17:30, about 250 kilometers from the battlefield.

It was in these 15 minutes that two MG-25s were killed, and from a distance of about 30 kilometers, missiles were fired at two unsuspecting "Battle-12A". The long plane leading the team first turned to evade, and the wingman pilot reacted a little slower and was hit by a missile. After that, it flew about 50 kilometers southeast before crashing into Posha Bay, and the pilot managed to parachute before crashing.

In addition, it was not the "Battle-9B" of the Navy that rushed over to meet it, but the "Battle-11B" of the Air Force.

Although the pilot of one "Battle-11B" insisted that the "KK-6M" launched by him caught up with one MG-25, no evidence of shooting down was obtained.

Judging from the situation detected by the radar, it is very likely that the MG-25 evaded it after being attacked, dived from an altitude of 20,000 meters to a medium and low altitude of 5,000 meters below, flew out of the radar detection area of the "Zhan-11B", and had a great possibility of getting rid of the pursuing "KK-6M" missile.

Actually, there is nothing surprising about this.

Throughout the Iran-Iraq war, only the MG-25 of the Iraqi Air Force was able to challenge the F-14A of the Polish Air Force. Even if the MG-25's maneuverability is very poor, it can easily get rid of missiles fired by enemy planes from tens of kilometers away with a maximum flight speed of more than Mach 3.

It was also the only commendable counterattack by the Iraqi Air Force on the first day of the war.

During the day, the coalition forces also launched two large-scale bombing campaigns.

It's just that compared to the first round of assault in the early morning, it's far behind.

The main purpose of the daytime sortie was to maintain the pressure of air strikes and not to give the Iraqi army a respite.

According to Ding Zhennan's deployment, the bombing operations aimed at key targets were all carried out at night, and the night was used as cover as much as possible.

If anything, this is also a change brought about by technological progress.

During the Polish-Iranian War more than a decade ago, bombing was carried out almost exclusively during the day, mainly because there was a lack of means to search and target targets at night.

Of course, it also has something to do with the fact that unguided munitions were mainly used at that time.

With the advent of night vision devices such as low-light night vision devices and infrared imagers, and their rapid popularization, the difficulty of night bombing has been greatly reduced.

In addition, it is related to today's air defense systems.

Although anti-aircraft missiles have replaced anti-aircraft guns as the main anti-aircraft weapons, there are still many anti-aircraft guns in countries like Iraq.

In fact, even in the Liangxia army, anti-aircraft artillery also undertook the heavy responsibility of field air defense.

It was almost impossible to intercept enemy aircraft in the night sky against Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery units, which lacked the means of night observation.

It is precisely for this reason that Ding Zhennan arranged all high-risk bombing operations at night.

In view of the strategic objectives, the "Attack-12" is still the mainstay.

For a large number of ordinary targets, bombing is mainly carried out in accordance with traditional tactics.

In this arrangement, first, the Liangxia army did not have too many precision-guided bombs in stock, second, there were only a limited number of combat aircraft that could carry and drop precision-guided bombs, and third, there were too many stockpiles of ammunition to consume.

Especially the third point, which made Ding Zhennan speechless.

When planning and deploying tactical missions, the most troublesome problem Ding Zhennan faced was to find a way to use up the mountains of ammunition in the imperial arsenal.

If anything, there's no way around it.

Let's not forget that after the end of the Polish-Iraqi War, the empire did not launch or participate in regional wars for more than a decade. The counterinsurgency campaign against Sri Lanka is not a war at all, not even a conflict. In the subsequent Iran-Iraq war, the empire was a spectator throughout the whole process.

But the problem is that the Empire's munitions factories cannot be completely shut down just because there is no war to fight.

In fact, in order to keep the production lines, or rather, the necessary number of workers, the main munitions factories of the empire had to be operated in peacetime.

As a result, mass-produced weapons and ammunition can only be kept in arsenals.

The armament is okay, the key is the ammunition.

The vast majority of high-tech munitions have an ideal reserve of only 20 years, and often cannot be stored for that long.

In addition, the storage of technical equipment for 20 years is definitely lagging behind.

After the ammunition has been stored for more than 10 years, routine maintenance can become very cumbersome, and the cost of maintenance can increase several times.

It can be seen that the already full arsenal of the empire is one of the main reasons for the imperial authorities to send troops to Posha Bay.

It is precisely for this reason that it is necessary to use up as much ammunition as possible in the war.

The largest number of them are unguided bombs of various types!

During the Polish-Iranian War, the Reich's munitions factories were at full capacity, producing various types of aerial bombs according to the intensity of the war. The amount of ammunition used in this war also surpassed that of the Second Global War, making it the most ammunition-consuming war to date.

According to the statistics made by the Imperial Army, in the 14-year Polish-Iranian War, the Imperial Army used 10 million tons of ammunition.

450 billion rounds of bullets of all kinds are used alone!

This is still not comparable to the speed of production at the Imperial Munitions Plant.

By the end of the Polish-Iranian war, almost 6 million tons of ammunition had not been used, including 4.5 million tons of aerial bombs.

Since then, it has been producing and hoarding for more than 10 years, and by now, the empire has nearly 10 million tons of ammunition in reserve, including 7 million tons of aerial bombs.

The point is, this is the result of a massive reduction in bomb production!

What is even worse is that in high-tech modern warfare, the consumption of ammunition has not only not increased, but has decreased by several orders of magnitude!

According to the conclusions drawn from previous years' joint military exercises and related deductions, in modern warfare with precision-guided munitions as the main means of attack, the demand for large munitions such as aerial bombs will be reduced by at least two orders of magnitude, and it will even be necessary to deliberately reduce the scale of strikes.

A few years ago, the Air Force pioneered the concept of "small-yield ammunition".

The reason is also simple, it is necessary to reduce the collateral damage from fire strikes.

As a result, even the Imperial Air Force and Naval Aviation have made it clear that they will not exclusively purchase new guided bombs, but will focus on guidance components, that is, to obtain precision-guided munitions by installing guidance components for stockpiled bombs, so unless a large-scale regional war or a global war breaks out, it will not be able to use up the stockpiled ammunition within the shelf life in any case.

According to last year's statistics, even if the consumption of exercises and training were doubled and exports were increased, it would take at least 30 years to run out of stocks.

The Ministry of National Defense has already drawn up a plan to invest 1 billion gold dollars to commission several domestic arms companies to develop an advanced storage technology that can extend the storage time of ammunition and minimize the dependence on personnel without compromising reliability.

Even if the purchase of such equipment is certainly costly, it is much more cost-effective than simply scrapping the ammunition.

In fact, for the past 10 years, especially in recent years, the empire has disposed of a batch of ammunition that has passed its expiration date every year. Last year alone, about 100,000 tons of aerial bombs produced in the latter part of the last war and failed to meet the standards were destroyed.

With this war, there is no reason not to increase the consumption of ammunition.

Moreover, the Imperial State and Austria had already made a compromise on the issue of apportioning the war expenses, that is, they promised to provide more war expenses to offset the problem of sending troops.

In addition, there are several allies with similar intentions.

Since other people's money is used to fight the war, what is there to be sorry about?

It's just that Ding Zhennan doesn't think so.

The use of conventional ammunition will not only increase the burden on combat units, that is, it will require more sorties of combat aircraft to achieve the same strike effect, but will also greatly increase the battle loss rate of combat aircraft, which is also very likely, or will certainly lose more combat aircraft.

Obviously, the value of a combat aircraft is certainly much higher than that of ammunition.

Even if the lost combat aircraft are included in the war expenses, the allies who are unwilling to send troops will pay for it, and the safety of the pilots must be considered.

Obviously, the allies will certainly not pay for the casualties of pilots.

Even if someone pays for it, it can't make the pilot sacrifice.

A good pilot is worth as much as the most advanced fighter of his time, and it takes a lot of time to train pilots.

It's a pity that the decision-making power is not in Ding Zhennan's hands.

In this matter, even Shi Zhiliang can't be the master.

According to the orders issued by the Ministry of National Defense and the General Staff, whether Ding Zhennan wants to or not, all the ammunition sent to Saudi Arabia must be used!

Of course, Ding Zhennan is not unable to manage anything.

What he can do is actually to hand over the most difficult, loss-rated, and arduous tasks to advanced fighters such as the "Attack-12" and mainly use laser-guided bombs.

Of course, cruise missiles for the Navy and Air Force are also available.

It's really not good, and there are cruise missiles in the army.

However, on the first day of the war, on the night of the 6th to be exact, after the daytime news had been blown off, the eyes of the world turned to Daman and Jubail.

That night, the first armored units of the Imperial Army reached Saudi!