After daybreak, the battle was fought extremely hard.

The Vatican army concentrated its forces in the east and south to launch counterattacks, retreating into the local garrisons in the city of Deogle, and to be precise, armed men, mainly police, also took advantage of the opportunity to attack, such as hiding in buildings on the edge of the city, and firing cold guns at the imperial soldiers close to the city, especially controlling the outer intersections.

All of a sudden, the marines guarding the landing site were almost surrounded by the enemy on three sides, and they were fighting in three directions at the same time.

What is even worse is that the front-line attack planes guarding the Marine Corps all returned before dawn, and the heavy attack planes urgently dispatched also lost their support capabilities because they ran out of ammunition after dropping dozens of tons of bombs. As for other fire support, it is even more impossible to count on.

Affected by this, the third round of assault transports, which began after dawn, was sent to the front by 2 light artillery batteries supplied by the 17th Panzer Division.

One of the artillery batteries is armed with AL-100A 150-mm ultralight howitzers.

As mentioned earlier, in order to enhance the combat capability of the air assault forces, especially the independent combat capability behind enemy lines, the Imperial Army invested in the development of this large-caliber ultra-light howitzer with a total combat weight of less than 3 tons and can be flown and transported by a 10-ton general-purpose helicopter.

It must be admitted that the AL-100A is advanced, and just a full combat weight of less than 3 tons dwarfs all "light" howitzers. You know, before the AL-100A, a large-caliber howitzer was able to give the title of "lightweight" as long as the total combat weight was less than 10 tons.

According to the idea of the Imperial Army, this howitzer can allow the air assault force to obtain the same battlefield suppression ability as the armored force.

It's just that there is a big gap between the ideal and the reality.

Because the performance indicators proposed by the army are too high, and there are many technical obstacles that are difficult to solve in a short period of time, the preliminary research and development work has been carried out for more than ten years, and it was not until the beginning of last year that the project acceptance was completed and entered the stage of acceptance by the military led by the army.

If it weren't for the outbreak of the Great War, the project might have dragged on for years.

Although before the outbreak of the war, the AL-100A passed the military acceptance and then began mass production, but due to the constraints of the high price, the production capacity of the AL-100A was very limited. So far, only one company has been given to each of the main forces, and all of them are organized in the mixed support battalions directly under the division.

Interestingly, exactly how this light howitzer should be used, combat units are still figuring out.

If anything, when the project was first established, the Imperial Army did not think about how to use this ultra-light howitzer with heavy artillery power.

Being able to be lifted by a utility helicopter is really just a start-up project, or an excuse to apply for a grant.

It was only after the development was successful that the Imperial Army suddenly discovered that the "Z-15" could not do anything after lifting an AL-100A. Especially in the mountains at a slightly higher altitude, not to mention transporting ammunition at the same time, a helicopter will not be able to lift up with a few more gunners. Even if it is replaced with a "Z-18", while lifting 1 AL-100A, it can only transport all the gunner and half the base ammunition.

What's the use of that?

In high-intensity combat, 1 base of ammunition can be knocked out in a few hours.

There is no doubt that ammunition is the crux of the matter.

Take the most used high-explosive shells, for example, the projectile alone is close to 50 kg, and a standard propellant module has a mass of 3 kg, which usually loads 5 to 8 modules, and the curb weight of 150 mm shell exceeds 80 kg, counting the indispensable loading tools such as cartridges.

By the standards of the Imperial Army, 1 base was 48 shells and 330 propellant modules, with a total mass of more than 4 tons!

If equipped with extended-range shells, the total mass will exceed 5 tons.

That is, even a heavy helicopter like the "Z-18" can only deliver two bases of ammunition at a time, and the flight range cannot exceed 300 kilometers.

If it is delivered by the "Z-15", it will be less efficient.

The key is that the AL-100A is assigned to the air assault force, and what can make the air assault force show its strength is actually the mountainous area with complex terrain.

To put it simply, the AL-100A is primarily used for mountain warfare.

The impact of high altitude on the carrying capacity of helicopters cannot be ignored.

At this time, the reality in front of the Imperial Army was that even if the AL-100A could be deployed by helicopter to a position close to the front line, it would become an ornament due to the difficulty of replenishing ammunition.

If the performance defects are also taken into account, the problems of the AL-100A are even more prominent.

In order to pursue the ultimate lightweight and achieve a weight target of less than 3 tons, we can only find ways to reduce weight, such as using the 40 times diameter body tube that is about to be phased out.

Before the AL-100A project was launched, the Imperial Army had already determined that the next generation of large-caliber guns would have a barrel length of more than 50 times the diameter, and the final standard set within the Eastern Bloc was 54 times the diameter, and the guns that used the previous 40 times diameter barrel would be upgraded.

In addition, the volume of the pharmacy is only 22 liters, which is equivalent to only 80% of the volume of a standard pharmacy.

Affected by this, the maximum range of the AL-100A when using ordinary artillery shells, jujube nuclear bombs, bottom-row extended-range bombs and rocket extended-range bombs is: 17 km, 21 km, 25 km and 29 km respectively, which are significantly lower than howitzers with the same length of barrels.

Of course, it is even less comparable to the new howitzer with a 54-diameter barrel.

The key is that the body-barreled artillery equipped by the Imperial Army is inherently shorter than that of the Western Continent Group.

In other words, against enemy artillery, the AL-100A will be at a disadvantage because of the insufficient range, at least it will not be able to take advantage of the artillery battle.

Worse still, the AL-100A is also a towed gun with almost zero tactical mobility.

Although at the time of design, the Imperial Army required the AL-100A to have limited tactical mobility capabilities, such as being equipped with an independent walking unit, which could transfer positions on its own during combat, and reduce the requirements for towing equipment and personnel, but in order to achieve the purpose of weight reduction, the Imperial Army finally abandoned this requirement and only proposed to equip it with a small engine to drive the ammunition loader.

Once deployed, the AL-100A can only be towed by personnel, or by light vehicles.

Obviously, this does not keep up with the pace of modern warfare.

Even in an ideal situation, the AL-100A would have been busy for 10 minutes with six gunners moving from deployed to operational status, and it would have to be towed by a vehicle.

According to the tests conducted by the Imperial Army, it would take at least 20 minutes to transfer a deployed AL-100L to an alternate position 500 meters away, even on the plains. If it's in a mountainous area, it takes at least 30 minutes, and there must be a vehicle available.

It can be seen that in order to use the AL-100A as a field artillery, it must at least be equipped with a towing vehicle.

A general military jeep is fine, and a 5-ton off-road vehicle is the best.

It was for this that after the installation of the AL-100A, the Imperial Army found that it was necessary to provide tractors for artillery units equipped with the AL-100A.

But the problem is that by doing so, the "light" advantage of the AL-100A becomes meaningless.

To put it bluntly, light howitzers have little survivability on the battlefield where the AL-100A needs to be used, and there is no place for them on the battlefield where the AL-100A can survive. You know, compared to conventional howitzers, the range of the AL-100A is really pitifully short. As for providing towing vehicles, or even loading them onto trucks, it loses the advantage of being lifted by a utility helicopter.

If anything, it was the discovery of these problems that led to the lukewarm attitude of the Imperial Army towards the AL-100A, which has not been purchased in large quantities.

Not to mention anything else, on the mainland battlefield, several main forces rarely arranged for AL-100A to participate in the battle, and most of the time they trained gunners in the rear.

Fortunately, on the side of Deogle, the AL-100A is simply invincible.

Although the Van Luo Army has thousands of large-caliber artillery pieces, including more than 2,000 self-propelled howitzers alone, all of which are imported from Western powers, such as the M109 series of the Nuland Republic, its main artillery units are all deployed in the northwest and under the Central Army.

Many of the other combat units are still using the artillery of the Second World War.

Even if these "antique guns" can still be used, they are definitely not the opponents of new artillery such as AL-100A, but the gap in range cannot be compensated.

Of course, it was not only the 16-door AL-100A that was sent to the front.

Another artillery battery was armed with 120-mm heavy mortars.

If anything, heavy mortars are the main suppressive weapon of light infantry units.

In addition, the PJ-120 was the last weapon of the Imperial Army to be put into production during World War II and is still in use today.

It's just that the PJ-120F in service has almost nothing in common with the models in the big war.

Strictly speaking, the PJ-120F is actually the result of a redesign, but because the basic design of the PJ-120 is too good to be changed, it is almost completely retained, so after the redesign, the original number is retained, and it is not rebuilt.

Crucially, the PJ-120F is compatible with all mortar shells of the same caliber.

According to the plan made by the Imperial Army, the PJ-120F will be in service for at least 30 years. By the time precision-guided artillery shells equipped with seekers are born, they may be able to serve for half a century. It can be said that the PJ-120 has a very good chance of becoming the longest-serving fire suppression weapon ever in service.

In fact, in many cases, the first choice of suppression weapons for front-line officers and soldiers is mortars.

The reason is also very simple, because the muzzle velocity is much lower, and the shell can be made thinner, so the mortar shell can obtain a charge that far exceeds the same caliber grenade without increasing the weight of the bullet, and has a lethality that far exceeds that of the same caliber grenade when dealing with non-protected targets such as personnel.

As such, a 120-mm mortar shell is as powerful as a 150-mm grenade.

Crucially, 120 mm mortar shells are more than 20 kilograms, less than one-third of 150 mm grenades, so in the case of comparable transport capacity, the delivery of mortar shells is more than three times that of grenades, which is equivalent to more than three times the duration of fire strikes.

As for the range, it's a trifle to the contrary.

After all, the maximum range of a 120-mm mortar can reach 12 kilometers, which is enough to cover the forward battlefield.

In addition, a mortar squad only needs a maximum of 4 gunners, and 2 people can operate if necessary, so the same size of a company, a mortar company can have 24 guns, and a howitzer company can only have 16 guns. Besides, the rapid rate of fire and sustained rate of fire of mortars are faster than howitzers of the same level, so whether it is continuous suppression or full speed fire in an emergency, the combat efficiency of the mortar company exceeds that of the howitzer company.

It's a pity that the strength of 2 companies is really too small.

In addition, due to the limitation of ammunition, the howitzer battery did not play a prominent role and could only be used to suppress the enemy's long-range body-controlled weapons.

Most of the time it was 24 PJ-120F firing.

To deal with the enemy from 3 directions at once, 24 mortars are really not enough.

Fierce fighting continued until about 10 a.m., and the Van army was already approaching the landing site to the east and south, posing a serious threat to the defensive positions in these two directions.

At the most difficult time of the fighting, a small force of the Van army even broke into the landing field.

The key point is that after the approach of the Van army, because of the possibility of accidentally injuring friendly troops, the front-line attack planes and heavy attack planes did not dare to rashly drop bombs and bomb, and the ground forces had to guide the target, so the efficiency of air support was greatly reduced, and the effect of crushing the enemy was not produced.

In many cases, because the officers and men of the two sides were too close, the "Attack-9B" could only use machine guns to strafe the enemy.

If anything, it is also thanks to the more than 100 "Attack-9Bs" sent by the Air Force.

According to the Air Force's battle report, by noon on 10 July, the 120 "Attack-9Bs" deployed at the air base outside Hyde had made a total of more than 350 sorties, and almost all the attack planes that could fly flew three sorties, with an average of one sortie every three hours.

In other words, almost all of these "Attack-9Bs" dropped bombs after flying over the battlefield, and each sortie stayed in the sky over the battlefield for less than 15 minutes on average.

This frequency of sorties can be said to be frighteningly high!

As for the intensity of the crackdown, there is no doubt about it.

In the past 10 hours, 120 "Attack-9B" planes used up more than 1,500 250-kilogram bombs, nearly 1,000 short-range air-to-surface missiles, more than 3,000 rounds of 80-millimeter rockets, and 200,000 rounds of 40-millimeter artillery shells, with a total bomb volume of an astonishing 1,500 tons.

If it weren't for these "Attack-9B", the landing field would have been captured by the Van army long ago.

However, the air support provided by the "Attack-9B" continued until noon on the 10th.

It's not that the Air Force is reluctant to continue to contribute, but the tanker planes responsible for supporting the front-line attack aircraft will return at noon on the 10th, and then they will not be able to redeploy until after 22 o'clock at night. Without the support of tankers, the "Attack-9B" could not fly non-stop from Hydebara to Deogle.

In addition, after 3 sorties in a row, almost all "Attack-9Bs" need to be maintained.

It is precisely for this reason that, in the plan, only close air support provided by front-line attack aircraft was required to last until noon.

According to the plan, the counterattack of the Van army was to be thwarted before noon.

Unfortunately, until the last batch of "Attack-9Bs" flew away after 12 noon, the counterattack troops of the Van army still attacked the landing field in the south and east.

Although a round of interdiction bombing launched by heavy attack planes before 1 p.m. successfully smashed the first round of offensive operations launched by the Van army at noon, the heavy attack planes were not on call, and after repeated heavy attacks, the outer defense line of the landing site was already shaky.

The point is that the casualties of the Marine Corps are very high, and the attrition rate of both battalions has exceeded 30%.

Under the circumstances at that time, as long as the Van army launched two more rounds of assault, it would be able to break through the outer defense line of the landing site, and even encircle and annihilate the two weak marine battalions.

It was in this context that Liu Zunshan had to activate the emergency plan.

It must be said that Ding Zhennan has a very good habit, that is, no matter what the situation on the battlefield is, he will always keep a hand when making plans, and many times he will prepare multiple backup plans to ensure that after an accident, there is room for maneuver and he will not be helpless.

This time is no exception!