In the early morning of September 27, before dawn, Ding Zhennan came to the front-line combat command center.

In the past two days, he visited all the grassroots units and investigated and grasped the situation of the troops, especially the demands made by the officers and men at the grassroots level.

If anything, morale is not an issue.

They have been winning battles, and the fighting spirit of the officers and men is very high.

Of course, that's not to say it's okay.

The most conspicuous problem reported by the officers and men at the grassroots level is that the use of water has been severely restricted, and the fruits served with the meal have been green apples for a month in a row.

It would be nice to be able to offer some other fruits, such as citrus and pears.

Of course, preferably watermelon.

Although it is late September, the temperature in Posha Bay has not dropped significantly, with highs of 40 degrees Celsius at noon and nighttime lows of over 25 degrees Celsius. For those officers and soldiers who are fighting on the front line, the most important thing is to replenish water.

After learning about these needs of the officers and men, Ding Zhennan immediately made arrangements.

As a result, on the night of the 25th, one Air Force "Y-9D" delivered 10 tons of fresh fruits, half of which were sweet and refreshing large watermelons.

However, among the feedback from officers and men, the most valuable is the problem of equipment on active duty.

Although the Empire has the most powerful military in the world, the Imperial Army has not been on the battlefield for more than a decade since the end of the Polish-Iraqi War.

The key point is that almost none of the main battle equipment developed under the impetus of the third military reform has withstood the test of war.

War is the only means by which weapons are tested.

Even if the main battle equipment such as the ZT-99 has proven its value in battle, there are still many main battle equipment that do not perform well.

In fact, even the ZT-99AL is not perfect.

During the battle against Bus X, a lot of the flaws of the ZT-99AL were exposed.

First of all, the elevation angle of the main gun is insufficient, so when encountering high-rise buildings in urban warfare, it often seems to be inadequate.

This flaw is very prominent in Bus X.

The reason is also very simple, Bus X is the second largest city in Iraq after Bagh X, and it is a veritable metropolis.

Before, whether it was in Salman or Semavo, it was actually a small town.

There aren't many tall buildings in small towns, so there aren't many tasks assigned to the main battle tanks when attacking them.

Even if you need to deal with enemies hiding on top of buildings, you can use infantry fighting vehicles.

In Bus X, it's not that simple.

Because the urban environment is too complex, and the enemy's defense strength is significantly higher, and the density of troops is also greater, so in many cases, only the thick-skinned tanks can be pushed to the front, and the tanks are needed to deal with the enemies encountered, such as the anti-tank team hiding on the top of the building.

At this time, the problems of the ZT-99AL were exposed.

In the first two days, the 5th Marine Division lost 20 ZT-99ALs, 8 of which were driven through the top armor of the turret by rockets from the enemy hiding on the roof of the building, and 7 of which entered the ambush circle of a nearby anti-tank group when they were harassed by the enemy from above. One of them was only pierced through the tail compartment by a 60mm rocket, and had to be scrapped because of damage to the power system.

The situation changed only after the 5th Marine Division adjusted its tactics.

If you want to say it, it's actually a brutal method.

If conditions permit, let the infantry seize and control the commanding heights near the offensive line, i.e., high-rise buildings, in advance to provide cover for armored troops advancing on the ground.

Of course, it is the elite units that carry out such tasks, usually assault detachments organized by scouts.

If the situation is complicated, such as the enemy's forces are too dense to seize the high ground, the attacking force will call for artillery support.

To put it simply, let the artillery demolish the building.

Later, they even directly arranged for self-propelled mortars to follow the troops, and when they encountered high-rise buildings defended by the enemy, they used 120-mm mortars to directly blow up the entire east building. If the building is strong enough, let naval aviation send attack aircraft to settle the battle.

No matter how strong a building is, it can't withstand a 500-kilogram bombshell.

What's more, in the arsenal of the Navy, there are also special high-explosive shells of the 1000 kg class with a charge of more than 500 kg.

This special high-explosive bomb has an explosion killing radius of more than 250 meters, and only one is needed to blow a building more than ten stories into pieces.

Of course, as a result, the attacking forces could not advance faster at all.

Another problem exposed by the ZT-99AL in actual combat is that the side and rear armor are too weak to even withstand individual rockets!

More than half of the ZT-99AL lost were attacked by enemy infantry, and the side or rear armor was pierced by rocket launchers such as the Iron Fist and RPG-7.

To enhance the protection of the sides and rear, many tankmen will attach spare load wheels and tracks around the rear of the turret, as well as some tools necessary to repair the tank, such as special logs, but most of the time they will be filled with several large buckets of fresh water.

Of course, this also raises a new question.

If you use the traditional way of thinking, that is, to increase the thickness of the armor to improve the protective performance, it will not work at all.

Not to mention raising the side and rear armor to the same level as the front, even to the level of resistance to rockets, that is, the protective strength of about 500 mm of homogeneous armor steel, the main battle tank like the ZT-99AL will definitely have a combat weight of more than 100 tons.

Obviously, this is an unbearable weight.

To drive a 100-ton tank to a speed of 70 kilometers per hour, a 2500-horsepower engine is required!

In addition, a 100-ton tank has no strategic mobility at all, and tactical mobility will not be much better, because there will be no bridge through which a 100-ton tank can safely pass.

If you include logistics, a 100-ton main battle tank is definitely a disaster for the army's armored forces.

For this reason, other solutions can only be found.

The ZT-99AL also exposed a problem in real combat, which required a small engine that could continue to provide power to the electronics when the engine stopped working. The reason is simple, the fuel consumption of the main engine is too high, even if it is running at idle speed, it will consume too much fuel, which will reduce the continuous combat ability of the tank, and at the same time, it will also reduce the engine life and increase the difficulty of maintenance.

In the military, it is not the mileage that determines the maintenance of the engine, that is, the service life, but the motorcycle time.

Even if the tank stays in place, as long as the engine is still running, it will definitely have an impact on the lifespan.

Until now, the 5th Marine Division alone has scrapped more than a dozen tank engines!

Of course, the officers and men at the grassroots level are not only reflecting problems.

Among all the main battle platforms, there are three types of equipment that are particularly popular with front-line officers and soldiers.

The first is the BZ-98 infantry fighting vehicle.

To say, in siege operations, infantry fighting vehicles are the real main force.

Although most of the time, the BZ-98 hid behind the ZT-99AL because of insufficient armor protection, when attacking, what the infantry wanted to hear most was actually the sound of the 30mm cannon firing, because this machine gun was almost indestructible in urban warfare.

Even if it encounters a solid target that cannot be dealt with by a 30mm gun, the BZ-98 also has heavy anti-tank missiles available.

The point is that the combination of a 30mm cannon and heavy anti-tank missiles is capable of tackling all enemies encountered in urban warfare.

If there is a problem, there are actually two points.

First, the power of the 30-mm cannon is still a little smaller, and if it can be enhanced, the combat efficiency against fortified targets such as bunkers will be much improved.

During the battle, the officers and men of the Marine Corps used captured 57-mm anti-aircraft guns against machine-gun fortresses with much better effect.

For this reason, most of the officers and men suggested that the caliber of the machine gun should be raised to more than 50 millimeters.

In addition, heavy anti-tank missiles are too expensive, and the armor-piercing warheads, as a rule, are not ideal when dealing with strong fortifications.

If possible, it would be better to develop a warhead specifically for dealing with semi-armored targets.

After the BZ-98, there was a 68-mm self-propelled mortar improved from the BZ-120 armored carrier.

It's also easy to understand.

Mortars are the most indispensable part of siege warfare, because only mortars can use their curved trajectory to deal with enemies hiding behind buildings.

As for the problem, the main thing is that the ammunition type is too single.

Although high-explosive shells can solve almost all targets and have great lethality, special ammunition is still used in some special cases.

For example, before the attack, the infantry often had to rely on smoke screens for cover, which required mortars to fire smoke screens.

In addition, special incendiary bombs are much more effective than high-explosive shells when dealing with indoor enemies.

Of course, if you encounter an armored target hidden behind a building that cannot be hit by tank guns and anti-tank missiles, it would be better if there were armor-piercing mortar shells.

The third weapon was not an anti-aircraft gun, but a 150-mm self-propelled howitzer borrowed from the army.

Because the BZ-98's 30-mm cannon had a maximum elevation angle of 75 degrees, there was no need to use anti-aircraft guns against the enemy on the roof.

In several fierce battles for urban areas, the officers and men of the 5th Marine Division created a new tactic that allowed self-propelled howitzers to fire directly when they got close.

The point is that self-propelled howitzers have a larger elevation angle, which makes them ideal for dealing with enemies hiding inside high-rise buildings.

If you want to deal with the enemy on the roof, mortars will do.

However, Bus X has many buildings that are more than 10 stories high, and the Iraqi army knows that it is not safe to hide on the rooftops.

When dealing with enemies hiding in buildings, howitzers are more effective.

After tasting the sweetness, the Marine Corps specially transferred an artillery company, and then sent it to the front line in platoon units to provide direct fire support to the ground troops.

As for the effect of the blow, it is needless to say.

Of course, howitzers also have some shortcomings.

For example, the lack of sighting equipment often had to be close enough for the gunner to fire directly at the target.

In addition, there are not enough ammunition reserves.

A self-propelled howitzer has only 45 rounds in reserve, but it is equipped with enough propellant to fire 120 shells. When self-propelled howitzers are designed, the main consideration is long-range engagement, and the propellant is equipped according to the full charge fire, while in the urban warfare, all the charges are reduced.

As a result, a cannon often runs out of shells in half a day, and then has to be withdrawn to replenish ammunition.

Even if it is to replenish supplies on the spot on the front line, it will take a lot of time.

However, among the problems reported by the officers and men at the grassroots level, the most important thing to pay attention to is actually individual weapons.

It's not that small-caliber rifles aren't powerful enough, but that infantry needs a more effective combat weapon against an enemy hiding behind cover.

In urban warfare, this problem is even more prominent.

In many cases, it is because the infantry lacks the ability to deal with the enemy behind the cover, so they have to call for support, and the speed of the attack is naturally not fast. You must know that in the city, the proportion of improvised fortifications such as machine gun forts is more than eighty percent.

If the infantry can deal with the enemy on their own, the attack speed will be faster.

These problems, as reported by the officers and men of the grassroots units, will certainly not be resolved in the short term, but they will certainly be resolved at some point in the future.

Of course, the battle against Bus X still has to go on as usual.

From the morning of the 26th, the propaganda war began.

In the afternoon of the same day, the climax was reached.

Dozens of tactical transport planes arranged by the Air Force dropped hundreds of tons of leaflets over Bus X, which was basically able to achieve 100 military and civilian personnel.

During the night, the propaganda war entered its final phase.

More than a dozen convoys arranged by the Marine Corps, equipped with specially prepared loudspeakers, announced tomorrow's operational arrangements to the military and civilians in areas controlled by the Iraqi army.

To put it simply, it gives bus X 12 hours for civilians and military personnel to evacuate and either go elsewhere or to a shelter set up by coalition forces.

After the 12-hour evacuation period has elapsed, the coalition forces will carry out indiscriminate bombardment of bus X.

By 9 a.m. on the 27th, the propaganda war would be over, and the bombing campaign would begin simultaneously.

Now, it's past 8 a.m.

According to Ding Zhennan's arrangement, the 120 "H-9Ds" deployed at the Diego base took off at about 3 a.m. and are expected to arrive over bus X at 9:30 a.m.

Each of these bombers carried 30 tons of bombs, 60 500-kilogram aerial bombs to be exact.

It's all stocked bombs, and no matter how much you use them, you won't feel bad.

After reaching the skies over Bus X, the bombers split into six groups and dropped bombs over the designated area in dense formations.

Actually, it's carpet bombing.

To ensure safety, bombers dropped bombs at an altitude of more than 5500 meters.

As for the bombing effect, Ding Zhennan didn't care too much.

Nor did he think about destroying the enemies entrenched in the city by completely destroying Bus X.

If you want to say that, indiscriminate bombing is itself psychological warfare.

When 3,600 tons of bombs fell from the sky, there was no difference between penniless civilians, armed soldiers, or even Hussein's son.

There is no distinction between high and low in the face of the power that destroys everything.

It hadn't been half past nine when there was a commotion outside.

When Ding Zhennan came out of the command center, the bomber had already flown overhead.

The densely packed of more than 100 bombers pulled out hundreds of clearly visible trails, which looked very spectacular and had a feeling of covering the sky and the sun.

In fact, the bomber flew very high, and if there was no wake, it would not be visible at all.

That is, when Ding Zhennan was about to return to the command center, Liu Zunshan rushed out, and he looked very excited, looking like he had won the jackpot.

Definitely hit the jackpot!

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