Getting the 17th Panzer Division to storm Jaipur was both a clever move and a very challenging one, and the first leg was crucial.

Jaiselmer is the most important military fortress in the western region of the Van Luo Kingdom, the hinterland of the Van Luo Desert, and it is also the strategic support point of the Van army in this direction.

In the early days of the Second Southern Subcontinent War, the main force of the Van army set out from here, and after quickly passing through the Van Luo Desert, it invaded the territory of Pakistan and the railway, posing a threat to the southern flank of the Pakistani army's defense line, thus forcing the Pakistani army to transfer troops from the north, making it difficult for the Pakistani army to take care of itself. After the breakthrough, the Van army also advanced to the hinterland of the Van Luo River, almost cutting off the Pakistani Tie, and it can be said that it was only one step away from victory.

To speak, as early as the First Southern Subcontinent War, the Vatican army had acted in Jaiselmer. It was only due to traffic constraints that there was no way to invest heavy troops, and logistical support was unsustainable, so a breakthrough could not be made. However, this also prompted Van Rowe to increase investment in the construction of a railway connecting Jaissermer and Jaipur through Jodhpur before the outbreak of the Second Southern Subcontinent War.

It was only after the opening of the railway that the Van Rowe hierarchy made up their minds, and a few months later launched the Second Southern Subcontinent War in a surprise attack.

Since then, Jaiselmer has become the number one military town on the western frontier.

Over the past decade or so, relying on the railway that runs through the Van Lo Desert, the Van army has been strengthening its defenses, building several military bases around Jaiselmer, numerous field fortifications, and even laying the highest density of minefields in the southern subcontinent in the sand dunes to the west.

Although the population of Jayselmer was less than 5,000, the number of Vatican troops stationed there was never less than 50,000 at any time.

Before the outbreak of the Third Global War, the local Vatican army had increased to 80,000, and then another 20,000 on the eve of the invasion of the Van Luo kingdom. Among these combat units, the main forces are the 11th Armored Division and the 34th Mechanized Infantry Division, and these two divisions alone have more than 30,000 troops. In addition to having hundreds of main battle tanks, the Vatican army has deployed a long-range artillery battalion equipped with self-propelled howitzers.

This is the only artillery battalion equipped with M110 outside the Central Army.

The Vatican army defended not only Jaiselmer, but the Southern Raja Plateau, which was centered on Jaiselmer and covered an area of more than 20,000 square meters. The average altitude of this plateau is around 500 meters, which is 300 meters higher than the Raja River valley and occupies almost half of the Van Roe Desert. The southernmost point of the mesa is Balmer, and Jaiselmer is right in the center of the salient at the southern end of the mesa platform.

In addition, Jaiselmer has the largest source of underground water within a radius of more than 100 kilometers.

After development, the groundwater produced can sustain the daily consumption of up to 150,000 garrisons.

It was for this reason that the Vatican army built defensive positions around Jaiselmeir and focused on the west to defend against attacks from the Eastern Bloc.

In fact, according to the defensive deployment of the Van army, Jayselmel and Balmel relied on each other.

Because of the more difficult terrain and the lack of roads leading to Pakistan, Jayselmer is less likely to be attacked and easier to defend.

For a long time, the Vatican army placed the main forces in Jayselmer.

According to the Vatican plan, after Balmel was attacked, Jaiselmer's Vatican army was sent south to attack the enemy's flank.

For this purpose, the Vatican army also built a desert road from Jaiselmer to Balmel.

Because Balmel is located at the southern end of the plateau, with an altitude of less than 300 meters above sea level, attacking Jaiselmeir to the north is tantamount to attacking from above.

Theoretically, the Van army would be able to crush an attack from the south by holding only a few key points north of Balmer, at least keeping the enemy far enough away from Jaiselmeier. It was precisely for this reason that the Vatican army built a large military base in the middle of the desert road, a little south to be precise. After more than a decade of construction, it has evolved into a small town with thousands of residents.

That is, the town of Sheo.

Because border guards are deployed here in peacetime, the residents of the town of Sheawe are mainly family members of military personnel.

If anything, the border guards of the Vatican Army have a tradition of allowing their families to live nearby, and the Van Luo authorities have regarded this as an important means of maintaining the stability of the army.

Shortly after the 5th Marine Division attacked, the Van Army drew a battalion from each of the 11th Panzer Division and the 34th Mechanized Infantry Division to reinforce Sheo's defenses. However, until the Fifth Marine Division defeated Balmel, the Vatican troops deployed in Sheo did not move south.

During this time, several small units were sent south to harass them, but they were all annihilated by the Marines.

The commander of the Vatican army thus concluded that it was the main forces of the Eastern Coalition that occupied Balmel, and that the garrison of Sheo was therefore only sufficient for defense.

Clearly, the pre-war vision became an ornament.

This also reflects the fact that many Vatican officers have realized that the defensive tactics envisaged in the past simply do not work. Without air supremacy, allowing the troops to launch a counterattack is tantamount to sending officers and soldiers to their deaths, and it will not achieve any substantive results. Since a counterattack does not work, it can only rely on positions to fight a defensive war. As a result, the 20,000 Vatican officers and soldiers stationed in Sheo have been actively building fortifications.

Ironically, after the main forces of the 5th Marine Division moved south, only 2 battalions were deployed in Balmel.

Moreover, the 5th Marine Division had no intention of moving north from Balmel at all.

Of course, this move of the Vatican Army can also be seen as a sign of timidity, after all, the surprise attack capability displayed by the Fifth Marine Division when attacking Balmel far exceeded the Vatican Army's understanding, and the strike capability of the Imperial Air Force made the Van Army even more frightened.

It was in this way that when the 17th Panzer Division broke through the border and marched towards Jaiselmer, the main force of the Vatican army was on Jaiselmel's side, and did not use troops south because of Balmer's attack, and the defensive deployment around Jaiselmel was not weakened.

However, this did not surprise the officers and men of the 17th Panzer Division.

When drawing up the plan, the Fifth Marine Division and the 17th Armored Division were actually acting separately, and as for the joint operation that Ding Zhennan had been emphasizing, it was only after a breakthrough was made that the 17th Armored Division attacked Jaipur within the specified time.

The reason is also very simple, the main force of the Fifth Marine Division has already moved south to attack Guji Bang, even if everything goes well, it will only be possible to attack Jaipur north after encircling and annihilating the Van army in Udaipur, and it is still necessary to say whether the Fifth Marine Division will go north at that time.

According to the plan, the 17th Panzer Division had to fight outside Jaipur before the 5th Marine Division laid siege to Udaipur.

The first battle was challenging.

Although the Van Army had been keeping an eye on the Marines deployed at Balmel, and only discovered that the main threat was coming from the west after the forward units of the 17th Panzer Division had crossed the border, the main force remained in Jaiselmeir and was not sent to the south, and there was no problem of requiring widespread movement.

The biggest problem, if anything, was to send the armored forces originally deployed in the south to the west of the defensive line.

In fact, this is also the opportunity of the 17th Panzer Division.

During the day on the 17th, it was not the forward units of the 17th Panzer Division that acted as the main force, but the front-line aviation and assault aviation deployed in the rear.

On the outskirts of Sukkur there are three large field airfields, where nearly 200 Tap-9Bs are deployed. At the Army's forward base near the border line, there are two assault aviation battalions of the 179th Aviation Brigade each equipped with more than 30 Z-10A, and the third assault aviation battalion is in Balmel.

During the day of the 17th alone, thousands of sorties were made by front-line attack aircraft and hundreds by helicopter gunships.

The high-intensity air strikes destroyed what little fighting spirit the Van army had. In the afternoon of the same day, the 11th Panzer Division withdrew to its starting point and refused to carry out the orders given by the command on the grounds of "heavy casualties", while the 34th Mechanized Infantry Division also retreated in the evening.

After a whole day's hard work, after losing more than 1,000 units of main battle equipment and tens of thousands of officers and men, the Vatican army's action to adjust its defensive deployment was declared a failure.

At the same time, the vanguard of the 17th Panzer Division, after a long day's rapid march, attacked the Southern Raja Plateau at about 4 a.m. on the 18th, reached the west of Jaiselmer, and exchanged fire with the Vatican forces deployed there during the advance reconnaissance operation.

However, the 17th Panzer Division did not immediately attack.

It was only the vanguard of three battalions that arrived, which was not only small in strength but also had little ammunition, and was not qualified to launch a strong attack.

Crucially, there is also a minefield laid by the Vatican army ahead.

If anything, the number one enemy of the Imperial Army in the theaters of the Southern Subcontinent is the mines that can be found everywhere, especially those cheap anti-personnel mines.

In fact, the border between Van Luo and Pakistan is the most landmine dense region in the world.

In the two Southern Subcontinent Wars, especially the Second Southern Subcontinent War, both warring sides used landmines with impunity.

Obviously, compared with other weapons, landmines have a very high cost-effectiveness ratio in defensive operations.

Fortunately, the Imperial Army had a clear enough understanding. During the Polish-Iraqi War, the Imperial Army suffered a great loss due to its lack of mine-sweeping capabilities. Besides, on the continental battlefield facing the Western Continent Group, the strategic defense line of the Imperial Army was also highly dependent on mines.

It is for this reason that the Imperial Army has been actively looking for and developing more efficient mine-clearing tools.

As already mentioned, the Imperial Army, taking the chassis of an armored transport vehicle, developed a rocket minesweeper capable of accompanying armored forces in combat.

Compared with traditional mine-sweeping tools, the cleaning efficiency of rocket mine-sweeping vehicles has been substantially improved.

However, there are still big shortcomings.

Relatively speaking, the lack of sweeping capability is still the main defect of the rocket minesweeper, that is, in the strategic level of offensive operations involving hundreds of thousands of troops, the cleaning capability provided by the rocket minesweeper cannot guarantee that the efficiency of the assault will not be reduced after encountering a minefield.

In order to ensure the smooth conduct of large-scale assault operations with divisions as units, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of mine clearance.

It was under this demand that the Imperial Army fully borrowed the cleaning principle of the rocket minesweeper and developed a more efficient cleaning tool.

Thermobaric bombs developed from napalm bombs.

At least at the time of development, the main use envisaged was for mine clearance.

The principle is also very simple: use the ultra-high pressure generated by the explosion to detonate the mines within the explosion range, and clear a large area without mines at one time.

As for the use against the personnel in the hidden fortifications, it was a discovery obtained in practice.

Although in the beginning, the Imperial Army tried to use large-caliber rockets to drop thermobaric bombs, but after testing, it was found that the effect was very unsatisfactory, and the cost-effectiveness ratio was extremely low, so it had to compromise with reality, that is, to make aerial bombs, which were carried and used by attack aircraft.

As a rule, it is heavy attack aircraft that perform minesweeping tasks.

The eight "Attack-8s" of a squadron can carry up to kilogram-level aviation thermobaric bombs, and if they enter and drop bombs in a two-plane formation, they can theoretically clear a mine-free zone with a length of more than 20 kilometers and a width of 5 kilometers at one time, which is enough for thousands of vehicles of an armored brigade to pass through smoothly within two hours. All it takes is a large group of attack aircraft to create the breakthrough needed for an armored division to launch a surprise attack.

However, "aviation minesweepers" also have flaws.

The main thing is that the aviation thermobaric bomb used for mine clearance is an unguided bomb, and in order to ensure the safety of the carrier aircraft, the bomb drop height must be higher than 500 meters, so the accuracy of the bomb delivery will not be too high, and there may be a gap between the bomb dropping area of the front and rear two batches of carrier aircraft.

For this reason, in combat operations, it is still necessary to use rocket minesweepers of engineering units to clear the way.

In fact, during the day on the 18th, the main task of the forward units of the 17th Panzer Division was to open the way for the main forces that were about to arrive.

As for the Vatican army, it is still actively deploying troops, but it has not been effective.

In order to cover the 17th Panzer Division, and also in preparation for the storming of Jaiselmel, the air support provided by the Imperial Air Force during the day on the 18th set a new record since the beginning of the war. In just 12 hours, more than 2,400 sorties were sorted, and the bomb volume exceeded 10,000 tons.

The average number of bombs dropped in sorties was more than 4 tons!

Prior to this, even at the most critical moment on the mainland battlefield, the average bomb volume of the Air Force's tactical aviation did not exceed 3 tons per flight.

It's not that attack aircraft can't carry too many bombs, but that there are only so many targets that can be hit by each sortie. If you can't run out of bombs, you have to take them back, and there are definitely safety risks when you land with them. What's more, if there are more bombs, the fuel loaded will be reduced, or it will not be able to carry more auxiliary fuel tanks, which will also have an impact on the combat radius and air time, which is equivalent to reducing the combat efficiency of the attack aircraft.

There is a key reason for being able to set this record, the front-line airfield is close enough to the battlefield.

It is less than 250 kilometers from Sukuyo to Jaiselmer.

In addition, the long-range artillery battalion, which originally belonged to the 17th Panzer Division, was not sent to Deogle, and the long-range artillery loopholes could only be filled by front-line aviation.

This, of course, is a reflection of how fierce the battle is around Jaiselmeier.

Strictly speaking, it should be tragic.

The high-intensity bombardment, which lasted for more than 10 hours, made the Vatican troops deployed on the periphery miserable, and as a result, on the night of the 18th, the main force of the 17th Panzer Division arrived and launched an attack, and there was no longer a Vatican combat unit that could organize and fight to the west of Jaiselmer.

The combat operation against Jayselmeir directly entered the stage of attacking.