The battle around Deogle was fought extremely fiercely from the very beginning.

On the morning of the 15th, a few hours after the ambush of the forward troops, the Van army sent another brigade to attack Deogle.

However, this time it was an infantry brigade that was dispatched.

Due to the rough terrain, the speed of advancement is not very fast.

Obviously, the purpose of the Vatican army was not to send the brigade to regain Deogle, and the commander of the Van army, no matter how bad, would not expect to wipe out a few Imperial Marine battalions with an infantry brigade of just over 3,000 men. As for its real purpose, it is obviously to figure out the defensive deployment of the Marine Corps through the offensive.

For example, the location of long-range rocket artillery.

Don't forget that the Van Rowe Air Force has lost air supremacy, and even the Nuland Expeditionary Air Force is unable to recover its decline, so the aerial reconnaissance it relied on is no longer effective. As for Nuland's reconnaissance satellites, even if they are already re-networked, they will not be able to provide tactical-level battlefield intelligence for the Van Army for the time being. In contrast, the only thing that the Vatican army can rely on in long-range artillery battles is counter-battery radar.

It can be seen that the tactics of the Vatican army are very simple.

Lure the Imperial Marines' artillery into fire with a ground attack, and after the counter-battery radar has determined its bearing, let your own long-range artillery fire back.

To this end, the Van army dispatched more than 20 2S7 self-propelled cannons imported from Siluosha.

The 203 mm cannon has a staggering maximum range of 37 km, which can be increased to 47 km with rocket range extenders.

Xi Luosha developed this "perverted" heavy artillery in order to make up for the lack of air strike force.

In order to get a long enough range, other performance had to be sacrificed. For example, the turret was omitted and the gun was mounted directly on the tracked chassis, leaving the gunner exposed, and it was easy to be injured in battle. For example, because the loading equipment is too rudimentary, its actual combat rate of fire is extremely low, and it can only fire one shell every 2 minutes. It's just that compared to the pitifully short lifespan of the body, these are not problems.

In the case of firing a high-explosive grenade with a full charge, the body barrel life is only a pitiful 500 rounds.

That's a big problem for a cannon. You must know that the life of tank guns of the same era is basically more than 1,000 rounds. For suppressed guns that are used more frequently, the barrel life is generally more than 2,000 rounds, and some can reach 5,000 rounds.

It is precisely because of this that the West Luosha Army only procures a few hundred vehicles.

After the technology of long-range rocket artillery and tactical ballistic missiles matured, especially after the price dropped, the West Luosha Army eliminated all 2S7s, to be precise, sold to other countries as second-hand equipment. Among them, there is the Van Rowe Army, which is eager to obtain long-range suppressive firepower.

Interestingly, the purpose of the Van Rowe Army's purchase of the 2S7 is actually to replace the M107 self-propelled cannon imported from the Republic of Nuland, which has been in service for more than 10 years. According to the introduction of the West Luosha Army, the range of the 2S7 is 107 kilometers farther than that of the M15, which is more suitable for long-range artillery combat.

The point is that the 2S7 is much cheaper than its competitor, the M110 from Newland.

But in fact, the 2S7 did not replace the M107.

In addition, after the purchase of the 2S7, only 3 years later, the Van Rowe Army paid for the M110, and the purchase volume far exceeded the 2S7. So far, the Van Rowe Army has purchased 1,200 M110s, and all of them are used to equip the main forces of the Central Army and the northern faction.

In other words, the M110 is the absolute workhorse of the large-caliber artillery of the Van Luo Army.

As for the 2S7, even if it has not been decommissioned, it is equipped only with combat units of the southern faction, and the state of these guns has not been ideal.

Strictly speaking, these 2S7s purchased by the Vatican Army have never reached the declared state of service of Silosha.

There is nothing surprising that the 2S7 has been out of production for almost 10 years, and only a few armies, such as the Van Rowe Army, are still using this artillery. Because of the lack of spare parts, especially the barrels that cannot be produced in the Van Luo country, these 2S7s are basically in a semi-retired state.

What makes 2S7 get left out in the cold is an even more serious ammunition problem.

To reach a maximum range of 37 km, it is necessary not only to launch a full charge, but also to use jujube nuclear shells, which are produced in total to less than 200,000 rounds. Except for what was consumed by the Xiluosha Army and fell into the hands of the Van Luo Army, I am afraid that there are not even 100,000 rounds.

As for self-production, with the little industrial strength of the Van Luo country, that is to say, it is just that.

In addition, the range of 47 kilometers can only be reached if the full charge is launched, and the rocket range is used, and the rocket is produced less and more expensive.

Not directly proportional to the high cost is the combat effectiveness of the rocket range extender projectile.

Because the error is greater, even if the rocket range extender has a longer range, it is not very popular, after all, it is not accurate to hit, and it is useless to hit farther.

The key point is that the charge of rockets is generally low, and the power is somewhat worse than that of conventional artillery shells.

In fact, because it was too expensive, the Van Luo Army did not purchase 203 mm rocket range extender missiles in bulk from Xi Luosha.

With ordinary shells, the maximum range of the 2S7 is only 33 km, while the M107 can reach 32 km. Because it is far superior to the 2S7 in terms of maximum sustained rate of fire, impact deviation and barrel life, and the ammunition supply is more sufficient, the Van Rowe Army let the M107 continue to enter service. As for the later purchase of M110, it was actually used to replace 2S7 and make up for the shortcomings of M107's single ammunition type and insufficient ammunition power.

It's just that this large-caliber artillery must not be underestimated.

Not to mention anything else, the range of up to 33 kilometers is still beyond the reach of the active body artillery of the Imperial Army.

Not to mention ultra-light howitzers such as AL-100A, even the ZS-86R, which uses a 45 times diameter barrel, has an effective range of just over 20 kilometers when using ordinary shells, and it can only exceed 33 kilometers with rocket range extenders, and the Imperial Army also does not like to use rocket range extender shells.

Obviously, against the 2S7, the AL-100A will definitely not take advantage.

In fact, this is the main reason why the Vatican army has set up artillery positions 30 kilometers away.

At this distance, 2S7 can cover the entire field airfield, while the AL-100A deployed near the field airfield cannot reach the 2S7.

As for the PH-300B, even if it uses an ordinary rocket and has a range of 70 kilometers, it is of little value.

The point is that large-caliber rocket artillery takes a long time to prepare for firing, and it takes much more time to move from a combat state to a marching state. Even when deployed in a pre-set position, the PH-300B takes more than 10 minutes to change, and at least 15 minutes to maneuver to 500 meters away. This means that there is a high probability that the PH-300B will not be able to avoid enemy counterattack fire.

Actually, the same is true for the AL-100A.

If anything, the Marine Corps did not deploy self-propelled howitzers suitable for artillery battles in Deogle.

It's not that the Imperial Army didn't have self-propelled howitzers available, but it wasn't deployed to Deogle, or that it wasn't felt necessary before.

If it were not for the temporary adjustments, the PH-300B would not even be deployed in Deogle.

After all, the defense zone is so large, and there are not many places where artillery can be deployed.

In addition, only the "Y-15A" can deliver self-propelled howitzers with a combat total weight of more than 30 tons to Deogle, so to deploy self-propelled howitzers to the front line, then the main battle tanks or infantry fighting vehicles sent to the front line will have to be reduced, and the Marine Corps obviously wants to obtain the latter two types of main battle equipment.

Crucially, the Marines did not think of an artillery battle with the Van army.

In fact, artillery warfare itself has not always been the strong point of the imperial army.

Don't look at the Imperial Navy has always had a huge artillery plot, attaches great importance to large-caliber naval guns, and in World War II, the Imperial Army had the largest artillery unit in the world, equipped with almost 200,000 guns of various calibers at its peak. However, after the Great War, especially after the establishment of the Air Force and the birth of the new Army Air Corps, the Imperial Army's enthusiasm for heavy artillery suddenly plummeted.

Not to mention anything else, in addition to the ZS-86R imported from Dongluosha, the main force of the artillery units of the Imperial Army turned out to be the ZS-66 150mm self-propelled howitzer designed more than 20 years ago and has been upgraded and improved three times, and according to the planning of the Imperial Army, the ZS-66 will definitely be upgraded and improved for the fourth time and continue to serve for 30 years, and it is still a question whether it will be replaced by a newly designed self-propelled howitzer.

The main thing is that the status of artillery in the Imperial Army's support firepower system is getting lower and lower, and the development, procurement and equipment of a new self-propelled howitzer needs to break through billions, or even tens of billions of gold dollars. This is a very heavy burden for the Army, which already has little military spending. On the other hand, in the equipment projects of the Imperial Army, there was a lot of priority over self-propelled howitzers.

In addition, artillery was not the only supporting fire.

There are too many support platforms that can replace artillery, or are superior to artillery, such as the armed helicopters of the Army Aviation and the front-line attack aircraft of the Air Force.

It's not that artillery doesn't have existential value, but that the artillery in service is enough.

Of course, the advantage of artillery in terms of cost-effectiveness ratio will not be surpassed by other support platforms for the time being.

As for suppressing and destroying the enemy's long-range artillery, it is actually the task of assault aviation and front-line aviation.

It was in this way that, after gaining a foothold, the Marine Corps deployed more than 20 "Z-7Ws" of an assault aviation battalion to Deogle.

This is the Marine Corps' newest gunship.

Although it is improved from the "Z-7" that has been in service for more than 20 years, compared with the previous "Z-7", the W-type has changed very dramatically, and the take-off weight has increased to 11 tons, becoming a genuine heavy armed helicopter, and its combat effectiveness is also rising.

In addition, after upgrading the fire control system, the "Z-7W" can use all the ammunition of the Army and the Marine Corps, including the KD-28 heavy anti-tank missile, which was developed by the Army and was previously only available for the Army Aviation helicopter gunship, and the ground strike capability has been greatly enhanced.

Crucially, the Air Force has deployed a group of 24 "Attack-9Bs" to the field airfield in Balmel at the disposal of the front-line commander.

Because the combat radius has been shortened from 600 km to 300 km, the "Attack-9B" can not only take off with a full load of ammunition, but also increase the patrol time on the battlefield to two hours. The 24 "Attack-9Bs" were dispatched in turn, which was able to ensure that at least four of them were in the air at any time.

After receiving the call, these attack aircraft can drop all the tons of ammunition they carry within 15 minutes.

However, what makes the "Attack-9B" exert its combat effectiveness is actually another kind of aircraft.

That's right, it's the "Finger-10AG" joint command aircraft.

In the Bosshawan War, the "Finger-10A" showed its style and played an irreplaceable role in both air strikes and ground operations. According to Ding Zhennan's assessment, if there is no "Finger-10A", the air strike before launching the ground offensive would have to be extended for at least one month, and the ground offensive would have encountered greater trouble, suffered greater losses, and consumed more time.

It is precisely for this reason that the "joint command aircraft" is recognized as one of the new combat platforms that has changed the mode of warfare.

In other words, because of its high evaluation, the Kn-10A has received the highest priority, and it is one of the strategic models that must achieve the required production capacity.

In addition, a small improvement was made after the outbreak of the Great War.

The main thing is to increase the tactical data link for communication with combat aircraft, optimize the radar imaging algorithm, can command more attack aircraft at the same time, have the ability to detect low-flying targets, that is, helicopters, and can guide fighters to intercept.

Because the improvement was not significant, and it was an upgrade on the current "Finger-10A", the new designation was not adopted.

About 200 kilometers west of Deogle, there is always one "Finger-10AG" hovering at an altitude of 10,000 meters.

Previously, it was the "Finger-10AG" that discovered the armored forces of the Van Army, and based on the photos taken by synthetic aperture radar, it made a rough judgment on the size of the Van Army. As for those large-caliber artillery, they must be key monitoring targets, and every move cannot escape the sharp eyes of the "Finger-10AG".

Before the Vatican ground forces launched an attack, the "Finger-10AG" sent the battlefield information it had obtained to the front-line commander, and at the same time contacted the attack aircraft on standby at the front. Because Colonel Peng Yuhui had previously issued an order requiring all combat units to obey his command, the joint operations commander on the "Finger-10AG" did not encounter obstacles and ran away, but only let the four attack planes enter a combat state.

It was almost noon when the attacking forces of the Van army advanced to the front of the Marine line.

It was only when the Vatican army launched an attack that Peng Yuhui gave the order to start the battle.

At about 12:30, 8 "Attack-9Bs" divided into 2 formations launched an attack on the artillery positions where the 2S7 was deployed. Because of the abundance of ammunition and the fear of being attacked by individual anti-aircraft missiles, these attack planes are short-range air-to-surface missiles launched from tens of kilometers away. In the second round of supplementary bombing, laser-guided bombs were used at a distance of only a few kilometres.

As a result, more than 20 2S7s were given a pot by the "Attack-9B" before they had time to fire.

Subsequently, the AL-100A deployed in Deogle inflicted a sustained high-intensity artillery attack on the thousands of Van troops who were attacking the Marine defenses.

The ferocious covering artillery bombardment destroyed the fighting spirit of the Vatican officers and soldiers.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the offensive operation of the Vatican army was declared over.

Because it was the infantry that launched the attack and did not threaten the huge armored force, after the Van army retreated, Peng Yuhui did not let the forward troops take advantage of the situation to counterattack.

Crucially, the Air Force-led strike is about to begin.

The attack by the eight "Attack-9Bs" was just an appetizer, more like a test of the reaction of the Van army, especially whether the Van Rowe Air Force was willing to fight.

Obviously, when the Air Force is willing to contribute, the officers and men of the Marine Corps are naturally willing to watch the battle from the sidelines.

In any case, air strikes can strike up to a few hundred enemies, and after the air strikes are over, the ground forces still have to clean up the battlefield.