Although the counterattack launched by the Liangxia Air Force at night did not cause much damage, the impact on the follow-up operations should not be underestimated.

By the morning of 5 July, the Nuland Air Force was unable to continue bombing the Khowaii Islands in accordance with the operational plan, because it was forced to transfer the strategic aviation and support aviation units deployed in advance, such as large early warning planes and tankers, and because the bombers that had been withdrawn had to occupy second-tier inland airfields.

This is only the second day of the war!

Of course, Stark also kept a hand, or prepared a reserve in advance.

8 Ohio-class cruise missile submarines of the Guia Fleet of the Nuland Navy!

In the beginning, some staff officers suggested that these cruise missile submarines should carry out strategic assault missions to attack behind the defense line of the island chain, such as the military port of Baizhi and the naval aviation base of Li Mingbo on Guandao, or the military base on the main island of Saoyi, or even the Liangxia mainland.

In fact, this is also the main purpose of the Nuland Navy to spend tens of billions of dollars to build and equip 16 cruise missile submarines.

Among all the ships of the Navy, cruise missile submarines are the real strategic assault force.

Compared with strategic bombers, cruise missile submarines have the greatest advantage in that they can stealthily approach strategic targets and launch attacks before the enemy becomes alert.

In addition, cruise missile submarines are also much superior in their strike capabilities to bombers.

The Ohio-class cruise missile submarine has 24 sets of 7-tube concentric vertical launch systems, in addition to 38 mine-bombs in the forward torpedo bay, so it can theoretically carry up to 206 cruise missiles and launch all 172 cruise missiles in the vertical launch system and torpedo tubes in a matter of minutes. If you plan well in advance, you can hit 172 targets at the same time.

Send out all 16 Ohio-class ships to hit more than 3,000 targets at the same time!

Looking at the whole world, no country, not even the Liangxia Empire, can cope with a missile strike from 16 "Ohio" class ships.

In any strategic direction, there are not more than 3,000 strategic targets worth hitting!

It's just that the "Ohio" class is far from perfect.

Although at the time of design, the performance indicators of the "Ohio" class were very prominent, more advanced than any kind of cruise missile submarine in service at that time, and even surpassed the attack submarine in some aspects, but the defects were also prominent, and some of them were simply intolerable.

The most serious flaw is that the speed is too slow.

The maximum diving speed of the Ohio class is only 24 knots, and when the speed exceeds 8 knots, it produces very noticeable noise.

The attack submarines of the same era generally had a speed of more than 30 knots, and a few even exceeded 35 knots.

In addition, the fastest quiet speed of the "Nanjiang" class of the Liang Xia Navy exceeds 12 knots, and can even reach 16 knots, and the quiet performance is very outstanding!

In front of the "Nanjiang" class, the "Ohio" class did not even have a chance to escape.

Of course, the Nuland Navy did not think of sending cruise missile submarines to bayonets with enemy attack submarines.

Carrying nearly 200 submarine-launched cruise missiles, they also have a longer endurance and stronger sustained combat capability, and the displacement of cruise missile submarines is generally more than 15,000 tons, and some even exceed 20,000 tons, while the displacement of attack submarines is basically within 10,000 tons.

The point is also that the power system of cruise missile submarines is no better than that of attack submarines.

As a rule, cruise missile submarines use the power system of contemporaneous large attack submarines.

It is precisely this that cruise missile submarines will definitely be slower.

In order to carry strategic cruise missiles, cruise missile submarines often have a protruding turtle back, which will also produce more obvious fluid noise during navigation.

At the Ohio level, the problem is even more prominent.

The reason is simple: in order to be able to launch an attack in relative safety, that is, farther away from the target, the Nuland Navy insisted that the submarine-launched cruise missiles carried by the Ohio-class have a range of 1,500 nautical miles, preferably 2,000 nautical miles, or almost 3,700 kilometers.

This requirement directly makes the underwater displacement of the "Ohio" class close to 20,000 tons, and it has the most prominent turtle back among the cruise missile submarines of the same era.

At least compared with the cruise missile submarines of the Liangxia Navy, the "Ohio" class is very bloated.

Ironically, the strategic submarine-launched cruise missile, nicknamed the "Trident," developed specifically for the Ohio-class class, has not kept pace with the development and construction of submarines.

The first test launch of this missile took place only at the end of last year!

Although more than 10 consecutive test launches have been successful, and the reliability is very outstanding, I am afraid that it will take more than half a year to officially enter service.

As a result, all 16 Ohio-class ships were equipped with submarine-launched cruise missiles codenamed C4.

It stands to reason that this missile should be called "Poseidon" C4.

To put it simply, this is the fourth submarine-launched cruise missile officially purchased and installed by the Nuland Navy, and the previous three are the "Polaris" A1, "Polaris" A2 and "Poseidon" C3, and the "Poseidon" C4 is actually improved on the basis of 3.

That is, the C4 has little to do with the new missile, codenamed "Trident".

But the problem is that in order to obtain appropriations in Congress, and also to deceive opponents, or to deceive themselves, the Nuland Navy named it "Trident" C4. As for the "Trident", which is still under development, it has been given the designation D5 in order to distinguish it from this missile.

In fact, the performance of the "Trident" C4 is not bad.

The maximum range is 1,500 nautical miles, or almost 2,800 kilometers, which barely meets the requirements set by the Navy.

As for the rest, it can only be said that it is so-so.

For example, the whole flight can only be carried out at high subsonic speeds. Compared with the "Poseidon" C3, the warhead separation technology is adopted, which can throw away the bulky projectile body at the end of the flight, that is, the penetration stage, and the warhead is propelled by a small rocket engine to complete the final maneuvering flight.

Theoretically, if a high trajectory is used, the speed of the final dive phase can reach Mach 3.

However, the problem is that strategic cruise missiles are easily shot down when flying at high altitudes, so in actual combat, almost all of them penetrate from ultra-low altitudes.

As a result, it is difficult for the final speed of the Trident C4 to exceed the speed of sound.

In addition, the destructive ability of the warhead is not strong enough.

Although theoretically, the "Trident" C4 can carry a single warhead weighing up to 1 ton, and can use a ground-penetrating warhead capable of penetrating 5 meters of reinforced concrete, and has the ability to strike strategic bunkers, but to achieve this capability, there are many restrictions on combat use. For example, because the ground-penetrating warhead is too heavy and has to reduce the fuel, the maximum range that can be achieved will be reduced to 1,100 nautical miles. For another example, only when diving from a high altitude and landing speed reaches Mach 3, can the ground-penetrating warhead reach the designed indicators. If it is the usual ultra-low-altitude penetration, the speed of the warhead landing point is less than Mach 1, then the maximum drilling depth can only reach one-third of the design index.

In fact, most of the "Trident" C4 is equipped with a high-explosive warhead.

This is also the most serious problem.

To put it simply, 1 "Trident" C4 can only deal with 1 target.

The Liangxia Navy's second-generation strategic submarine-launched cruise missile can use the child-mother warhead. The later version is equipped with 3 tandem warheads and is capable of hitting 3 targets in the same area. The third-generation strategic submarine-launched cruise missile, nicknamed "Roar 3", has been officially mass-produced and put into service, and is equipped with 10 warheads with independent homing capabilities, which can launch strikes against 10 targets in flight, that is, near the route.

Theoretically, the bullet of the "Wave 3" can fly 300 kilometers under the propulsion of a small rocket engine, and the maximum allowable offset distance is more than 150 kilometers.

The "Trident" D5 is aimed at the third-generation strategic submarine-launched cruise missile of the Liangxia Navy.

When determining the tactical performance indicators, the Nuland Navy aimed at the "Amazing Wave 3", and the main performance indicators were required to exceed the "Wild Wave 3". For example, it is required to be able to carry up to 14 projectiles, and each projectile must have the ability to maneuver and fly 500 kilometers independently, so that the maximum allowable offset distance is more than 250 kilometers, and a wider strike range can be obtained.

In addition, the mass of each warhead is not less than 500 pounds, that is, about 227 kilograms.

In fact, this point is slightly worse, the bullet head of "Wave 3" is 250 kilograms.

Of course, "500 pounds" and "250 kilograms" are military units of measurement similar to the caliber of firearms, so they cannot be taken literally.

Broadly speaking, "500 pounds" means a mass between 375 pounds and 750 pounds, not necessarily 500 pounds.

The same is true in the Liangxia Navy, that is, when "250 kg" is used as a bomb caliber, it refers to a range, not a specific value.

If anything, it is the tactical performance indicators set by the Nuland Navy that are too high, which has led to repeated delays in the development of the "Trident" D5.

Otherwise, the "Trident" C4 will not be used to fill the number.

From another point of view, it is because the performance of the "Trident" D5 is too advanced, or in order to meet the indicators, the basic data have to be repeatedly modified, especially the diameter of the missile body, so after all 16 "Ohio" class ships were completed, the Nuland Navy suddenly discovered that the "Trident" D5 could not be installed in the "Ohio" class vertical launch system at all, and to forcibly mount it, a new launch system had to be used.

That is, by that time, all 16 ships of the "Ohio" class will return to the shipyard for a major overhaul.

Because the pressure-resistant shell cannot be moved, it can only make a fuss about the 7-tube concentric vertical launch system, that is, a set of launch system is reduced to 3 tubes, and the "Trident" D5 will definitely not be able to launch with 21-inch torpedo tubes, so after the modification, the submarine-launched cruise missiles loaded with the "Ohio" class will be sharply reduced from more than 200 to 72, and the number of missiles will be directly reduced by sixty!

Even if the striking capability has increased a lot by relying on the bullet, the development progress of the self-seeking bullet is even slower!

Besides, by the time the "Trident" D5 entered service, the "Ohio" had already been in service for more than 10 years, and there was little point in modernizing it.

It is for this that the Nuland Navy did not purchase more Ohio classes, and several years ago launched work on the development of the next generation of cruise missile submarines.

This new submarine, codenamed "SSCX", was developed for the "Trident" D5.

As far as Stark knows, the SSCX is worthy of the word "strategic", and the Nuland Navy will also obtain a reliable strategic strike capability through this submarine.

To put it simply, relying on the "Trident" D5, SSCX can carry out long-range strikes in the waters east of the Northern Malaysia Islands and in the Northern Guia Ocean, and carry out long-range strikes on the core areas of the Liangxia Empire. In other words, SSCX does not need to break through the "local strategic security defense line" that stretches from the main island of Sagi in the north, extends to the southeast in the south, and finally reaches the Throat Strait, so it does not have to worry about being sunk by the Liangxia submarine when it breaks through.

If anything, this is also a capability that the Nuland Navy has been striving for for the past few decades.

In a way, this is to prove the value of the Navy!

It has always been said that the navy is a strategic service.

In addition, the Nuland Navy is also very strong in history, no worse than the Liangxia Navy, and the Nuland Republic also has a unique geographical advantage.

It is a pity that after the Second Global War, the Nuland Navy never proved its existential value.

In other people's words, the 600,000-strong Nuland Navy has made less contributions than the State Department, which does not even have 60,000 troops.

Over the past few decades, it has been diplomats of the State Department, not the naval fleet, who have defended overseas interests!

Even the few operations that have been taken against the small island nations of the Caribbean.

As for the "strategic" values that the Navy proclaims and flaunts, not only have they never been used, but they are also very unreliable.

To put it mildly, in the past few decades, the Liangxia submarines deployed in Zhenbao Harbor have been squatting outside the military port on the west coast of Newland to track and monitor the submarines of the Nuland Navy, while the Nuland submarines, which shoulder a strategic mission, rarely wander outside the ports of Liangxia mainland.

In fact, according to the mark-up tactics adopted by the Liangxia Navy, as long as the cruise missile submarines of the Nuland Navy leave the port, there will definitely be attack submarines of the Liangxia Navy following behind, and the attack submarines with the best performance are usually carried out by the mark-up missions to ensure that the Nuland submarines are sunk immediately after the start of the war.

For this reason, the Nuland Navy had no choice but to use a large number of anti-submarine patrol planes and anti-submarine warships to build a "fortress area" outside the west coast of the mainland, to be precise, in the waters of the eastern part of the Guia Ocean, to expel the Liangxia submarine that was trying to enter, and to arrange for attack submarines to escort cruise missile submarines.

But the problem is that the fortress area is too far away from the Liangxia mainland.

Even if the cruise missile submarine survives, it will have to sail thousands of kilometers to the west to strike strategic targets in the core area of the Liangxia mainland.

Obviously, in times of war, this is an almost impossible task!

It is that over the past few decades, the Nuland Navy has not been massively armed with cruise missile submarines, only a few of them have been built in each class.

Until the "Ohio" class there were more than 10 ships.

It is a pity that because the development of the "Trident" D5 was not completed as planned, the "Ohio" class still does not have a reliable strategic strike capability.

In the words of MPs, these are 16 "toys" with a total value of more than NZ$40 billion, the main value of which is to give the Navy a reason to retain the establishment of 16 cruise missile submarines, so that at least 5,000 officers and men of the submarine force, and 10 times as many service personnel, will receive golden jobs.

It's just that the Nuland Navy does not intend to decommission the "Ohio" class and the "Trident" C4.

Not only 16 "Ohio" class ships can serve for more than 20 years, but also related to the "Trident" C4.

After a mid-term upgrade, the Trident C4 already has the ability to strike moving targets and can be used as an ultra-long-range anti-ship missile!

Of course, there are certainly a lot of limitations.

It's just that for the Nuland Navy, which is facing 15 aircraft carrier battle groups, a powerful anti-ship missile has an incomparably huge allure.