"Swallow 01 received, course 285, 331st area, block enemy armored forces!"

After finishing speaking, Lian Mingyang knocked on the glass baffle in front of him and reminded Jiang Shanggui, who was sitting in front.

Unlike tandem two-seater fighters, on gunships, the pilot sits in the back, and in front is the weapons operator.

This arrangement is due to the fact that the gunship mainly flies at low altitudes, and the view from the back seat is wider.

As for the call code, it was arranged by the base command, and it had nothing to do with Lian Mingyang, and it was just for the convenience of command and coordination.

When Jiang Shanggui began to prepare for the battle, in fact, he called up the flight map, found the 331st area, and learned the general situation of the area, Lian Mingyang activated the data link system and sent the combat orders and battlefield information sent by the "Finger-10A" to the other helicopters in the formation.

In fact, it is mainly the combat order that must be confirmed by the captain, that is, Lian Mingyang himself.

As for battlefield information, other helicopter gunships have datalink equipment and can obtain it on their own.

For the 331st area, Lian Mingyang knows a lot.

The area is just north of Volzhsky, on the other side of the river is Volgograd, and it is located just upstream of the Volga River.

Because the flow of the river was relatively gentle, and because it avoided crowded cities, it was possible to lay siege to Volzhsky after crossing the river and take the vital bridgehead, allowing the large army to cross the river more smoothly, so the area has always been a key defensive area.

However, it is also the hardest place to defend.

The reason is also very simple, the east bank is a flat river, and there are hundreds of meters of impact plains, there is no way to build strong fortifications.

Retreat the defensive line back a few hundred meters, and the defensive effect will be greatly reduced.

If you have to say it, you can't hold it at all at the tactical level.

After several rounds of fire preparation, the engineering troops were able to erect pontoon bridges under the cover of fire, and by the time the defenders on the east bank reacted, the armored units on the west had already rushed over.

What's more, the West Luosha Army has quite a few amphibious tanks and amphibious armored vehicles.

Over the past few decades, the Western Luosha Army has focused heavily on amphibious armored forces in order to overcome the impact of the Volga River on the offensive.

According to the offensive theory of the Western Luosha Army, the Volga River was not included in the first assault at all, and it had to be taken before the assault was launched.

It should be said that no country attaches more importance to amphibious tanks than the West Luosha Army.

It can be seen that if the West Luosha Army first invests in amphibious armored units, especially amphibious tanks with good assault capabilities and more than enough to deal with pillbox bunkers, then before the engineering troops begin to erect pontoon bridges, they will be able to seize the river beach positions and greatly reduce the difficulty of river crossing operations.

In theory, more than an hour is enough.

This is also in line with the tactical assumption.

It took two hours to take the position on the river beach, and by the time the main armored forces crossed the river, it was already dawn, and it was just in time to launch a surprise attack on the deep defense line of the Eastern Bloc.

It's 5:30 a.m., and it's just over half an hour before dawn.

If the combat order is correct, then it is possible that the main armored forces of Xiluosha have already crossed the river.

This time, it is quite possible that it will be the T-80U.

According to pre-war intelligence, the 1st Guards Army was deployed in Volgograd, including the 9th Panzer Division, the most elite of the Western Luosha Army.

The division was the first to be equipped not only with the T-80B, but also the first to receive the T-80U.

This tank is not only equipped with explosive reactive armor, but also has an artillery missile with a range of 5 kilometers that can attack helicopter gunships.

This kind of artillery missile poses a very huge threat.

To a certain extent, the Imperial Army required heavy anti-tank missiles to have a range of at least 8 km, that is, to suppress such artillery missiles with a range of 5 km.

To put it simply, keep the helicopter gunship as far away as possible from tanks that can fire artillery missiles.

However, according to the information provided by the Military Intelligence Agency, this is not a major threat.

Even the latest T-80U tank seriously lacks the ability to fight at night, and the matching optical sighting equipment makes the hit rate of long-distance engagements very unsatisfactory.

The same information provided by the Military Intelligence Agency, even under ideal conditions, the T-80U uses the 9M119M to hit only 60% of armored targets at a distance of 5 kilometers, and in actual combat situations, especially against high-speed helicopters, the hit rate is probably not even 10%.

Most of the time, it is more like a psychological comfort, so that tank crews do not have to be afraid when facing helicopter gunships.

In addition, the number of artillery-launched missiles issued to the troops is not very large.

Even in the 9th Panzer Division, only a few commanders' vehicles were equipped with artillery missiles, and the T-80U could only carry a maximum of four.

For anything else, there are only 4 storage barrels in the tank for missiles.

In practical use, the 9M119 is also mainly used against armored targets, especially infantry fighting vehicles equipped with heavy anti-tank missiles that can fire at a distance of several kilometers.

If you want to talk about the threat, in fact, it is the self-propelled anti-aircraft guns that accompany tank operations, and the self-propelled air defense system with the code name "Tunguska".

As for the former, that is, the ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, there is nothing to introduce.

During the Polish-Iraqi War, the Imperial Army Aviation had enough of anti-aircraft guns, and thousands of helicopters were shot down by this kind of anti-aircraft guns, which were not considered advanced.

After that, during the Iran-Iraq war, the "Shilka" on both sides achieved good results.

Even now, a large number of these anti-aircraft guns are still in the Iraqi army, and several coalition combat aircraft have been shot down in the previous month.

The protective design of the "Z-10A" is aimed at the 23-mm cannon of the "Shilka".

Don't forget, the key parts of the "Z-10A" can withstand the direct attack of 23mm high-explosive shells, and the secondary parts can work normally for more than half an hour after being shot.

The key point is that "Shilka" is indeed lagging behind.

The main reason is that there is a lack of advanced fire control systems, and when dealing with ultra-low-altitude targets, because of the slow response, the combat efficiency is not high.

In addition, the effective range of the 23-mm cannon was less than 3000 meters.

Not to mention that the "Z-10A" has the "Repeater" KD-8 heavy anti-tank missile with a range of up to 28 kilometers, and the cheap 80-mm rocket also has a range of 3000 meters.

Relatively speaking, the 2S6 "Tunguska" self-propelled air defense system is the real threat.

As a self-propelled air defense system used to replace the "Shilka", the "Tunguska" not only replaced four 23-mm guns with two 30-mm guns with a longer range and greater power, greatly improving the intensity of fire against low-altitude targets and having the ability to destroy helicopter gunships, but also integrated two sets of a total of eight 9M311 short-range anti-aircraft missiles, which solved the problem that the range was inferior to that of anti-tank missiles.

If anything, "Tunguska" was born against the "Z-10A".

In the face of such a light helicopter gunship as the "Z-7", the "Shilka" is barely enough, even if it is not advanced, at least it has enough threats.

Only in the face of heavy helicopter gunships such as the "Z-10A" will require more advanced air defense systems.

According to the information provided by the Military Intelligence Agency, the "Tunguska" is actually a new air defense system developed by the West Luosha Army with the support of the West Continent Group to deal with the "Z-10A".

For the first time, this system allowed the Army to gain effective field air defense!

Of course, the 9M311 can deal not only with helicopter gunships, but also against attack aircraft of the Air Force, as well as fighters flying at altitudes below 5,000 meters.

This is also the ground target that the base command highlighted before the war and needed to be hit first.

This order was given not only to the Army Aviation, but also to the front-line aviation of the Air Force.

As soon as a "Tunguska" is discovered, it must not only be reported immediately, but also immediately attacked.

As for whether it can be even "Tunguska", even Lian Mingyang is not very sure.

In fact, the Imperial Army also had a similar self-propelled air defense system with integrated projectiles and artillery, and its performance was no worse than that of the "Tunguska", and it could even be said that it was even better.

In last year's "westward expansion" exercise, Lian Mingyang and his team suffered losses.

According to the conclusion of the confrontation exercise, the exchange ratio between helicopter gunships and advanced self-propelled air defense systems is between 3 and 5 under the condition that the combat systems of the two sides are not very different.

What is this concept?

The purchase price of a set of "Tunguska" does not exceed 10 million gold yuan, and a missile launch vehicle is probably about 1 million.

5 vehicles, only 5 million gold yuan, and the military procurement price of the "Z-10A" exceeded 10 million gold yuan.

The key is that the exchange ratio between the "Z-10A" and the main battle tank is more than 20!

Lian Mingyang didn't want to meet "Tunguska", but if he did, there was no way.

"Captain, look at it!"

After being reminded by the wingman pilot, Lian Mingyang looked up at the sky.

The sky had turned white, but the sun had not yet reached the ground.

The wingman pilot did not call him to watch the sunrise, but to look at the combat planes flying at high altitudes.

All heavy fighters flying to the west.

However, there are only a few in total, and they look like tactical reconnaissance aircraft.

It should be the "Zhan-8FC" that performs reconnaissance missions.

Although both the "Zhan-10" and "Zhan-11" have been put into service in large quantities, there are still a large number of "Zhan-8" in service because of the large number of equipment.

Including the reserve forces, there are almost 2,000 in total.

In addition to some training, most of these fighters have been converted into multi-role fighters and used as attack aircraft in large-scale wars.

However, the most valuable is actually the dedicated reconnaissance type, and the "Zhan-8FC" is the latest tactical reconnaissance type.

Although the performance is not advanced, it is still more than enough to carry out tactical reconnaissance missions.

When two reconnaissance pods and three auxiliary fuel tanks are hung, the combat radius exceeds 1,200 kilometers, and after throwing away the auxiliary fuel tanks, the high-altitude flight speed can reach Mach 2, and at low altitude there is also Mach 1.1, which is not much worse than the third-generation fighters in service.

The key, of course, is the reconnaissance pod.

Relying on the reconnaissance pod, the "Zhan-8FC" can obtain clear battlefield images at a distance of up to 60 kilometers, and even if it flies at low altitudes, it can shoot at a distance of 20 kilometers. The range of 60 kilometers exceeds the range of most theater-class anti-aircraft missiles, and 20 kilometers is outside the range of most short-range missiles.

As for the value of tactical reconnaissance aircraft, it is needless to say.

Don't look at the fact that there are reconnaissance satellites in the sky, and that joint command functions such as the "Finger-10A" can operate several hundred kilometers away, but when it comes to tactical reconnaissance, we still have to look at reconnaissance planes. The reason is very simple: reconnaissance satellites cannot provide real-time intelligence, and the number of joint command aircraft is small, and it is difficult for synthetic aperture radar to identify the specific model of equipment. Only tactical reconnaissance aircraft can obtain and provide accurate battlefield intelligence.

Otherwise, the Imperial Air Force would not have kept hundreds of tactical reconnaissance aircraft.

In a large-scale war, the mission of these reconnaissance planes is to rush to the battlefield in front of the attacking force and find out the battlefield situation such as the forces invested by the enemy and the direction of the attack.

What is different from the past is that the digital camera used by the "Zhan-8FC" can use a high-speed intelligence data link specially developed for reconnaissance aircraft to send the captured photos to the rear combat platform in the form of digital signals, so there is no need to return home and develop the negatives.

If anything, this is also a big step forward!

To put it simply, the timeliness of tactical reconnaissance has been increased from a few hours in the past to tens of minutes, or even minutes, now.

Don't underestimate it.

If it takes a few hours for tactical intelligence to be available, the commander must make a prediction when it comes to defensive deployments.

Reduced to minutes, allowing commanders to adjust deployments in real time as the situation changes on the battlefield.

As a matter of fact, the art of command in modern warfare is developing in the direction of "real-time."

The core of the third military revolution launched by the imperial army is to strengthen the reconnaissance, communication, and command systems to achieve the ultimate goal of "discovering and destroying."

The digital camera used in the reconnaissance plane is one of the products of this theory.

That is, the digital camera, which has brought the tactical reconnaissance aircraft back to the fore.

However, there must be an early warning command plane in the rear of the battle line, or a full-time communications relay plane, which is responsible for receiving and relaying battlefield information sent by tactical reconnaissance planes.

More likely, it was a specialized intelligence support aircraft.

As expected, after about half an hour, the information will be sent to the helicopter gunship piloted by Lian Mingyang through a data link.

At that time, it will be possible to know if there is a "Tunguska" ahead.

It can be seen that this is a completely new way of engagement.

In the era of mechanized warfare, it was firepower that played a decisive role. For example, during the last great war, strong firepower was often able to destroy all opponents. In many cases, commanders are also willing to choose to achieve their combat objectives by firepower rather than think of other methods.

In the electronic age, intelligence has played a decisive role.

On the Posha Bay side, the value of intelligence has already been demonstrated. Accurate battlefield intelligence can not only greatly improve the efficiency of firepower strikes, but also reduce the demand for firepower. When the strike efficiency is sufficiently guaranteed, the excess firepower becomes a burden.

If the development continues, battlefield information will also play a decisive role.

In previous years of joint exercises, as well as in the unfinished Battle of Posha Bay, the Imperial Army had already tested new tactics.

Officers and men like Lian Mingyang, who participated in combat operations, have personally understood the power of the electronic age.

The key is combat efficiency.

In the era of mechanization, even the most powerful attack aircraft can destroy several tanks at a time, but now the helicopter gunship can destroy more than a dozen tanks at a time, and the anti-armor combat capability of a special attack aircraft such as the "Attack-9" is even more amazing.

To put it bluntly, the military power of the electronic age is a powerful existence capable of crushing the mechanized age.

So, has the enemy on the other side of the battle line also entered the electronic age?