Zhang Jiazheng took Li Tianling out of the command center, saying that he was taking him around the base and asked the guards to get an off-road vehicle.

However, it was Li Tianling who was driving.

"Our operation is actually a feint."

When Zhang Jiazheng said this, Li Tianling was startled and almost didn't grasp the steering wheel.

"Watch the road and don't make a fuss."

When Li Tianling suddenly stepped on the brakes, Zhang Jiazheng grabbed the handrail next to him.

"To engage in such a big battle, is it just a feint?"

Although Zhang Jiazheng did not mention how many bombers to be put in, when he made an introduction, he emphasized that there were about 40 strategic targets that must be destroyed.

Li Tianling also speculated that there would be about 20 bombers dispatched.

Normally, 1 strategic bomber such as the "H-9D" can carry 12 "Snake Spears" and is theoretically capable of attacking 12 targets.

Taking into account the sortie rate of bombers, the intact rate of cruise missiles, and the penetration rate, it is very good that one bomber can destroy 3 or 4 strategic targets. If it is a large target, such as the General Staff building with an area of hundreds of thousands of square meters, more cruise missiles will need to be used.

20 strategic bombers, that's the size of 1 division.

The scale is not too large, but with the current situation, and it is a long-distance attack, counting the escort fighters, as well as a large number of support aircraft, the scale of this operation is certainly not small.

According to conservative estimates, more than 100 aircraft participated in the war, and 40 large support aircraft alone.

Invest so many troops, but it's just a feint!

"Strictly speaking, it should be a combat operation based on feints." Zhang Jiazheng paused slightly, and then said: "The bombing itself must have important military significance, and the targets I mentioned at the beginning are all within the scope of the strike, but our combat mission is not to destroy those targets, nor is it to paralyze the communication and command system of Xiluosha, but has a more important purpose." ”

"For what purpose?"

"There are two." Zhang Jiazheng deliberately paused before saying: "First of all, the situation in the Northwest Theater is tight, and we need to try to buy some time, otherwise Orenburg, Astrakhan, and Novorossiysk will all fall in a short time, that is, within a few days. ”

Li Tianling was silent.

In fact, he has been paying attention to the situation in the Northwest Theater and knows that the situation is very dangerous, but he does not fully agree with Zhang Jiazheng's point of view.

The point is that the enemy also suffered extremely heavy losses.

Even if the enemy captures Orenburg, Astrakhan and Novorossiysk, it will be the end of the crossbow and it will be impossible to achieve strategic goals.

In the words of the Military Intelligence Agency, after the end of 3 consecutive days of onslaught, the Western Continent Group has already lost the war.

This is by no means a light enemy.

Although there are many difficulties at present, ordinary officers and men can see that the situation on the battlefield is already improving after withstanding the enemy's three-plank axe.

Crucially, what does the strategic bombing of the capital of West Luosha have to do with the fighting on the front line?

"That is, in order to achieve this goal, we have to try to defeat the front command of the Western Continent Group, so we must first find the front command center."

"How?"

"I don't know what the specific method is, but the Military Intelligence Agency is responsible for this matter. According to the above meaning, our task is to fight a good fight, like a stone thrown into a pond. As long as there are ripples, there is a way to find the big fish hiding under the water. Zhang Jiazheng sighed and said: "The above meaning is very simple, before the battle is finished on the side of Poshawan, the Northwest Theater must not collapse. ”

"So let's go on an adventure?"

"What are these words?"

was scolded by Zhang Jiazheng, Li Tianling just pursed his mouth and didn't dare to push back.

Actually, he's just complaining.

If he was afraid of death, Li Tianling would not stay in the front-line troops.

When he said this, he just felt that it was not worth it to let the officers and men of the brigade, especially the elite pilots brought out by him, take the risk for a less important purpose. Even if you may die and die on the battlefield at any time, you must die well.

If you want to say anything, these subordinates brought out by Li Tianling are definitely the best fighter pilots in the Imperial Air Force, and each of them is a priceless treasure.

"Don't you want to know the second purpose?"

Li Tianling's brows jumped a few times before he looked at Zhang Jiazheng.

"The hangar over there, the car is parked outside."

After Zhang Jiazheng reminded him, Li Tianling noticed that the four large hangars in a row over there were all closed, and checkpoints were set up at the intersection.

The key is that there are also heavily armed guards standing guard.

This is a military base, and there is an infantry division of Pakistan Railway guarding the periphery, not to mention idle personnel, even the officers and soldiers in the base are not allowed to move anywhere.

The officers and soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, but they wore air force uniforms, and they knew Zhang Jiazheng.

After the end of the last war, the Praetorian Guard took the lead in restructuring and had the current military police, although it is customary to still call it the Praetorian Guard.

Of course, the military police are organized under the various branches of the armed forces, but they are uniformly deployed by the military police command.

When he came to the outside of the hangar, Li Tianling stopped the car.

This is a large hangar, which is generally used to park large early warning planes and electronic reconnaissance planes, and is equipped with a large number of electronic equipment, and is a support aircraft that is more troublesome to maintain.

If it is a fighter, it will only be sent to the hangar if it breaks down.

On a day-to-day basis, it's good to be able to park in a narrow bunker.

Most of the fighters are parked in the open.

In fact, this is the main reason why the Imperial Air Force chose Peshawar.

Although it is located on the outskirts of Pakistan's railway capital, the air base is built in the desert, not only the sun is very strong, but the air is also very dry.

Obviously, fighters are not afraid of the sun, they are afraid of moisture!

As a result, almost all of the fighter jets deployed at the Peshawar base are parked in the open air, with thousands of parking stands on both sides of the runway alone.

The problem is that there are no large support aircraft deployed on Peshawar's side.

As early as last month, all of those "Kn-8Cs" went to Posha Bay and were deployed at the air base in Saudi Arabia, and even more so with electronic reconnaissance planes.

The large planes that remained in Peshawar were almost exclusively bombers and tankers.

In fact, Peshawar is not far from the border and is vulnerable to surprise attacks, so the Imperial Air Force does not deploy high-value support aircraft here.

The bombers deployed here are all "H-9D".

All the "H-10A" are deployed at the air base of the empire mainland, to be precise, at the end of last year, because there were design problems and serious safety risks, the imperial air force transferred all the "h-10A" back to the mainland, ready to upgrade the control procedures.

In addition, the "H-10A" is temporarily grounded.

The Imperial Air Force is now deployed overseas, and all of them are "H-9D".

This kind of bomber, which has been in service in the Imperial Air Force for more than 30 years and is older than Li Tianling's, does not need to be carefully maintained at all.

The Imperial Air Force has hundreds of "H-9Ds" and thousands of "H-9s" that can be unsealed at any time to supplement the bomber force, so they don't care very much, and often use this kind of bomber as a tool to show off, such as going to hot spots to carry out strategic deterrence missions.

This is also the key reason why the "H-9D" has been in service until now.

Because the leather is durable, the failure rate is extremely low, and the maintenance requirements are not high, so the Imperial Air Force intends to modernize this bomber, to be precise, to strengthen the structure of the fuselage, increase the service life of 20,000 hours, and strive to fly for another 30 years.

In order to make maintenance easier, the Imperial Air Force also abandoned many flashy improvement projects.

Most notably, the Imperial Air Force did not replace the turbojet engines with turbofan engines with lower fuel consumption rates, even if this resulted in an additional 500 million gold dollars in fuel consumption every year to come.

The H-9D deployed in Peshawar is also parked in the open air.

To say, these bombers are not as expensive as the "Battle-11B", so even if there are vacant hangars, they should be given priority to fighters.

As for tankers, it is even more unnecessary.

Of all the large support aircraft, the tanker is not only the most numerous, but also the most durable.

Because it is not equipped with many electronic equipment, there is not much damage to daily use, so the maintenance requirements of the fuel dispenser are also very low.

According to the plan of the Imperial Air Force, the design service time of large tanker aircraft is at least 40 years, and it can reach 50 years after life extension and improvement. In many ways, there is no essential difference between large tankers and civil airliners on the same platform, as well as commercial transport aircraft.

As a result, there are only four large hangars in the Peshawar site.

It is enough to serve only large support aircraft.

If war breaks out and stronger logistical support capabilities are required, engineering troops can also be arranged to build hangars in reserved open areas.

Theoretically, it will take up to half a month to build dozens of large hangars.

"Lao Zhang, there won't be any treasures hiding here, right?"

"You're really right."

"What?" Li Tianling was stunned for a moment, and then sped up his pace and caught up with Zhang Jiazheng.

The hangar door is closed, and the side door is on the other side, which has to be bypassed by the green belt next to it.

When he got out of the car, Li Tianling noticed that there were surveillance cameras around the hangar, and there were several groups of mobile patrol guards.

"Lao Zhang, is it 'Battle X'?" Li Tianling was obviously a little excited, because he felt that only this kind of legendary fighter was qualified to live in the thermostatic hangar.

For Li Tianling, Zhan-X is not just a legend.

Eight years ago, Li Tianling participated in the development of the "Zhan-X" as an adviser to the Air Force, to be precise, to determine the tactical performance indicators.

Since then, Li Tianling has also been in contact with engineers of aircraft companies many times.

The last time, at the end of last year.

At that time, Li Tianling already knew that the "Zhan-X" project had entered the stage of engineering trial production, and that the three bidding groups that won the second round of competition would each deliver four prototype planes this year to participate in the comparative test flights organized by the Air Force, and the final winners would be determined by the results of the test flights.

With the urine nature of the Air Force, most of the two options will be selected in the end. In addition to focusing on the development of winning programs, we will continue to invest in suboptimal programs and use them as spare tires for development. To put it simply, the winning solution has a higher technical starting point, which inevitably leads to a large number of technical difficulties. If the winning plan is not completed on time, the sub-optimal plan can be brought out for emergency purposes, and eventually even replace the winning plan.

Of course, not only the Air Force, but also the Navy.

Strictly speaking, the "Zhan-9" is a spare tire for turning positive.

That is, all three prototypes of the "Battle-X" are being manufactured.

In fact, Li Tianling almost became a military test pilot of the "Zhan-X" project.

At the beginning of the year, when the test pilot was selected, Li Tianling happened to have a flu, and by the time he recovered, the selection was over.

In addition, Li Tianling has been following the progress of the "Zhan-X" project.

In his opinion, the expeditionary mixed wing under his command is likely to be the first to be replaced with new fighters.

In fact, this is also the key to Li Tianling's stay in the front-line troops.

In his words, there are no regrets about waiting to fly a fifth-generation fighter and then leaving the front-line troops, even if you spend the rest of your life in the office.

As for the sources of information, they are very reliable.

As far as Li Tianling knows, the three design schemes that have entered the third stage are all very advanced, and any one of them will be of epoch-making significance.

If anything, the changes brought will subvert the existing mode of air combat.

Although compared with the third-generation fighters, fourth-generation fighters such as the "Zhan-11" have greatly improved their performance and have an overwhelming advantage in air combat, the "Zhan-11" is only more advanced in terms of specific performance, and its impact has not changed the mode of air combat.

To put it more bluntly, that is, the radar sees farther, the missiles shoot more accurately and the fighters are more agile.

In contrast, the fifth-generation fighters represented by the "Battle-X" have not only advantages, but a complete subversion.

That's right, it is the stealth technology that was first used in the "Attack-11".

As far as Li Tianling knows, the three "Zhan-X" prototypes that participated in the election all attach great importance to stealth performance, and all of them perfectly solve the contradiction between stealth and maneuverability.

This is the key to why the "Attack-11" did not become a fighter.

In order to gain stealth ability, the appearance of the "Attack-11" is very strange, not to mention performing violent maneuvers, it is very good to be able to fly.

Although at the time of development, it has always been claimed that this is a fighter in order to get the support of the two chambers of parliament, so as to obtain the huge amount of funds required for the project, after all, the lord of the two chambers of the debate likes the stronger-sounding "fighter" rather than the rustic-looking "attack aircraft", but after the completion of the development, the imperial air force had to admit the reality and put the world's first stealth combat aircraft into the ranks of attack aircraft.

If the war had not broken out, Li Tianling would not have thought of "Zhan-X".

Now, the Great War has broken out.

Crucially, as early as July, when Iraq annexed Kuwait, there were signs that a global war could break out in the near future.

It is not impossible to test new weapons in actual combat, as has always been the case with the Imperial Air Force.

Don't forget, the "Attack-11" participated in the counterinsurgency operation in Sri Lanka before it was officially listed, and became famous in this war.

If it really has a huge value, the Air Force may send a few prototypes over.

For the sake of secrecy, but also for maintenance and maintenance, it is actually normal for the "Zhan-X" to be stationed in the hangar.

If that's the case, it's worth it.

Zhang Jiazheng didn't answer Li Tianling's question, and Li Tianling immediately found out that he was thinking too much.

After entering through the side door, Li Tianling immediately stood on the spot.

Inside the hangar, there is indeed a strange-looking plane, but there is only one, and judging by the size, it is definitely not a fighter.

That's a bomber!