In fact, the "Z-8L" piloted by Lian Mingyang only took off about 15 minutes later than the Air Force's "Attack-9B".

Like flying a helicopter gunship, Lian Mingyang is still at the forefront and personally carries out the riskiest assault missions.

On his "Z-8L" general transport helicopter, in addition to him and Jiang Shanggui, there were 2 machine gunners, and 1 squad of 12 commandos was carried.

In fact, the Z-8L can carry up to 16 heavily armed infantrymen, and four infantrymen are seated in four rows of seats facing each other in the front and rear crew compartments separated by a central partition. Only 12 soldiers were carried, so there was only one seat in each row for ammunition and other supplies.

On the special warfare version, the "Z-8T", because the last row of seats was eliminated and an internal fuel tank with a volume of 600 liters was installed, it could also carry only 12 soldiers.

This number of mounts is actually very particular.

In a low-altitude assault unit, the minimum size of an infantry squad is 6 people, so 12 soldiers can theoretically form 2 infantry squads.

However, infantry squads are not a common formation for air assault units.

When carrying out difficult combat missions, a four-person combat team is generally used, and usually three combat groups operate together.

Obviously, 12 officers and soldiers formed exactly 3 combat groups, which also happened to be a complete combat unit.

The 12 officers and men carried by Lian Mingyang are a complete combat unit.

In the three four-man combat teams, the commander is the commander, the sniper, the machine gunner and the rifleman who assists the machine gunner. Because the commander was a rifleman, and the machine gunners used light machine guns, the combat group had complete suppressive firepower from far to near. In the combat group of the deputy commander, for the deputy commander, machine gunners with two riflemen armed with light anti-tank missiles. The main task of the group was anti-tank, and the deputy commander acted as a sniper while carrying spare ammunition for the machine gunners with squad machine guns. The third group is the team leader, the Heavy, a rifleman who assists the Heavy and a rifleman who carries a bazooka, but the group is actually machine-gun-based, with the only general-purpose machine gun in the entire squad.

Only when 3 groups fight together can there be complete firepower and combat effectiveness.

If it is to be said, the most serious problem of such a combat unit is that its sustained combat capability is not strong enough.

The reason is also very simple, if 12 officers and soldiers have to carry various suppression weapons covering far and near, then it is impossible to bring sufficient ammunition in any case.

Although in the squad, the weight of the 12 officers and soldiers can be balanced by distributing ammunition and supplies, but there are too many tasks to undertake, and the officers and soldiers are also overwhelmed.

Even on a short-term combat mission for three days, the individual soldier carried a staggering 35 kilograms.

If the combat time is extended to 7 days, and no additional ammunition is carried, but only the necessary supplies are added, the individual soldier will carry a weight of nearly 45 kilograms.

According to the statistics of the Imperial Army, after carrying more than 45 kilograms, the combat efficiency of soldiers will plummet.

As long as this can be done, efforts must be made to keep the combat load within 35 kilograms.

This is also the main reason why the army uses the "Z-8L" to carry only 12 officers and soldiers.

With 4 fewer infantrymen, you can carry about 600 kg more weapons and ammunition.

The key is that helicopters can send combat units directly to their positions, and there is no problem of transporting weapons and ammunition to the positions.

If anything, the use of helicopters to airlift troops and supplies and vertical airborne operations on the front line were the new tactics pioneered by the Imperial Army in the Polish-Iraqi War.

This time, in fact, it is the same.

Lian Mingyang's task was to send the counterattack troops to the north of the battle line, on the east bank of the Volga River, on a high ground adjacent to the main road.

After the first assault units took control of the positions, the engineering troops and engineering equipment were sent up.

In short, it is to assist the air assault force to occupy and consolidate positions and complete combat deployment before the enemy reacts.

When the battle begins, it is necessary to continue to send reinforcements and war supplies to the front line.

Combat operations are planned and commanded by the rear, and Lian Mingyang and his men only need to act in strict accordance with the plan, to be precise, in strict accordance with the plan before encountering an accident.

This includes departure and arrival times.

To say, the first assault transport arrived only about 2 minutes later than the regulations.

The delay of 2 minutes was also at the order of the front command, which slowed down on the way, that is, the fire strike before the assault was still going on.

In order to avoid accidental injury, transport helicopters had to enter the field only after the fire strike was over.

On the way to Lian Mingyang's flight, the air force's attack planes concentrated on striking the nearby West Luosha army, and the East Luosha army also used long-range rocket artillery to carry out a covering artillery attack on this high ground for a quarter of an hour, firing a total of 1,000 rounds of large-caliber rockets.

To say that the effect of artillery strikes is even more pronounced.

In fact, in the entire Eastern Bloc, only the East Luosha Army paid special attention to artillery.

As mentioned earlier, Dong Luosha has the best long-range artillery in the group.

In terms of rocket artillery, in fact, it is the same, and even more prominent.

All long-range rocket artillery in the Eastern Bloc, at least large-caliber long-range rocket artillery, was developed on the basis of the "Tornado" in Dongluosha.

Many countries are buying Tornadoes outright, or producing them under license.

In order to simplify logistics, the Eastern Bloc has established 300 mm as the standard caliber for long-range rockets, which must be adopted by all member states.

To put it simply, no matter what long-range rocket artillery looks like in various countries, rockets must be universal.

The "PH-300" long-range rocket launcher of the Imperial Army was developed on the basis of the "Tornado" in Dongluosha and in accordance with the needs of the Imperial Army. Presumably, in order to save the face of the empire, the "PH-300" not only used a tracked chassis, but also used 2 sets of 6-barrel container launchers.

Of course, this can also be seen as an improvement in the design.

The biggest benefit of using containerized launchers is that the reloading operation is simplified, reducing the reloading time from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.

Interestingly, when making this design, the Imperial Army did not want to increase the reload speed, but hoped to launch short-range ballistic missiles, so that the missiles and rockets could share a platform, and gain a fire strike range of more than 300 kilometers without adding a launch platform.

It is a pity that the short-range ballistic missile project of the Imperial Army was not able to come to fruition.

Not that the Imperial Army did not need long-range suppressive firepower, but after more than 10 years of development, 300-mm rockets already had a long enough range.

The latest generation of 300-mm rockets has a range of up to 270 km!

So, what is the value of a ballistic missile with a range of 300 km?

As for the accuracy of hitting, it can be solved by installing simple guidance equipment for the rocket, such as the use of high-precision laser gyroscopes, which can increase the accuracy of the rocket by a factor of ten, and with the satellite guidance system, it can also reduce the dispersion of the end point to less than 50 meters.

This in itself is the advantage of large-caliber rockets, that is, the space occupied by the seeker, which has an almost negligible impact on the basic performance of large-caliber rockets.

In fact, with the miniaturization of electronic equipment, the guidance system is getting smaller and smaller, and the range of use is more extensive.

However, the Imperial Army did not procure much "PH-300".

In addition to the strong air support provided by the Air Force, it was also a matter of price, that is, the "PH-300" was too expensive, and the matching rockets were even more expensive.

Fortunately, the East Luosha Army has enough "tornadoes".

Before the outbreak of the war, the East Luosha Army had 3 independent artillery brigades, 8 army-affiliated artillery battalions and 16 divisional artillery battalions equipped with "Tornado" rocket launchers, with a total of more than 600 rockets.

More than 1,000 300-mm rockets were dropped on a plateau with an area of less than 100 acres at one time.

This density of firepower can be described as "terrifying".

A 300 mm rocket equipped with a high-explosive warhead has a killing radius of up to 150 meters for exposed people and a range of 50 meters for soft targets, with an absolute killing area of more than 7,000 square meters, and theoretically only more than 10 rockets are needed to cover this height.

This kind of full-coverage play is tantamount to plowing the highland with cannonballs.

By the end of the artillery strike, the heights had turned into scorched earth.

Not to mention living people, there is not even a living earthworm!

However, this also brings trouble.

When they landed, Lian Mingyang and the others suffered a lot.

The ground was full of floating earth, and under the influence of the downwash air generated by the rotors, the sky was full of dust, and the visibility dropped to zero in an instant.

Fortunately, Lian Mingyang was experienced and controlled the helicopter.

Because he couldn't see the ground clearly, he didn't land, letting the commandos slide down to the ground through a rope before letting the machine gunners drop the ammunition.

With Lian Mingyang taking the lead, more than 10 "Zhi-8L" in the back are all painted according to the gourd.

Before returning home, Lian Mingyang also contacted the forward base in Astrakhan to let the engineers who built the position know the troubles they would face in the future.

Not a big hassle, to say.

As long as you fly one more trip and send special engineering equipment to it, you can solve the problem.

In addition, there is no need to occupy a high ground for a long time, so there is no need to build too strong fortifications.

According to the above arrangement, after the purpose of the counterattack is achieved, the air assault force will be withdrawn, and the fortifications will be destroyed at that time.

Returning to the forward base in Astrakhan, Lian Mingyang received news that there was no enemy on that high ground at all!

Not a single one.

The first assault troops searched the entire high ground in half an hour, not to mention the enemy, and they did not even find any trace of the enemy's existence.

Feelings, the army of Xiluosha did not take this highland that guarded the arterial road seriously.

Still, there's nothing surprising.

From Volzhsky to Astrakhan, there were a lot of such heights, and the forces of Western Luosha were originally not enough to defend all of them.

The attacker will also not focus on defense.

It is not difficult to occupy the high ground, the real trouble is to withstand the siege of the enemy after the occupation!

Lian Mingyang flew again before the early morning of the 15th, sent the second batch of assault troops to the front line, and also sent an 82-mm mortar and a base number of shells in the form of hanging.

For the "Z-8L", lifting the mortar is not a problem at all.

Because the maximum load capacity is more than 3 tons, it can still lift more than 1 ton of materials after carrying 12 heavily armed soldiers.

Of course, weapons and ammunition will only be carried by external lifting if safety is guaranteed.

It is that at the time of the first assault transport, all the "Z-8L" did not lift cargo.

If it is to be said, the 82-mm mortar is the most important support firepower of the air assault troops, and it is also the most trustworthy support firepower of the officers and men of the grassroots units.

In positional defensive operations, mortars have an irreplaceable and great value.

Crucially, in the air assault forces, 82-mm mortars do not occupy the establishment.

To put it simply, with 3 mortars as a unit, they are directly distributed to platoon-level combat units, and the platoon commander arranges gunners according to the situation. In any infantry platoon of an air assault force, there is at least one gunner who has mastered the manual of ballistic calculations, and is generally a deputy platoon commander. As for operating 82mm mortars, this is a basic skill that all officers and non-commissioned officers must master in their daily training programs.

By the time Lian Mingyang returned to the forward base again, it was already the early morning of the 15th.

At this time, the battlefield has become a mess.

When the ground crew was refueling the helicopter, Lian Mingyang went to the command center to find acquaintances to inquire about the situation on the battlefield.

Only then did he know that tonight's focus was not here.

Just over an hour earlier, when he was carrying the second group of commandos to the front, the bombers of the Imperial Air Force had destroyed the forward headquarters of the Western Continent Group.

As a result, all the front-line troops of the Sairiku Group became headless flies.

Although it had not yet developed to the point of collapse, after the loss of unified command, the combat units of the Western Continent Group were unable to launch a decent counterattack.

That's not all, though.

When Lian Xu finished his third flight and returned at about 4 a.m. on the 15th, a more exciting news was waiting for him.

Under the cover of escort fighters, the strategic bombers of the Imperial Air Force rushed to the city of Mosa, destroying the presidential palace, the General Staff and the national telecommunications center in one fell swoop, and also blew up the national television station.

According to rumors, the military and political system in Xiluosha has been completely paralyzed.

However, for the time being, it is just a rumor.

When Lian Mingyang began to prepare for the fourth sortie, Zheng Zhishuang rushed over and asked him to stay, saying that he had a new mission.

When it was almost dawn, Lian Mingyang received the mission order.

Fly the Z-8L to carry a special forces behind enemy lines on a special secret mission.

Of course, secret missions are inherently very special.

As for what the task, Zheng Zhishuang didn't say it, because he didn't know either.

What Lian Mingyang had to do was to fill up the helicopter with fuel, complete the inspection work before take-off in advance, and stay at the forward base to wait for the special forces to arrive.

However, Zheng Zhishuang also clearly told Lian Mingyang why he was sent to carry out this task.

It's also quite simple, all the "Z-8Ts" were sent out, and all of them were on important missions, such as rescuing pilots who were shot down in battle. It's not that Lian Mingyang is an elite pilot, and it has nothing to do with his identity, in fact, no one cares whose grandson he is at all.

On the side of the forward base, the only thing that can be mobilized now is Lian Mingyang's batch of "Z-8L".

In fact, Zheng Zhishuang hinted at Lian Mingyang that other crew members could be arranged to carry out the task, after all, not all operations should be carried out by the commander.

It's just that Lian Mingyang deliberately pretended not to understand

According to his usual style, he will definitely not hand over dangerous tasks to his subordinates.