Among the four battlefields, the southwest is the main battlefield.

Of course, it doesn't mean that Ding Zhennan is in command here, so he has to be the master here.

Actually, this should be said the other way around. That is, because the southwest battlefield is very important, Ding Zhenna was allowed to command here.

Here, it is directly related to the strategic deployment in the direction of Fanyan Yang after the war.

As mentioned earlier, decades ago, especially before the First Global War, the Empire's expansion in the direction of the southern subcontinent was mainly carried out through ground lines of communication, most notably the Southwest Railway, which stretched across the entire southeast peninsula to the mouth of the Yunwu River.

The adoption of this strategy is fundamentally related to strength, or limited by strength.

Don't look at the era of Chen Bingxun, the Imperial Navy defeated the invincible Royal Navy of Bran in one fell swoop and won the hegemony of Fanyanyang, but in terms of family background, the Imperial Navy is not strong, even if it develops rapidly for decades after that, it is difficult to effectively and firmly control the surrounding areas of Fanyanyang.

It can be seen that it is precisely because the Navy cannot keep up that it has to make a fuss on the ground.

After all, it is significantly less difficult to expand an army than a navy that would take decades, if not centuries, to build. The key is that the empire has defeated the number one enemy on the ground, that is, the Luosha Empire, and the imperial army has been trained, and there is no problem of no soldiers available.

Of course, this situation lasted only until the outbreak of the First Global War.

When the Imperial Navy once again dominates the Fanyan Ocean, the national strength of the Empire is no longer comparable, and the expansion operation will no longer need to rely on ground lines of communication.

In the decades following World War II, the Empire created a "string of pearls" military strategy system that encircled the Fanyan Ocean, supported by military bases, and integrated offensive and defensive. The key point is that the protagonist is no longer the army, but the navy and marines, and the core area has also shifted from the southeast peninsula to the north shore of the Fanyan Ocean, especially the large port cities that can provide services to the fleet.

Among them, the port of Kara in the south of Pakistan Railway is the number one strategic base in the northwest Fanyan Ocean.

To put it more bluntly, for the past few decades, the Empire has used Cala Harbour as a bridgehead for control of the Mua Sea and for the control of Posha Bay.

During the Polish-Iranian War, the port of Kara was also the main transshipment center.

At its peak, there were more than 500,000 Imperial soldiers stationed there.

Even after the end of the Polish-Iranian War, the empire entered a stage of strategic contraction, and with the full support of the oil-producing countries on the south coast of Posha Bay, the position of Kara Port was affected, but in order to control the southern subcontinent and provide support for Pakistan Railway, the empire did not reduce the importance of Kara Port, and still invested a lot of money to build Kala Port into a regional military fortress.

As a supporting package, the port of Kuah in the west was also expanded.

To be precise, it is actually to turn a small fishing port into a modern military port.

Although the construction of the port has not yet been completed, at least it will continue for more than 10 years, but after the completion of the first phase of the project, it has been able to provide a full set of logistics support for the 10,000-ton warship, and the average water depth of the anchorage area is more than 10 meters, which can allow the aircraft carrier to berth when necessary.

The port of Kara and the port of Kuah together form the fort complex on the northern shore of the Mua Sea.

Geographically, Kuah Harbor is actually the rear of Kara Harbor, and the troops deployed here are responsible for providing cover for Kara Harbor.

In addition, it is possible to disperse the enemy's striking forces.

To put it bluntly, if Van Luo intends to blockade Pakistan, in addition to destroying and blockading the port of Kara, it must also include the port of Kuah.

If anything, it is much more difficult to attack Kuah Harbor, i.e. Kuah Harbor is farther away.

From the standpoint of Van Luoguo, if there is no guarantee to destroy Kuah Harbor in one fell swoop, it may not be possible to target Kara Harbor when formulating a plan. In the absence of the destruction of Pakistan's railway ports, other means of attack can only be adopted, which will inevitably lead to increased combat difficulty.

Here's the key.

If there is no guarantee of a substantial breakthrough in this direction through the offensive and the complete cutting off of the sea route to Pakistan, then at the planning stage, it is very likely that the Van Roe authorities will abandon offensive operations in this direction and use their forces to strengthen the defense, turning from active to passive.

This is the value of the Southwestern Battlefield.

The empire spent decades building a strategic defense line in the southern coastal area of Pakistan, which was difficult to overcome, if not impregnable. On the other hand, on the other side of the border, the western part of the country is the vast Gobi Desert, the largest desert in the southern subcontinent, and further east is the Central Plateau. As far as the military level is concerned, that is, the coastal plain area is relatively prosperous, mainly because there is no natural danger to defend.

It can be seen that the country only needs to strengthen the defense deployment of the coastal plain in this direction, and it can rely on natural dangers, especially the Fanluo Desert, which is about 1,000 kilometers wide, to block the strong enemy from the west, and there is no need to invest too many troops in order to defend the western coastal area.

As for launching an amphibious landing, it is even more a pipe dream.

It is precisely because of this that even though the number one city of Van Luo and the population of more than 20 million people is here, Van Luo has not deployed heavy troops in the border area adjacent to Pakistan.

After the end of the Second Southern Subcontinent War, especially after the Polish-Iranian War, the Van Luo Kingdom focused its strategy on the northwest region with the capital as the core, and the number of troops deployed in the western region has been decreasing, and the main force defending the west coast is the unstable navy.

According to the information provided by the Military Intelligence Agency, Van Luo has long given up its plan to launch a strategic offensive in the western region, and will at most undertake the task of feints.

Fundamentally, defense is the main thing in this direction, and the main defensive tactic is to trade space for time.

If anything, the whole country of Van Luo believed that with its enormous strategic depth, it would be possible to crush the enemy's offensive operations in that direction with only a small number of troops.

The key is that after thwarting the enemy's attack, you can also launch a counterattack!

It is precisely because of this that in the western part of the country, the Van Luo Army has less than 300,000 troops, two-thirds, or about 200,000, deployed in the rear, and only seven infantry divisions are deployed on the border line, and these infantry units are in a poor state of combat readiness.

In nature, it's almost a border garrison, pure infantry!

Worse still, most of the main forces are stationed at a distance of more than 500 kilometers from the border, and the transportation conditions are extremely poor, so they basically do not have the ability to carry out rapid battlefield maneuvers.

In fact, the Van Rowe Army itself lacks battlefield mobility capabilities.

Although it is equipped with thousands of main battle tanks, a large number of infantry fighting vehicles, and the elite armored units are all mechanized, the establishment system of the Van Luo Army is extremely backward, and the main forces are basically deployed according to the station, and there is a serious lack of equipment necessary for long-distance marching, such as semi-trailer heavy trucks with a load capacity of more than 50 tons, not to mention the railway.

This means that tank fighting vehicles can only perform large-scale battlefield maneuvers.

There is no doubt that this is a disaster for any army!

Not to mention the walking system of the tank fighting vehicle, that is, the maintenance and maintenance of the tracks, just the logistics support can turn a long march into a journey of suffering. Taking fuel as an example, even if it is driven on the road, the fuel consumption of a 50-ton main battle tank is between 400 and 600 liters per 100 kilometers, and the fuel consumption of 100 kilometers is about 100 liters when carrying it on a semi-trailer, and the fuel consumption of the former is at least 4 times that of the latter. Because of the possibility of field marching, and the higher fuel consumption of field marching, the actual fuel consumption is even more than the theoretical results.

As a result, both the Imperial Army, the Nuland Army, and the Men Army procured a large number of semi-trailer trucks.

In addition, there are about 4 million semi-trailer trucks with a load capacity of more than 50 tons, which can be used to carry heavy equipment such as main battle tanks after simple modifications, and if the load requirement is reduced to 30 tons, the number of trucks will exceed 10 million.

In the country of Van Luo, there are only 20 million motor vehicles other than motorcycles.

According to incomplete statistics, there are less than 1 million trucks with a load of more than 5 tons, and many of them are products of decades ago.

Due to the lack of trucks, the armored units of the Van Rowe Army had little battlefield mobility.

From another point of view, it is because of the lack of necessary means of transportation that the establishment system and tactical thinking of the Van Luo Army are so old!

As for the infantry units, even mechanization has not been achieved, so what to talk about mobility?

As a result, the "Great Defense in Depth Strategy" on which the Van Rowe Army relied was nothing more than a façade and had no practical value at all.

The essence of the "strategy of defense in great depth" is obviously not in words, but in the specific tactics of implementing defense.

To put it simply, that is, relying on the defensive positions deployed in echelons to resist the enemy's attack, and after consuming the enemy's offensive spirit, dispatch the reserves deployed behind the defensive line to launch a sharp counterattack, and quickly intersperse the enemy forces trapped in the bitter battle of the position.

It is the reserve force with strong battlefield mobility capability that is the key force in the "large-depth defense strategy."

Obviously, what the Van Rowe Army lacks is the ability to maneuver quickly over a wide area.

In fact, this is also the place that Ding Zhennan attaches great importance to, and insists on using troops in the southern area of Pakistan and Railway, and regards this direction as the key to a strategic breakthrough.

To put it bluntly, as long as we can break through the border defense line of the Van Luo army, solve the problem of logistical support, and keep the attacking troops advancing fast enough, there is a great certainty that we will achieve a big breakthrough in depth before the Van Luo army completes its deployment adjustment.

However, the attacking side also has to face the problem of poor transportation conditions and difficult logistics to keep up.

In a sense, this is also the significance of military reform in accordance with the new military doctrine.

According to traditional military theories, such as the theory of blitzkrieg warfare in the era of mechanization, the offensive must rely on roads, and preferably by rail, and the armored forces must advance along the roads, making full use of the transportation capacity provided by the roads, so that the offensive and defense are all carried out around the lines of communication.

If you have to say, without the road, the mechanized troops will not be able to fight.

The new military doctrine put forward by Ding Zhennan focuses on solving this problem, that is, it is still possible to break through the enemy's defense line without relying on transportation infrastructure, or relying as little as possible, so that the troops can gain greater tactical flexibility and be able to fight in a wider range.

If an attack can be launched from any location, the attacking side will have absolute initiative.

Due to the limitation of troops, after the defensive line is extended, the defender will inevitably face the problem of insufficient troops, and it will not be able to take care of every location.

As for tactics, that is, to reduce the dependence on logistics as much as possible.

It is precisely because of this that Ding Zhennan did not make a fuss about the number of troops, and insisted on adjusting the establishment of the participating troops and improving their mobility by reducing the main battle equipment.

Specifically, it is to use air assault as the main mode of attack.

For this, the additional general-purpose transport helicopters allocated to the 7th Panzer Division alone exceeded 500, and it is likely that it will eventually reach 800.

However, the key is actually offensive tactics.

If anything, that's where the difficulty lies.

Relying entirely on the Army, as well as the tactical aviation of the Air Force, even with a sufficient number of helicopters, will not be able to solve the problem of logistical support.

As the attacking forces advance and supply lines lengthen, the efficiency of helicopter transportation is bound to decrease.

After reaching the limit, the offense will be unsustainable.

At that time, we will still have to find and rely on other means of transportation.

The ground transportation conditions are poor, so the only thing that can be relied on is sea transportation.

It is precisely for this reason that a fourth battlefield has to be set up, and it will be played by the navy.

According to Ding Zhennan's meaning, that is, let the navy launch several landing operations on the west coast of Van Luo Kingdom, seize a few ports with a not too small throughput capacity, or arrange for engineers to build wharves on a suitable coastline, so as to greatly shorten the length of the logistics support line.

Of course, the captured port was also a stronghold for advancement.

For this reason, the ground offensive should be dominated by the coastal plain area, especially when the border defense line has been broken through and advanced in depth.

It was precisely because of this that Ding Zhennan insisted on arranging for the Marine Corps to participate in the war.

If I want to say, after coming to Pakistan, all the preparations made by Ding Zhennan for the offensive are all related to this.

What Ding Zhennan didn't expect was that his arrangement had a collateral result.

According to the information sent by the Army Command, Zhou Yongtao has arranged for Bai Huawei to go to Silan to serve as the commander of the Fanyanyang Fleet and the commander-in-chief of the Southern Battlefield.

In other words, it is Bai Huawei who is in charge of the southern battlefield!

Because there are still some important tasks to be handed over to the replacement commander, Bai Huawei can take up his post at the end of the year at the earliest, and the Imperial Navy will not be able to send additional fleets to Fanyan Yang until the end of the year. As for the Marine Corps, which Ding Zhennan wants to obtain the most, it will definitely be deployed in early November.

This speed is already very fast.

It was precisely for this reason that on the day he returned to Kara Harbor, that is, after receiving the battle plan, Ding Zhennan set the time for launching the attack on November 10.

That's not to say that the battle won't start until that moment, though.

In fact, the ground war has already begun.

Before the Nuland Republic entered the war, the country launched a surprise attack and broke through the border defense of Pakistan and the railway in both the north and the south.

However, the ensuing battles showed that the Van Roe Kingdom preemptively launched the attack, mainly to obtain the assistance of the Nuland Republic.

The key point is that after breaking through the border defense line of Pakistan, the Van Luo army not only did not continue to advance, but withdrew the main force.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for Ding Zhennan to take a special plane back to the imperial capital to attend the military meeting.

From another point of view, it was the weak performance of the Van Luo Army that gave Ding Zhenna full confidence!