The war quickly developed from a raid on the border to a large-scale air battle with real swords and guns. However, from the very beginning, the results of the air battle have been determined by everyone, and the multinational force, which has two of the largest air forces in the world, has more than 500 third-generation aircraft, and has an advantage in the face of Iraq, which has only a few dozen third-generation aircraft (MiG-29s) and most of them are second-generation aircraft.

There is a small detail in the air battle, that is, the F-16 of the US military is forbidden to participate in the air battle, and there are even senior generals in the command who say that whoever shoots down an enemy plane with the F-16 will send him home.

This incident made Qi Yiming curious, but after the analysis of the Strategy Bureau, the main reason for not allowing the F-16 to participate in air combat was probably because most of the F-16s at this time did not have a perfect friend or foe identification function. The U.S. military requires at least two ways to determine that the opponent is an enemy aircraft before it can fire, and it is not enough to have an IFF (identification friend or foe), but also to have other methods such as NCTR (non-cooperative target identification), the above difference is that IFF conducts reactive identification of friend or foe, while NCTR analyzes the jet engine modulation echo to determine whether the opponent is an enemy aircraft.

The main reason for prohibiting the F-16 from participating in air battles is to avoid embarrassing accidental injuries during over-the-horizon air combat, because the F-16 has no way to judge whether the opponent is an enemy aircraft or a friendly aircraft.

In fact, before the start of the war, the U.S. military was still more worried about the identification of Chinese fighters and other NATO fighters, but this topic has begun to be studied when China and the United States reached a consensus on military cooperation, and in a very short period of time, a number of fighters have been installed with plug-in friend or foe identifiers, thanks to the good system modularization of Chinese weapons, the data bus of Chinese fighters is actually a 1553B domestic upgrade version common to the U.S. military, so the IFF system common to the U.S. military can be easily applied. The U.S. military was also shocked by the speed with which their Chinese counterparts completed this task, because of course they also thought about equipping the F-16 with a perfect identification system for friend or foe, but this is definitely not an overnight thing, and those defense contractors either want to increase the price or delay the construction period, so that the Americans have a wave of envy and jealousy against the Chinese system.

Of course, there are also conspiracy theorists who believe that if the F-16 performs well in the war, it will make the brainless US Congress reduce the budget of the Air Force and use this kind of medium-sized fighter with one engine, so they are not allowed to express themselves at all.

As a result, the main fighters that dominate the sky are the American F-15 and F-14 and China's J-9 and F-14CN, while other countries such as the Mirage fighter and the Tornado are relatively much more discolored.

During the air attack, the J-9 Shadow Leopard fighter of the Chinese Air Force was required by the Joint Operations Command to carry out tasks mainly in the form of ground attack because of its strong bomb carrying ability, but even so, the Shadow Leopard fighter also carried enough air combat weapons to be able to defend itself when necessary.

The standard J-9 dual-mission mount is that the small pylon under the air intake carries an optoelectronic pod and a composite electronic pod, which can carry out guidance and simple electronic warfare for ground attack, the belly pylon carries a 500 kg guided bomb or an anti-radiation missile, a total of 12 pylons on both sides of the conformal fuel tank or carries 12 small-diameter bombs originally developed for the Black Hawk or 8 250 kg guided bombs or AR-2 anti-armor missiles, and the main pylon is a composite pylon, Carries two drop fuel tanks and four PL-12 medium-range missiles, and wingtip pylons carry two PL-8 combat missiles.

Since Chinese fighters have proved themselves with guided bombs on many battlefields, it has been widely believed in the world's air force circles that high-precision joint guided bombs will become the mainstream of ground attacks by the Air Force, and the US military also trusts the PLA Air Force, believing that they are more experienced in carrying out such precision strikes, and at the same time, they also have the intention to learn and explore by observing the performance of the Chinese Air Force.

The new generation of J-9 has been separated from the foundation of the fight-bomber aircraft, and the 1502 airborne radar used is also much more complex and advanced, and the detection range has been able to reach 200 kilometers, and even reached the extent that it can be compared to the AWG-9 of the F-14, in fact, the designers have learned a lot from the AWG-9, and the downward view function and precision of this radar have surpassed the AWG-9. Relying only on a more powerful airborne radar, if the J-9 is facing the F-15 using APG-63, it can basically detect and strike the enemy first.

At this time, the U.S. military's F-15E strike eagle already has preliminary combat capabilities, but it has not yet fully integrated the indication pod, and can only carry the LANTIRN navigation pod, which means that this dual-mission fighter that the U.S. military has high hopes for can only drop iron bombs on ground attack at this time.

On the other hand, although China's J-9 Shadow Leopard fighter is also participating in actual combat for the first time, the integration of various systems and weapon tests have been completed, and it has 100% precision strike capability. The United States has deployed 48 strike eagles in the Gulf, and China has also deployed 48 Shadow Leopards in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but even the Americans themselves trust the "ally" Shadow Leopard more at this time, rather than the strike eagle that can only drop iron bombs.

As soon as the air battle began, the heads of the two Shadow Leopard Air Regiments were full of tasks, and the Joint Operations Command of the Multinational Force actually had the intention of testing the combat capability and tenacity of the Chinese Air Force.

"Comrades, our targets are the Iraqi army's communications and command system, air defense positions located north of Basra, and if there is a surplus of ammunition, we are also assigned to attack power and transportation facilities." The squadron leader of the flying squadron once again admonished his comrades.

"The Yankees are treating us like coolies, hahaha." Someone joked in the channel.

The squadron leader also smiled: "This is something they can't do, let's do it." ”

Some targets of great significance or relatively easy to hit, such as government agencies in Baghdad, were left by the Americans themselves to the US Air Force, while the Americans did not hesitate to throw some hard bones to the Chinese Air Force to gnaw. The US air force has nearly 600 combat planes in the Gulf, and more than half of them are used for ground attacks, while China has sent only one-fifth of the US troops, but the number of fighters sent by the air force has reached more than one-third of that of the US military, with more than 200 planes, and they generally possess a relatively high level of technology, so the tasks they undertake are not much worse than those of the US military.

At this moment, a communication voice came from the squadron leader's headset, "...... Ghost 1-1, this is Cloud City 5, I found that a group of enemy planes has taken off, ready to intercept your department, do you need us to notify the Americans to come and help? "This is the notice of the AWACS aircraft of the Chinese Air Force flying nearby.

The US military did not pay so much attention to the initial attack operation, and pushed a lot of the work to the Chinese, and the motive also included that any pilot felt that the air battle was glorious and the air raid was dirty work, so the US Air Force deliberately took over most of the escort work, hoping that its fighters could shoot down a few more enemy planes so that they could paint a few stars. Even if Chinese fighters carry out a ground attack, they are also responsible for helping to escort the escort, and at this moment, there are four F-15s cruising dozens of kilometers on the flank of the Shadow Leopard fleet.

The squadron leader is not willing to give up this opportunity to the Yankees in vain, they are dual-mission mounting, and according to the communication of the AWACS aircraft, there are only six interceptor fighters in Iraq, and they are all MiG-21 and J-7, and they have been seized by the Shadow Leopard squadron at a position of 100 kilometers, and there is no chance to escape at all.

"Thanks, Cloud City 5, but we don't have the idea of giving up the battle merits to others, let's solve it ourselves, it's over."

"Roger, I wish you success."

The squadron leader entered the combat state, the whole person was on fire, his fighter had received a report on the position of the enemy aircraft from the AWACS aircraft, and the missile was also in a state of waiting for launch, taking a deep breath, he shouted: "Come on, my first result!" "Although the Air Force and the Navy have fought many battles in recent years, a crash is extremely valuable for any pilot, and most national pilots do not have a crash record in their lifetime.

Pressing the launch button, the J-9 fighter fired two PL-12 air-to-air missiles, and like him, the other partners in the squadron fired missiles at the enemy. The missile moved at a high speed of Mach 4 in the direction of guidance, and it did not take much time to approach the enemy. Several Iraqi fighters are second-generation aircraft, which are jokingly called flying rockets by Chinese pilots today, and they have forgotten that they also flew these flying rockets a few years ago.

The Chinese Air Force's own version of the PL-12 homing ability is much stronger than the export version, these flying rockets are indeed in the face of medium-range missile attacks, there are not many ways, and even these fighters are not equipped with radar alarms, belonging to a relatively low-level version of the fighters, when the missiles enter the line of sight, they are impressively aware that it is too late at this time, several air-to-air missiles cleanly shot down these Iraqi fighters, but also created the first air combat results of the Chinese Air Force since the beginning of the Gulf War.

The ghost squadron burst into cheers, this squadron is quite young, except for the squadron leader, who has been flying for seven or eight years, the other pilots are relatively new pilots, and it has only been three or two years to become an air force pilot. However, the Air Force has piled up a lot of flight hours in recent years, basically guaranteeing 18-20 hours of flight hours per month, and these immature little pilots have also grown up rapidly.

The squadron leader said happily: "Let's go, our mission is not yet complete, after knocking out a few planes, we have to blow up something else, we come with missiles full, and then return with full results!" ”

In the first three days after the start of the air raid on the Gulf, according to professional statistics, the air attack efficiency of the Chinese air force was more than twice that of the US military and the air forces of other countries, and the Iraqi troops, which can be called the most dense air defense network in the Gulf, shot down six enemy planes in three days, not a single Chinese plane, and not even a single Chinese fighter plane was damaged. After the incident, military experts analyzed that the Chinese air force had made considerable efforts on the subject of precision strikes, and that every fighter plane involved in the attack had used jointly guided attack weapons, and their range was often outside the range of Iraq's air defense weapons, so it was safer, while the attack planes and fighters of the US military, the British, and the French army often had to fly overhead in places before they could drop bombs, and they were warmly received by Iraq's 37mm and 57mm antiaircraft guns, so they were more likely to lose than Chinese fighters.