In order to carry out large-scale military operations, US President George W. Bush announced Operation "Desert Shield," which is expected to transport more than half a million US soldiers into the Gulf region within five months. Similarly, the Chinese side has also announced the build-up of troops to the Middle East by the Central Military Commission, but neither the Central Military Commission nor the Ministry of National Defense has announced the specific number or units to be dispatched.

The military and Qi Yiming had a lot of meetings on the issue of sending troops into this area, but the military was actually not very sure what kind of war to be waged and to what extent it needed to be fought.

Qi Yiming stood in the conference room and proposed his plan for everyone: "...... The Gwadar base will serve as the most important transit base for our dispatch of forces to the Gulf region, and it will also be our position on the second line in a normal war. ”

The Gwadar port is a contract signed by China from Pakistan a few years ago to build a large civilian trade port and to open up a military port for the Chinese navy to open up a land and harbor here. After several years of efficient construction, it has the mooring and replenishment capacity of the second-tier military port in China.

Defense Minister Minister Qin nodded and said: "At the end of last year, it was said that the construction of naval and air force facilities in Gwadar had been basically completed, and it was capable of berthing at least one of our amphibious combat groups and stationing one aviation division here. ”

Navy Commander Li Jing continued: "Our Navy plans to dispatch two amphibious assault ships this time, namely the Shangri-La Strike Group and the Fujian Strike Group, and we will maintain at least 20 Qiang-7 strike aircraft that can be used in air-ground strikes against Iraq, and at the same time maintain sufficient amphibious landing capabilities to cooperate with other allied forces to recapture Kuwait." In terms of escort ships, we intend to dispatch a cruiser to lead the way, with four destroyers and three frigates, two nuclear submarines and two conventional ships, and the cruisers and destroyers will carry a relatively large number of land-attack cruise missiles as another major means of our attack. In addition to the fleet, HNA will also send a sufficient fleet to participate in the operation, with two F-14 Tomcat Fighter Groups and one J-7 Defender Strike Group stationed in Saudi Arabia or Gwadar to carry out the mission in tandem. ”

Air Force Commander Wang Hai was not to be outdone, and said: "The Air Force will also send a certain amount of force into this area, and our preliminary plan mainly includes two fighter divisions drawn from various departments, mainly J-9 and J-10 fighters, and we will also send a bombing regiment to Gwadar, mainly for H-6K and H-8, to provide the most powerful air support for the army and navy." ”

Speaking of which, the Air Force is also slightly dissatisfied with the fact that the Air Force is sending its land-based air forces to the theater for the sake of why it wants to send its own land-based air forces to the theater, and this is clearly the work of grabbing the Air Force, but Wang Hai cannot say anything bad; if it is indeed an air-sea operation, some pilots are prone to air-sea reversal, and it is really not good to do it without special training.

Chi Haotian, chief of the General Staff, lifted his military hat and said: "Actually, it is easy to say how much the Navy and Air Force will be deployed, and it is not surprising that the US military will cover all these tasks, and the Iraqi army does not have the strength to threaten our Navy and Air Force, and the important thing is how many ground troops we send into the Middle East." If there are fewer factions, the significance of participating in this operation will not be obvious, and the first is to make some countries think that China has the intention to establish military hegemony, and at the same time, it is also a wake-up call for the Americans. ”

Qi Yiming interjected: "The U.S. military is planning to send 500,000 troops to participate in the war (in the early days, Bush Sr. sent more than 200,000 troops, wanting to scare Saddam, Uncle Sa didn't buy it, Bush Sr. was furious, and sent more than 200,000 troops over), other countries are at most the leaders of the U.S. military, and the total is estimated to be up to one-third of the U.S. military, we don't need to compare the number and scale of the United States, it is very unrealistic and meaningless, I think sending a total of 120,000 troops to the navy, land and air force is the country that contributes the most troops after the United States, It should be the most reliable. We have much less troops than the United States, but we have far more than the 8,000 troops of other countries, and if we fight one or two amazing battles, we will not be able to stand out from the crowd. ”

Minister Qin thought about it and said: "Then let's transfer three or four elite infantry divisions, and the Marine Corps will also have a brigade, and then supplement it with other coordinated forces to form the main force of the army to participate in the operation, so that it is about 100,000 people, and the navy and air force are basically 120,000." ”

After many rounds of reduction, reorganization, and innovation, the PLA Army is now a master system, with each army division having at least 20,000 troops, most of which are between 24,000 and 28,000, and the construction model is the 309th Division, which won battles in the frontier in 86 years. Qi Yiming firmly believes that even the 1st Cavalry Division and the 4th Mechanized Division of the US Army, which are so miraculous, are by no means the opponents of any PLA Army Division if they are single-handed.

It is still a big question who the four army divisions will send, and Qi Yiming believes that the leaders present must have filled their pockets with the people below and handed over the note. Even if it is not for the sense of honor and other reasons that can be spoken, going to fight thousands of miles away, and then making war exploits, obviously has indescribable benefits for future promotions, and in addition, the situation of the troops has improved greatly in recent years, and many commanders of the troops are very confident in the strength of the troops they lead, so they do not believe that those local chickens and dogs in Iraq can pose any threat.

However, the Central Military Commission and the General Staff Department were still relatively cautious in their selection, and the selection was the elite of the elite, the 113th Mechanized Infantry Division of the 38th Group Army, the 127th Mechanized Infantry Division of the 54th Group Army, and the 310th Blue Army Mechanized Infantry Division of the 66th Group Army, plus a Red Alert Rapid Reaction Brigade selected by Qi Yiming.

The 113th Mechanized Infantry Division fought with the Americans on the Korean battlefield, but this time it had to fight side by side with the Americans in the Middle East, which was really a turn of feng shui, but even American military scholars were deeply impressed by the 113th Division's courage and ability to fight on the peninsula back then. The 127th Division also has a long tradition, with its predecessors dating back to Sun Wen's ironclad convoy during the Northern Expedition and the Ye Ting Independent Regiment later, and also achieved fruitful results in the 1979 Punishment of Vietnam War.

The only unit with no real war experience was the 310th Division of the Blue Army. In order to enhance the PLA's combat capability, the Military Commission previously expanded the 310th Division into the 66th Group Army with three divisions and two brigades, but the 310th Division, which was established at the earliest, is still the most combat-effective unit. It is undeniable that the 310th Division has never really seen a bloody battle, but in all previous red-blue confrontation exercises, the 310th Division performed well, and its average victory rate was higher than that of ordinary Red Army units.

Of course, this may also be due to the fact that the 310th Division uses all NATO-standard weapons, and its behavior is basically completely beautified, which makes ordinary troops very unsuitable for fighting with such unfamiliar troops, especially when both sides are holding a good hand, they need to rely on better tactics and deployment.

The reason why the 310th Division was chosen to play this time was that the military also had some other considerations. First of all, the equipment and logistics of the 310th Division are basically the same as those of the United States and NATO countries, so that when acting with these allied forces, there are more choices. In addition, the military also hopes to use this time to let the Blue Army learn the tactics of the real imaginary enemy, and cooperate and communicate more with the US military and NATO troops, so that the Blue Army can become closer to them.

As for the 8,000-strong Red Alert Quick Reaction Force sent by Qi Yiming, they will actually not fight any frontal battlefields, and the tasks they are responsible for will be more complicated, including maintaining order in the occupied areas, ensuring communications, guarding prisoners, and so on.

In such a real war, Qi Yiming still did not send a large number of Red Guard soldiers to participate after thinking about it, because he could predict the result, plus China, the United Nations army is estimated to be 800,000 troops, and Saddam Hussein may be more mobilized if he mobilizes it, but in terms of combat effectiveness, it is far from the United Nations army with the two giants of China and the United States, and even the morale of the Iraqi army is not very good, and even some pilots defected to Iran as soon as the war started.

In the other plane, the United Nations army has less than 500 casualties among hundreds of thousands of people, and if the Chinese PLA comes out, the casualty rate will be lower than this, so Qi Yiming believes that compared with the experience gained and other gains, some minor casualties should also be able to bear.

However, even if such a large-scale force projection were to be completed, the cost would be unimaginably huge. Even though China has received military commitments from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other countries, it still has to invest a huge amount of military spending to fight this war. The three heavy infantry divisions, the main battle tanks alone have to transport more than 1,000 units, plus infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery, self-propelled rocket artillery, military off-road vehicles, engineering vehicles, and so on.

Qi Yiming has the ability to transfer frozen space, but the nearest base is in Afghanistan, and he can't get a large amount of Chinese equipment of unknown origin from a foreign country so easily, and a lot of equipment is not produced by the base, which means that it cannot be transmitted at all. So after arriving at the end of the day, he still had to pay out of his pocket and take the sea route to bring a large amount of heavy equipment over.

On the other hand, the US military often sells some equipment with low unit value and low technology content on the spot when it fights a war, and even takes it away for nothing only by paying the freight. Qi Yiming now understands that equipment such as a Humvee, if it is really pulled back and continued to be used, I am afraid it is really not as cost-effective as building another one. It's a pity that most of the equipment sent by Qi Yiming can't be leaked, even if he doesn't plan to use it, he has to recycle, and the freight will be counted on his head.