Empire Conquest-Chapter 877 - 108: Keep Up the Good Work (Part 2)
"Specific mission?"
"Advance along Highway One, heading toward Basra."
Upon hearing this from Ding Zhennan, Liu Zunshan suddenly paused, but he didn’t say much more, quickly pulling out a battle zone map.
In just a few strokes, Liu Zunshan depicted the advancement route on the map. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺
No need for explanation, Ding Zhennan was also an Army Officer, obviously he could understand military maps, thus he knew how far it was from Samawa to Basra.
"Mainly it’s the logistics support, what I mean is," Ding Zhennan walked over and pointed out several locations on the map, "setting up temporary supply points respectively near Nasiriyah, Jeliba, and Rumaila, close to Highway One, and providing ammunition and fuel via air transport."
"Are there that many helicopters?" Liu Zunshan looked at Ding Zhennan.
"Transport aircraft."
Liu Zunshan was momentarily surprised, then said: "If arranged like this, we need to first deploy the Air Assault Forces, to control an area that is large enough."
"No need for you to worry about that, I will make the arrangements."
"When are we going to depart?"
"Latest by 8 AM tomorrow morning." Ding Zhennan instinctively glanced at his watch, actually hinting to Liu Zunshan that time was very precious.
"Alright, I’ll first go have the forces withdrawn. I’ll send an adjutant to escort you to the airport, then..."
"You go ahead, I can go to the airport by myself."
Since Ding Zhennan said that, Liu Zunshan didn’t insist on being polite, knowing full well that he had found the frontline command without any prior notice.
In fact, the biggest issue in quickening the assault speed is whether logistics support can keep up.
Supporting an enhanced Marine Corps Armored Battalion is not a simple task.
Even at the current scale, with roughly 130 Main Battle Tanks and Infantry Fighting Vehicles, over 20 self-propelled howitzers, and hundreds of other vehicles, a full-speed assault for a day would consume about 350 tons of fuel, plus 100 tons of other supplies including drinking water. Counting the wear-and-tear parts, and provisions, daily material consumption approaches 500 tons, not including ammunition.
If on other battlefields, like over in Astrakhan, transporting 500 tons of supplies to the front would not be much of a challenge.
The reason is clear too, the distance from the front to the rear is just tens of kilometers, a general-purpose helicopter can fly several trips a day.
But over here in Boss Bay, it’s not that simple.
The closest helicopter base is about 200 kilometers south in Rafha.
It’s not that the Marine Corps is unwilling to forward deploy helicopters, it’s just not feasible, as the highway only reaches Rafha, hence supplies can only be transported by road to Rafha. If helicopters were deployed closer to the battlefield, like the first Alliance Army post controlled by Sellerman, that would mean using the limited number of military trucks to transport the supplies consumed by helicopters to a city in the desert.
Clearly, this negates the tactical airlift advantage of helicopters.
With a distance over 200 kilometers, helicopters can only make two trips, at most three round trips in one day!
Moreover, the Marine Corps Air Force primarily uses 6-ton general-purpose helicopters, with a carrying capacity within 2 tons, so a general-purpose helicopter can only transport less than 4 tons of supplies to the front lines in a day, requiring the mobilization of over 100 general-purpose helicopters to complete the air transport mission.
Obviously, deploying so many general-purpose helicopters in Rafha is impossible.
Rafha is just a temporary forward base, so it can only support a squadron of 30 helicopters at most.
If the assault force encounters the enemy and intense battles erupt, it becomes even more troublesome.
In high-intensity combat, a reinforced armored battalion can consume over a thousand tons of ammunition in one day.
During the Boi War, in defending Abbas, an Empire Marine Corps synthetic battalion set a record of consuming over 50,000 rounds of shells and 15 million rounds of bullets in a day, with ammunition consumption exceeding 2200 tons, a record not broken to this day.
Fortunately, the Air Force left behind dozens of tactical transport aircraft.
In fact, these tactical transport aircraft have always been Ding Zhennan’s "reserve."
Though the "Yun-9" has less carrying capacity compared to large strategic transport aircraft like "Yun-10," with a maximum load of 30 tons and needing to control the load to within 24 tons when taking off and landing at field airports, tactical transport aircraft have a capability that large strategic transporters do not, to take off and land on unpaved field areas. In light load conditions, the landing rollout distance is less than 1000 meters.
Simply put, as long as a flat area extending over 1000 meters in length and 30 meters in width is found, tactical transport aircraft can take off and land.
Clearly, in the desert within Boss Bay, there is no shortage of such locations.
Ideally, at the most, an air assault force should first be sent out to control the landing area and clear larger obstacles on the field, such as sizeable rocks.
The Marine Corps doesn’t have air assault forces integrated into it, but all Marine Corps infantry troops can execute air assault missions.
In modern amphibious operations, air assaults have become the primary means of troop deployment, otherwise, the Empire Navy would not have equipped itself with as many as 15 amphibious assault ships.
These landing ships, besides carrying hovercraft and Landing Craft, can also deploy dozens of helicopters to initiate amphibious operations through sea and air assaults.
In general, it is not difficult for the Marine Corps to open a few field airports on the front lines.
Once field airports are available, and in abundance of tactical transport aircraft, supplies will not be an issue.
Even if each load can only carry 24 tons of cargo, only 20 sorties are needed to provide supplies required for a day of attack to the assault forces.
Of course, if intense battles erupt, dozens more trips are needed to transport ammunition.
For tactical transport aircraft, not to mention 200 kilometers, even departing from King Khalid Military City, a journey of roughly 600 kilometers, is not far. Under normal conditions, a tactical transport aircraft in good condition can execute 4 transport missions on a 600-kilometer flight in 24 hours. If using containers or easy-to-load cargo pallets, theoretically, it could fly an additional sortie.
In an ideal scenario, only 20 "Yun-9Fs" are needed to support 1 reinforced armored battalion.
With the logistics support issue resolved, there’s nothing much to worry about.
Precisely because of this, Liu Zunshan didn’t complain.
Before 2 AM, after the replacement forces took over, the assault forces withdrew from the town and rested near the frontline command.
Actually, it was more of a break.
Until now, including the pre-attack preparation, the officers and soldiers of the assault force had fought for a full two days, also experiencing a sandstorm.
To say it, the sandstorm’s threat surpassed the Iraqi army.
Not to mention, many infrared imagers on the ZT-99AL were damaged in the sandstorm, and have yet to be repaired.
Of course, the primary issue officers and soldiers face is fatigue.
Many soldiers got off tanks and vehicles and fell asleep on the roadside.
Thankfully, they are not fighting alone.
Liu Zunshan was busy past 3 o’clock, after arranging mainly work for the reinforcement logistics units that came in, such as repairing damaged instruments and equipment, helping tanks and vehicles replenish fuel, wiping gun barrels, and preparing ammunition needed beforehand.
These tasks should originally have been handled by the combat personnel.
Of course, the key is the transport convoy.
Even though there will be 3 supplementary supplies en route, enough transport vehicles like tankers are still needed, to ensure fuel is available at all times.
Without ammunition, retreat might be an option.
Without fuel, facing the adversary means only getting beaten.
No matter how much Liu Zunshan trusts Ding Zhennan, he will still keep an escape route open, rather than hinging the lives of the entire battalion’s officers and soldiers on a mere promise.
When Liu Zunshan went to rest, the "Attack-2EG" that Ding Zhennan was aboard had already returned to King Khalid Military City.
The situation on the east line had not improved.
The Marine Corps was still making adjustments, more precisely deploying several Landing Ships to Daman Port to load infantry fighting vehicles and other main combat equipment, and then proceeding to the landing site north of Kuwait City.
Such trouble inevitably takes a day or two.
According to the reports from combat forces, the two infantry battalions landing north of Kuwait City could launch an attack as soon as dawn on the 20th.
If problems arise during this time, it could be delayed by 12 hours.
Regarding this, Ding Zhennan felt helpless as well.
For now, he could only pin hope on Liu Zunshan, hoping they can successfully break through the Iraqi army’s defenses.
