Empire Conquest-Chapter 896 - 118: Tactical Adjustment

By the time it was past 10 o’clock, the general-purpose helicopter finally returned.

Onboard the helicopter, there were not only 8 Marine Corps Special Forces soldiers but also a prisoner of war with a special identity.

Hussein’s eldest son, Kusa.

Ding Zhennan arranged for psychological warfare to be launched, and also sent bombers to carry out carpet bombing on Basra.

The real purpose was to force Kusa out.

To put it bluntly, to make Kusa feel that disaster was imminent.

As it turned out, this was indeed the case.

Before the bombing began, Special Forces deployed north of Basra intercepted the convoy coming out of the urban area. After a fierce battle, they captured Kusa, who was disguised as a civilian and attempting to escape from Basra posing as a civilian, and killed more than a dozen guards protecting him.

To be honest, this was thanks to the assistance provided by the Military Intelligence Bureau.

Last night, a large electronic reconnaissance aircraft belonging to the Air Force, but used by the Military Intelligence Bureau, had rushed over, hovering in the southeast direction of Basra.

The task of this reconnaissance aircraft was to monitor the civilian frequency radio signals in Basra’s urban area.

The reason was simple: if Kusa intended to flee Basra, he definitely wouldn’t use military radios to contact the rear, since all Iraqi military radios were under the Alliance Army’s surveillance; as soon as a signal was transmitted, it would be detected and followed by bombing or shelling.

Kusa would definitely use a maritime satellite phone or similar civilian communication equipment.

But the problem was that high-end gadgets like maritime satellite phones surely weren’t abundant in Iraq.

Needless to say for civilians; even within the Iraqi military, only senior generals were qualified to use satellite phones, and their usage frequency wasn’t high.

The reason was simple: the call charges were too expensive.

This satellite communication system, jointly funded by the Newland Republic and the Tiaoman Empire, was notoriously expensive and had never been widely adopted. To this day, the main market was still dominated by the Liangxia Empire’s terrestrial base station-driven wireless telephone communication network.

In fact, very few Iraqi families had telephones.

It was the reconnaissance aircraft intercepting the radio signal from an international maritime satellite phone that pinpointed Kusa’s location, which was then reported to the Special Forces ambushed nearby.

According to the Special Forces report, when captured, Kusa still tried to bluff his way through, insisting he was a civilian.

Later, while attempting to escape, he was struck a few times with the butt of a gun, suffering minor injuries.

It wasn’t until midday that the intelligence officers sent by the Military Intelligence Bureau confirmed Kusa’s identity.

Afterward, Ding Zhennan, along with the intelligence officer from the Military Intelligence Bureau, escorted Kusa back to King Khalid’s Military City.

As for the combat operation to attack Basra, Ding Zhennan didn’t need to worry.

Even though Kusa refused to give a surrender order, with the commander having already fled, the Iraqi troops guarding Basra were just a disorganized mob.

Moreover, by tomorrow afternoon, psychological warfare would escalate again.

This time, photos of Kusa’s capture would be released.

As expected, the Marine Corps would complete the operational takeover of Basra within 2 to 3 days, possibly just needing to accept the Iraqi troops’ surrender.

Upon returning to King Khalid’s Military City, intelligence officers from the Military Intelligence Bureau placed Kusa on a transporter.

As for how to deal with Kusa, it wasn’t Ding Zhennan’s place to comment.

However, Ding Zhennan didn’t stay long at King Khalid’s Military City.

After signing a few orders, he set off again.

Of course, this time he boarded a tactical transporter with Samawa as the destination.

Over the past few days, the Empire’s 17th Armored Division had already maneuvered to Samawa through Sellerman, and preparations for the assault on Baghdad had begun.

As for logistical support, it temporarily relied mainly on air transport.

To be frank, this was a compromise solution.

To support the 17th Armored Division, Ding Zhennan secured twenty heavy strategic transports and sixty large transports through Shi Shouliang.

These transporters, based at King Khalid’s Military City and several other large airfields, could deliver about 2500 tons of supplies to Samawa daily.

In fact, the transport capacity could be increased.

Theoretically, on transport missions with a round trip of less than 2000 kilometers, twenty "Yun-10" and sixty "Yun-11" could make two round trips daily, delivering up to ten thousand tons of supplies to the frontline, even if they couldn’t always reach maximum load, they could transport 7500 tons.

However, transport capacity was restricted not only by the carrying capacity of the transporters but also by the throughput capacity of the airports.

At Samawa, there was only one 2000-meter runway.

This meant that the "Yun-10A" couldn’t land fully loaded; to be precise, it couldn’t land at its designed maximum weight and had to reduce weight.

Landing on a 2000-meter runway, the "Yun-10A" not only had to reduce fuel load but also had to reduce cargo load to 80 tons.

This capacity wasn’t much more than that of a "Yun-11," which had a carrying capacity of over 60 tons.

The "Yun-10A" was mainly used because its cargo hold was larger, capable of transporting main battle equipment like the ZT-99B and some large-sized cargo.

Moreover, Samawa airport had virtually no infrastructure, unable to provide effective support for the transporters.

This meant the transporters had to take off after unloading their cargo, so when planning missions, the return fuel had to be factored in, further reducing load capacity.

Needless to say, because the runway turnaround time was as high as 30 minutes, theoretically, the airport could only accommodate 48 transport aircraft missions a day.

To achieve a daily throughput of 7500 tons, the runway turnaround time would have to be reduced to less than 10 minutes.