Empire Conquest-Chapter 898 - 119: Fighting Alone

The 7th Armored Division is still within Saudi Arabia, northwest of Rafha in Alal.

Crucially, this unit remains in a concealed state.

According to Ding Zhennan’s deployment, after the attack on Baghdad commences, the 7th Armored Division will set off from the concealed assembly point in Alal, advancing north into Iraq, occupying Nuhayb in the heart of the desert, and after acting as a forward base, the troops will split into two routes.

One route will go directly north, detour around Ramadi, encircling the northern side of Baghdad.

The other route will advance east, attacking Karbala south of Baghdad, and continue penetrating eastward.

If all goes well, the two armies will complete the encirclement of Baghdad.

It is evident that the 7th Armored Division undertakes the most intensive combat task.

Crucially, the 7th Armored Division is essentially fighting alone. Even if Ding Zhennan has arranged for cover by the 17th Armored Division, plans can’t keep up with changes, as the 17th Armored Division is now self-occupied and the 7th Armored Division may not be willing to receive friendly aid.

Don’t forget, the 7th Armored Division comes from the Northwest War Zone, while the 17th Armored Division comes from the Western War Zone.

Although there’s no significant discord between the Northwest and Western War Zones, they’re certainly not on amicable terms, always in a competitive relationship.

In fact, the Empire’s Army primarily has only these two major war zones. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Put bluntly, internal competition within the Empire’s Army mainly occurs between these two war zones.

In the past, once any main battle equipment was commissioned, the first decision was which unit or war zone’s unit would receive it first.

Usually, these two war zones would alternately take priority.

For example, the ZT-99 was first provided to the 7th Armored Division, and when the BZ-98 officially entered service, it was prioritized for the 17th Armored Division.

Of course, this mainly occurred among the armored forces because new main battle platforms were first provided to them.

Thus, this created a very obvious competitive relationship between the armored forces of these two war zones, and it was quite intense.

More directly, this refers to the 7th Armored Division and the 17th Armored Division.

After the last war ended, during the reassigning of division numbers, there was a dispute over who would use the "7" designation.

According to rumors, it was the first commander of the 7th Armored Division who had better luck, winning the draw.

Because they didn’t receive the "7" designation, the officers and soldiers of the 17th Armored Division are still resentful, convinced someone cheated during the draw.

With this relationship, the commander of the 7th Armored Division certainly would not voluntarily seek aid from the 17th Armored Division.

This isn’t just about the Boss Bay War, but also the larger-scale Global War!

Interestingly, after the outbreak of the Global War, the only forces that could swiftly reinforce the Northwest War Zone were a few combat troops from the Western War Zone. If they couldn’t hold, regardless of the views of the 7th Armored Division’s commander, they would have to seek aid from the nearby 17th Armored Division.

It is for this reason that the 7th Armored Division has the largest organizational structure among the three divisions.

The entire division has a total of 6 combat brigades, 3 support brigades, and more than 10 directly subordinate battalions to the division command.

Among them, the 701st, 702nd, and 703rd Brigades are true armored brigades, and they’ve all been enhanced, with several hundred more troops than regular armored brigades, thus adding a mechanized infantry battalion and a field artillery battalion, and possessing slightly more main battle equipment than standard armored brigades.

The 704th and 705th Brigades are mechanized infantry brigades, and the 709th Brigade is a newly formed infantry brigade.

There’s not much to introduce about the 2 mechanized infantry brigades; they’re comparable to the mechanized infantry brigades of the 17th Armored Division and haven’t received enhancements like the armored brigades.

The key, actually, is the 709th Infantry Brigade.

Though called an infantry brigade, and part of the combat units, the total strength of this brigade exceeds 10,000, and except for the main officers of the brigade headquarters, the rest are all reservists.

In fact, the 709th Brigade is only nominally an infantry brigade; it’s actually a logistics support brigade.

Because it needs to protect the logistics supply line, this brigade also has quite strong combat capabilities, with 5 genuine infantry battalions.

If put into words, it’s a infantry unit specifically responsible for surrounding the logistics supply line.

This is also the number one task of the 709th Infantry Brigade.

For the 7th Armored Division, there’s indeed a need for such a combat unit.

The reason is quite simple, from Alal to Nuhayb, the highway distance exceeds 250 kilometers, and traveling north from Nuhayb, whether to Ramadi or Karbala, the highway distance exceeds 400 kilometers, thus just from Alal, the logistics supply line length reaches 700 kilometers. If the two offensive routes are also considered, the total length of the logistics supply line exceeds 1000 kilometers!

Obviously, the logistics support burden is exceptionally heavy!

For this reason, besides needing the Alliance Army to provide related assistance, the 7th Armored Division must also have its own, more reliable support force.

Because there’s a need to penetrate into Iraq for combat, this logistics support unit must have sufficient combat power.

It’s not for offensive combat, but for guarding transportation lines.

Because there’s no need to fight at the front lines, a motorized infantry unit suffices.

Among the support units, the 706th and 707th Brigades are artillery brigades, both directly subordinate long-range artillery units of the division, with the former equipped with 150mm self-propelled howitzers, and the latter equipped with 300mm long-range rocket artillery, both possessing quite strong independent combat capabilities.