Empire Conquest-Chapter 906 - 123: Interlocking Links

On the first day of October, the operation to attack Baghdad officially began.

Unlike the attack on Basra, there was no preparatory fire before the assault was launched.

In the early hours of the morning, the vanguard of the 7th Armored Division set out from Alal and crossed the border into Iraq before dawn.

However, it was the 17th Armored Division that fired the first shots.

Around 4 a.m., the assault force of the 17th Armored Division encountered the Iraqi military northwest of Samawa, on the north bank of the Euphrates River.

Belonging to an Infantry Brigade of the Defense Army.

This Infantry Brigade was part of the 5th Group Army stationed in Divaniye.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi military had no capability to withstand the steel torrent of the 17th Armored Division.

The battle lasted less than two hours before the Iraqi military was routed by the 171st Armored Brigade.

Crucially, the commander of the Iraqi 5th Group Army made a basic error by assuming that the forced river crossing was just a lone unit.

The reasoning was that it was currently the rainy season, and the Euphrates River was at high water levels, with very turbulent currents.

To prevent the Alliance Army from crossing the river, even the upstream reservoirs had opened their sluices a few days prior to release water.

Even with full preparation, it was extremely difficult for mechanized forces to cross the river.

Furthermore, about 100 kilometers northwest on the south bank of the Euphrates, there was a bridge crossing the river at Sinafiye.

In the last two months, the Alliance Army had not focused on bombing this bridge. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Although back in late July, laser-guided bombs dropped by Alliance attack aircraft destroyed a section of the bridge deck, the piers were not destroyed.

Since then, the Iraqi military had been striving to repair this bridge, and the Alliance returned multiple times to bomb, but mainly targeted the newly repaired bridge deck.

During this period, the Iraqi commander always believed that the Alliance intentionally left this bridge intact to destroy Iraqi engineering troops and equipment, as well as trap the convoys stuck at both ends of the bridge.

With the ground battle igniting, the Iraqi commander inevitably assumed.

The Alliance left this bridge to cross the river here!

For this reason, the 5th Group Army heavily fortified Sinafiye, preparing to intercept the Alliance Armored Forces advancing from Samawa.

To prevent the Alliance from crossing the river here, the Iraqi military even prepared to blow up the bridge.

Evidently, the commander of the 5th Group Army did not anticipate that the Alliance would cross the Euphrates downriver.

Additionally, an armored force was indeed advancing towards Sinafiye on the south bank of the Euphrates, also from the 17th Armored Division’s assault force, but it was not the 172nd Armored Brigade, rather a Mechanized Infantry Battalion, simply putting on a show like a main force.

As a result, the Iraqi 5th Group Army missed an excellent opportunity to launch a reprisal.

At that moment, a well-hidden armored unit was located behind Sinafiye; even as a reinforced battalion mainly equipped with somewhat outdated T-62 medium tanks, it could arrive by noon, and the 171st Brigade’s river crossing operation would extend to the evening.

Clearly, if this Iraqi unit could have arrived by noon, it would have surely caused significant trouble for the 171st Armored Brigade.

Unfortunately, the battalion only set out for Sinafiye at noon that day to engage the oncoming "assault forces".

Taking advantage of this, the main force of the 171st Armored Brigade crossed the Euphrates that afternoon, and the reinforcing engineering battalion constructed 2 pontoon bridges and 3 floating bridges.

By that evening, not only had the entire 171st Armored Brigade crossed the Euphrates, but the trailing 177th Mechanized Infantry Brigade had also begun their crossing.

Interestingly, the reinforcing Iraqi troops at Sinafiye didn’t arrive on time and were repeatedly hit by airstrikes en route.

By evening, the commander of the 5th Group Army realized that the main armored forces of the 17th Armored Division had already crossed the Euphrates River.

However, the Iraqi military made another very serious mistake at this time.

According to the intelligence obtained post-war, by the afternoon of the 1st, Newland Republic’s reconnaissance satellite had already detected the 7th Armored Division of the Empire advancing from Alal into Iraq, and confirmed that the force consisted of over 40,000 troops, even making a relatively accurate estimate of its main combat equipment numbers.

Based on this, the Newland Intelligence Agency determined it was the Empire Army’s 7th Armored Division.

In fact, there was nothing particularly surprising about this.

To ensure sufficiently fast advancement and to alleviate the logistical burden, the 7th Armored Division advanced along the highway, with its convoys moving on the road, except for the 701st Armored Brigade leading the assault, the main combat equipment of the other brigades was transported by flatbed trailers.

Clearly, counting the number of tanks from the reconnaissance satellite photos was not a difficult task for intelligence analysts.

Moreover, this intelligence was promptly delivered to Iraq authorities.

The issue, however, was that Iraq authorities did not believe this intelligence.

At the time, Hussein determined that it was a decoy force, and indeed part of the Saudi Arabian Royal Army, with the main forces of the Alliance being south of Baghdad.

The reason was simple; the attacking distance from the west was simply too great, making the logistical challenges extremely difficult.