Local time, at 0:00 a.m. on the 6th, in the southern waters of Posha Bay, 35 meters below the sea surface, the submarine "Hanshui".

Last month, when tensions were high, the "Hanshui" followed the "Zhu Shijian" into Bosa Bay, but it had been operating north of the aircraft carrier battle group and was responsible for keeping an eye on the Polish-Iranian military port there, especially the missile boats that were so numerous that they came and went like the wind.

Because of their high speed, difficulty in detecting, and the huge power of anti-ship missiles, the navies of many small countries regard missile speedboats as their trump card weapons against aircraft carriers.

And that's not for nothing.

After the Great War, the first large battleship to be sunk was buried under the anti-ship missiles launched by the missile boats!

Missile boats are very popular, and the key is that they are cheap.

If you want to say it, it's about the same as the torpedo boats in the two wars.

The navies of the great powers, capable of building aircraft carriers and aiming to dominate the world's oceans, do not take missile boats seriously.

It was only in the afternoon that the "Han Shui" moved to the south of the aircraft carrier battle group and headed for Qatari territorial waters, preparing to participate in the upcoming "overwhelming" operation.

In fact, the "Han Shui" was only one of the three submarines involved in the strike.

The other 2 ships were in the Mua Sea and did not enter Posha Bay.

As the latest attack submarine of the Imperial Navy, the "Hanshui" has an underwater displacement of more than 7,000 tons and a maximum diving speed of 35 knots.

In terms of combat capability, the "Nanjiang" class to which the "Han Shui" belongs can be said to be the most powerful attack submarine today.

Relying on two gas turbines with a power of 35 megawatts, a high-performance composite battery with a total mass of 1,200 tons, and propelled by a 40 megawatt main motor, the Nanjiang class has the fastest underwater speed of 35 knots and a diving range of up to 3,000 nautical miles at 12 knots. Even at a maximum speed of 35 knots, the "Nanjiang" class can achieve a diving distance of no less than 700 nautical miles. If you are on the surface, it only takes 4 hours to fully charge the battery, and even when you are on the snorkel, it takes only 8 hours.

The maximum safe depth of 550 meters and the maximum depth of 720 meters set a record for a submarine after the war.

All these have endowed the "Nanjiang" class with very strong combat capability.

In fact, just from the name, it can be seen that the Imperial Navy had high hopes for such submarines.

Don't forget that in the past, only battlecruisers and fast battleships, i.e., capital ships, were eligible to use the name of the Empire's rivers.

That is, with such strong performance, the "Nanjiang" class was incorporated into the aircraft carrier battle group and became the main anti-submarine platform.

By design, its primary combat mission is anti-submarine!

According to the experience summed up by the Imperial Navy, the best anti-submarine weapon is a submarine with better performance.

Compared with other anti-submarine platforms, such as anti-submarine patrol aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters, submarines can remain hidden all the time, and can be more effective against enemy submarines.

To a large extent, an advanced attack submarine, which is not detected, can scare away enemy submarines.

It's just that in the vast ocean, there has not been a real opponent for decades.

It is for this reason that the Imperial Navy has been looking for ways to expand the combat range of submarines.

In the words of Li Mingbo, former chief of the general staff of the Navy, spending more than one billion gold yuan to buy an attack submarine must always give the members of the two houses responsible for appropriation a reasonable reason.

Those parliamentarians hardly understand submarine warfare, do not understand the importance of anti-submarine warfare, and are not interested in anti-submarine warfare.

If submarines can destroy the strategic targets of enemy countries, they will definitely be more attractive.

For this reason, after the maturity of cruise missile technology, the Imperial Navy took the lead in developing missile submarines that carried cruise missiles and used cruise missiles as their main weapon.

It's just that the existing missile submarines are actually rebuilt from old submarines.

It is to remove some unnecessary capabilities, and reduce performance indicators such as speed, and use the freed up space to carry dozens of cruise missiles.

As for the construction of new missile submarines, construction has not yet begun.

At this stage, the Imperial Navy's focus is mainly to expand the scope of active submarine missions, such as allowing attack submarines to carry cruise missiles to carry out land attack missions.

The "Han Shui" has 12 "Painted Halberd" submarine-launched cruise missiles.

In fact, the "painted halberd" is a collective name for a series of cruise missiles, in addition to the submarine-launched type, there are also carrier-based types and army types.

At the time of design, the air-launched type was also included.

According to the original plan, the Ministry of Defense hopes to use this kind of missile to equip the three armed services, so that the missile body part will be completely universal, so as to reduce the development cost and reduce the difficulty of support, and through the unified procurement method of the three services, that is, to expand the scale of procurement, and lower the ex-factory unit price of missiles.

It is a pity that before the development was completed, the Air Force withdrew from the project.

The reason is also very simple, the navy has very strict requirements for the diameter of the missile body, which cannot exceed the inner diameter of the submarine torpedo tube to ensure that it can be launched with a torpedo tube, and the requirements for the length of the missile body are not very strict, 6 meters or 7 meters are OK, and they are unwilling to reduce the performance indicators in order to shorten the length.

The point is that the Army chose to compromise with the Navy rather than favor the Air Force's approach.

The Air Force does not have too strict requirements for the diameter of the missile body, but has very strict requirements for the length of the missile body, and it can also accept lower performance indicators.

The reason is also very simple, you need to put missiles into the bomber's magazine, and if it is too long, you will definitely not be able to fit in!

As a result, the length of the body of the "Painted Halberd" missile has reached 5.2 meters, while the length of the magazine of the main bomber of the Air Force has always been only 4.8 meters.

To be precise, the performance of the missile could not meet the requirements of the Navy and the Army, and the Ministry of Defense had no choice but to make a compromise by allowing the Air Force to withdraw from the project and start anew with the funds planned to be spent on the "Painted Halberd" project.

It is precisely in this way that the "painted halberd" only has the navy type and the army type, and the navy type has three sub-types, the submarine-launched type, the carrier-based type and the ship-borne vertical launch type.

In addition, there is also a vertical launch version that has been successfully developed and is carried by submarines.

It's just that because the missile submarine has not yet been officially put into service, this type of "painting halberd" has not entered the procurement stage, let alone officially equipped.

These models of the "Painted Halberd" are completely identical in basic performance, the difference is only the rocket booster, and whether or not to use a sealed loading box.

With a maximum range of 1,500 kilometers and a 500-kilogram warhead, the Painted Halberd can hit almost all targets in the coastal area, and can destroy all stationary targets except for permanent fortifications and deep buried bunkers, and can also use different warheads to hit different targets.

It must be admitted that the "Painted Halberd" is the most successful cruise missile today.

However, it is not flawless.

The number one problem, in fact, is the terrain matching guidance method used, which is too troublesome in actual combat.

This guidance mode is extremely anti-jamming and equipped with a terminal radar imaging or infrared imaging seeker to achieve extremely high attack accuracy. The problem is also prominent: after the missile is launched, there is no way to stop the missile attack or avoid the sudden threat by re-planning the flight route, let alone attack no other target after launch.

However, these problems are not much compared to cruise missiles.

However, the pre-setup of the terrain matching system takes too long.

Even if nothing goes wrong, it takes 4 hours to plan the flight route!

In other words, the "Painted Halberd" is only used to attack fixed targets, and cannot deal with time-sensitive targets.

Moreover, an absolute disaster for naval weapons officers!

It took more than four hours for the weapons officers on the "Hanshui" to complete their work, and the task was only to fire eight "painted halberds."

If I want to say, this is a test of the actual combat value of the latent "painting halberd".

After equipping the navy, the "Painted Halberd" also conducted several live-fire tests, and during joint exercises, it was equipped with a training warhead and test-fired.

As for the striking capability, or the effectiveness of the operation in a high-pressure environment of real combat, it is not clear.

Of course, there are also ship-based types and ship-based vertical launch types that need to be tested.

According to the arrangements of the Joint Forces Command, the Navy launched a total of 152 "Painted Halberd" cruise missiles, 24 from three attack submarines, 48 from two large cruisers that arrived only yesterday, and 80 from missile cruisers in the aircraft carrier battle group.

According to the plan, unless the Joint Forces Command made adjustments to combat operations, that is, issued other orders, the attack would be launched at 0:00 in the morning of the 6th.

Just after 0:00, the "Hanshui" floated to the periscope depth where the missile was launched.

10 minutes earlier, the command of the Combined Forces gave an order to postpone the attack by 1 hour, but it was not issued to the submarine in time!

At 0:02, the "Hanshui" threw the first missile.

It is indeed "thrown", that is, the use of high-pressure gas to push the sealed launch box loaded with missiles out of the torpedo tube.

After that, the launch box will float to the surface of the sea under the action of buoyancy, and the booster of the missile will be ignited.

The process is a bit cumbersome, but the reliability is high.

Within the next five minutes, the "Hanshui" fired seven more missiles.

It was only after the last missile was fired that the "Hanshui" received a telegram from the "Zhu Shijian" that the attack had been postponed for an hour!

At this time, the Joint Forces Command.

When he received the news from the "Zhu Shijian" that the "Hanshui" had launched a missile at 0:00 a.m. as originally planned, Ding Zhennan was speechless.

Who can be blamed for this?

According to the information sent by the "Zhu Shijian," when making arrangements, because the "Han Shui" had already maneuvered to the south of the battle group and had not sent the helicopter in charge of liaison there, it was not able to issue the order to postpone the offensive operation to the "Han Shui" in a timely manner.

In addition, ultra-long-wave radio stations are not used in such tactical operations.

The missile has been launched, can it be recovered?

As a result, at 0:10:00, about 5 minutes after receiving the news, Ding Zhennan asked the communications staff officer to give the order to start the attack.

In fact, the previous order was only to suspend the attack, and it was estimated that it would be delayed for an hour.

In accordance with the order, the combat units were put on standby, ensuring that the Joint Forces Command would be able to launch an offensive immediately after the change of order.

This includes the four Attack-11s that have been lifted into the air and are on standby in the airspace north of King Khalid Military City.

Because they took off with a full load, the four attack planes joined the tanker shortly after liftoff, and refueled in the air according to the scheduled arrangement.

In fact, this is also a very common tactic.

No combat aircraft can take off with full fuel when it is fully loaded, so in order to carry more ammunition, or ammunition with large mass and size, attack aircraft can only choose to take off with a full load and then refuel in the air to obtain the fuel needed to complete the combat mission.

It is precisely in this way that the fuel dispenser has a decisive value.

According to the plan, if the attack starts at 1 a.m., they will have to be put into the air for one hour, and the "Attack-11s" will be refueled in the air on the way back.

Of course, if you attack before 1 a.m., you can fly back to King Khalid Military City after completing your mission.

After receiving the order, the four "Attack-11s" immediately turned and flew north.

At this time, in the waters of Posha Bay and Mua, other ships carrying out attack missions were also engaged in battle, and began to fire cruise missiles that had been prepared for a long time.

The key is that all six aircraft carrier battle groups deployed in place have begun to dispatch carrier-based aircraft.

After the "Kick the Door Operation", the first round of air strikes was launched. In addition to the "Zhu Shijian" aircraft carrier battle group, the other five aircraft carriers are hundreds of kilometers away from Iraq, and the fully loaded carrier-based aircraft need to fly for at least an hour, so it is not too early to let the carrier-based aircraft take to the air.

The same is true in places like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Although the sortie was much closer, after receiving an order from the Joint Forces Command, all the aviation units involved in the first round of assault operations were mobilized.

It's called the arrow is off the string!

At this time, in the desert of southern Iraq, four "Z-10A" flew north at an altitude of less than 20 meters and at a speed of 250 kilometers per hour.

Lian Mingyang did not receive an order from the Joint Forces Command, or that the early warning command plane responsible for the communication relay did not relay the order.

The message was not forwarded, perhaps to lighten the burden on the pilot.

After all, let Lian Mingyang know that the warships in the rear have launched hundreds of cruise missiles, and hundreds of combat planes have been dispatched or are about to be dispatched, and all these forces will break through the gap they are responsible for opening into Iraq, and his pressure will definitely be very huge.

At this time, the last thing you can do is to distract the pilots of 4 "Z-10A".

Although it is equipped with terrain tracking radar and the helicopter's flight control system has an automatic collision avoidance function, it mainly relies on the pilot.

The desert is not plain, it is full of undulating sand dunes.

If anything, helicopter gunships rely on the terrain to evade enemy radars.

In order to fly close to the ground, the collision avoidance function of the flight control system must be turned off, and the terrain tracking radar cannot be relied on, because the flight altitude is too low.

Most of the time, Lian Mingyang's army aviation assault force was training low-altitude penetration tactics.

The difference is that in past training, the illusion target was a torrent of armor galloping on the eastern plains of the Western Continent, but this time it was against a set of air defense radars.

Of course, the difficulty is much lower.

At this time, all Ding Zhennan could do was to fully trust the army's aviation assault unit and believe that the armed helicopter would be able to knock down the radar.