"It's a bad situation. It's been a long time since we've received information about the Summer fleet, not just radio intelligence, not even the camouflaged supply ships that went to the rendezvous have not connected with the Summer fleet, and I feel that the Germans now know the location of the Summer fleet better than we do. Sa Zhen's cold words made Xu Jie feel a little bad.

"It seems that there is no hope on the side of the fleet, but fortunately, it has contained nearly half of the air force of the German Navy, and there is nothing to complain about." A single fleet is bound to be constrained in the face of a complete system, even if the submarine army, which was as fierce as wolves in history, was eventually crushed by the joint efforts of shore-based aircraft, Q ships, and jeep aircraft carriers. It was not easy for Sumer's fleet to hold out until now.

"When will the armored division we newly transferred to Peng Yi arrive?" Xu Jie asked.

"At least two weeks later, in addition to making up for Peng Yi's lost equipment, we also transferred an additional independent armored brigade, but this brigade seems to be used to beat another German army. For the time being, there are only 4 armored brigades on the front line, and the assault force is sufficient, but if we want to storm the city, we need more infantry. Until the Luftwaffe recovers, our air superiority in the course of its westward advance can also be guaranteed. But what is our purpose? Will Kirkuk be destroyed or will it be used as a threat to force the Germans to cease the war? Nie Zhiyuan, chief of the General Staff of the Army, raised his own question.

The implication is that from the current point of view, it seems that the simple capture of Kirkuk will not force the Germans to negotiate peace, as long as Iran is defeated, Iran's fuel can fully compensate for the loss of Kirkuk. And for the time being, Germany has the upper hand in the big picture, and India and Iran have been cut off. Then all the Entente forces in Iran and the supply of the Chinese army will have to rely on the Caspian route, which will put a lot of pressure on the supply line. The Caspian Sea is a closed lake, and unlike other waters, even if China wants to transfer ships, it is very limited in a short period of time. Now there are still stockpiles of materials to support for the time being, and with the consumption of stockpiles, the strength of Huaxia and the Entente is not increasing but weakening. With a huge army and not enough supplies, this force is muddy!

"Now you have to make a sortie. While we still have the strength to attack. Not only to attack, but also to expand the scope of operations, Kirkuk will no longer be the end of our offensive, if we can. I hope to include the Baghdad railway in the attack! At least about 40 percent of the goods of the Central Powers were transported by this railway. If we can cut off this railway, then we will also starve our opponents! Don't forget, the two major battles waged by the Allied Army and Air Force also consumed a lot of supplies! The Air Force, in particular, needs a lot of spare parts and high-quality jet fuel. And all these things have to be imported from Europe. We're on the verge of a supply shortage, and so are the other side! Peng Haifeng, director of the intelligence department of the General Staff, took out a recently deciphered German telegram and the relevant speculation of the intelligence department and said.

One of the biggest differences between the Middle East and Italy is that it is not the length of mobilization that restricts the scale of the fighting. It's logistical supply capabilities. Supplies for the Italian War and the Allies could be obtained directly from Britain and France, while Austria and Italy bordered each other. The sea route is nothing but a narrow inland sea. However, the Middle East is different, and the supply of the League** team is completely dependent on the Eastern Railway and sea routes, and the latter is also affected by the throughput capacity of the ports of Basra and Faw, as well as the surrounding traffic. If I have to describe it, it is that both sides have a strong production capacity like cooking dumplings in a teapot, but it is not easy to deliver them to the battlefield. Both sides are currently depleting their own stock products.

The Germans cut off the logistics supply of Britain and the United States first, and achieved a certain advantage in logistics supply, but unfortunately, it will take a long time for this advantage to be reflected on the battlefield, and the specific length depends on the speed of recovery of the Luftwaffe. The Allies gained a strategic advantage, but instead lost their tactical advantage on the battlefield, and the Luftwaffe may be difficult to suppress the Huaxia Air Force and the remaining American and British Air Force for a long time, and this is also the only chance for China to turn the tables! Before the Germans recovered, attack Kirkuk and cut off the Eastern Railway at the same time! If this goal can be achieved, then China will not only close the gap in terms of supply, but also achieve a more favorable battlefield situation.

"In the case of insufficient infantry troops, we do not really have to capture the city of Kirkuk, which will greatly weaken our armor and assault superiority in urban warfare. The most effective way is to encircle but not fight, and to place the main mobile forces at the outskirts of the city to send reinforcements. Strategically. Once we have completed the encirclement, then the enemy forces in Kirkuk are a dead game. They had no choice but to hold the lonely city, and in order to bring the Germans to their knees, we had to tell our opponents that we were capable of taking the oil town. At the same time, we also told the opponent that we can calmly repel the reinforcements deployed by the opponent on the periphery one by one. If a completely surrounded city is left without reinforcements, then its fall is just around the corner, and it is best to use our armored forces to fight each other in the wilderness. Cai Ye concluded.

Therefore, after some research, the initial battle plan for attacking Kirkuk eventually became an encirclement of Kirkuk, cutting off the Eastern Railway at the same time, and using the tactics of encirclement and reinforcement to consume German armored forces. The scale of the campaign was much larger than the original. The difficulty of execution has also increased a lot, but compared with the original plan, a German armored division suffered heavy losses in the field, and it was difficult for the Luftwaffe to launch a large-scale attack in a short period of time, which can be regarded as erasing the advantages and disadvantages of both sides. However, since the campaign has been amplified, the air force must be strengthened in addition to the army. It may be difficult to dispatch more planes in a short period of time. This is limited by airfields and stockpiles of jet fuel, not that planes can fly over and fight.

"The sniper brigade must have adapted to the combat environment in the Middle East, right? Let them go. After hesitating for a moment, Xu Jie shook his teeth and finally made up his mind and put in a trump card that he didn't want to expose too early! It has been more than 4 years since the establishment of the Huaxia guided weapon project, although the powered ground-to-ground missile project is still some distance away from actual combat because of the engine, but the radio-controlled gliding bomb project has been put into practical use, and the bomb control system that combines the relevant technology of the American Norton sight has been very mature, and the 500KG and 800KG two guided bombs have also been equipped with troops in small batches, and these bombs are designed with the problem of anti-jamming in mind. Although the electronic warfare capabilities demonstrated by the Germans in Operation Sky Garden surprised the Allied countries, including Huaxia, these tactical victories were based on a sufficient number of jammers and jamming ground radars. The Germans didn't have that many jammers to allocate to the entire Middle East theater of operations, or they didn't expect Huaxia to use such weapons.

As a party with limited air power. If you want to increase the efficiency of the strike, then you can only start with accuracy. "Let's fight, at this time, the British and Americans are eager to get out of Iran, and their own interests can only be fought for by themselves!" The situation is not good, and it is very unlikely that Britain and the United States will continue to invest more troops. If Huaxia wants to achieve its original goal, it can only work against the entire Allied bloc! If you don't use the thunder method at this time, then there is really no chance!

"The Germans are also working on this weapon, and we need a battlefield to test the merits of this weapon. It's better to expose the problem now than to drop the chain in the future at the decisive battle. Xu Jie waved his hand and suppressed the rebuttal, and the wind and waves came. The situation that is more difficult than the Iran war has been survived, Xu Jie does not believe that he can't resist this wave! Since the Germans want to fight, then Huaxia also wants to take the opportunity to see the level of large-scale engagement of the German Army, at least from Xu Huaiyuan's situation, the current German armored forces are not as strong as imagined. At least those monsters of more than 50 tons have not come out yet!

In order to ensure the safety of this precious experimental unit, this bomber unit equipped with the Chinese version of the B25 bomber is deployed in their rear, and their range is enough to carry two 800KG guided bombs to attack most areas of the Lianghe River Basin. They will precede the Army in launching surgical strikes against important targets in the two river basins. Dispatch stations, radars and air bases along the China Eastern Railway will be the top priority.

When these bombers carrying guided weapons have cleared out those key targets. A fighter-bomber force of Foxbat fighters will carry out air strikes on Allied strongholds along the attack route, followed by these long-range fighters and Isha Falcon groups that will provide air cover for the attack force. And under their wings, there will be a huge attack group composed of 2 fully armored divisions and 2 Iranian divisions in Huaxia! These 4 divisions have about 70,000 troops, or nearly 1,000 tanks, and will be the most powerful armored spearheads in history! Behind them there were about 3 infantry divisions with more than 50,000 troops, and in order to ensure that there were sufficient reserves, the newly arrived 8th Armored Division and another independent armored brigade would serve as the general reserve of the entire attack group. In this battle, Huaxia can be said to have done its best. Their own flanks were completely handed over to the defense of the American and British armies. If you can't beat it, then Xu Jie has no choice!

In order to support this operation, Huaxia's transport fleet in the Caspian Sea direction can be said to be at full capacity, delivering supplies to the front line around the clock, and even in order to allow some urgently needed materials to arrive as soon as possible and complete commissioning. China also launched a large-scale airlift, and the huge formation of hundreds of transport planes every day made the Germans on the other side of the Caspian Sea feel a trace of inexplicable fear.

"They make no secret of their strength. Airports along the Caspian Sea are busy part of the day and night, with installation and maintenance operations carried out at night and trips to Iran during the day. According to insider intelligence, about 150 transport planes of various kinds took off from one of Huaxia's airfields in Central Asia in one day! If 3 tons of cargo are shipped per transport aircraft. Then this one airport transport plane can send 450 tons of cargo to the front in one day. And if you count the transportation capacity of all the transport planes in Huaxia, then this number will be quite terrifying! We used to track the whereabouts of these transport planes. But the accompanying Foxbat fighters always pushed us aside, and our BF110 was no match for each other in the air exchanges, but fortunately the two sides were able to exercise restraint outside of Iran, and the two sides never attacked with machine guns. ”

"The endurance of the other party is amazingly good, I thought that Huaxia's level of air transport would last about a week at most. It will be forced to reduce the intensity because of the wear and tear of the aircraft and the fatigue of the maintenance personnel, but in fact, since the British were hit hard by the Air Force, Huaxia has been carrying out high-intensity airlifting, and even now there is a gradual increase trend, which gives us a deeper understanding of Huaxia's overall strength, we underestimate the opponent, in addition to strength, Huaxia's determination in Iran also makes us feel afraid, think about it, if this airport is not parked transport aircraft but strategic bombers, So what kind of situation will we face in the oil fields of the Transcaucasus! It is not difficult for us to imagine what kind of actions the other side will take in the Caucasus after the authorities have gone beyond what China envisioned! After reading the information relayed from the Air Force Headquarters, Kessellin once commented on Huaxia's large-scale air transport operation.

Kesselring said so and did so, or the Luftwaffe was already a little soft after hitting this point. The initial deployment of 4,000 aircraft was for the Iranian war, which was already the largest mobile force that the Luftwaffe could raise, but it would certainly not be enough to deal with the possible air battle in the Transcaucasia in the north. God knows if it will flip the table when Huaxia can't afford to lose! So Richthofen even liaised with the top brass of the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish air forces, replacing part of the Luftwaffe with their planes, and the drawn wings and a small number of troops drawn from the country formed the Caucasian Air Force stationed abroad to defend against possible table-turning operations in China.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976、anhei016 for the tip~~~,and the book friend mingplus、Lori is so cute for the monthly pass support~~~。 (To be continued.) )