Although it was late at night, the battle to siege Semawo did not stop.

Semawo is just a small city with a population of less than 100,000. The urban area is only a few square kilometers and there are almost no high-rise buildings.

The siege battle started in the afternoon, but the speed of advancement was still not fast.

The reinforcements of the 5th Marine Division arrived before dark and then took 3 hours to prepare before entering the battle at around 10 o'clock in the night.

Previously, the assault troops commanded by Liu Zunshan were attacking Semawo.

Although the reinforcements had arrived, Liu Zunshan did not let the troops retreat, but was still at the forefront and acted as the main force in the attack.

This is also impossible. The reinforcements are mainly infantry, while the armored troops are only Liu Zunshan's battalion.

It’s not that the arrangements are not made, but that the fuel, ammunition and other materials need to be delivered quickly, so the logistics forces can only be allowed to carry light and simple transportation.

There is only one highway from Selman to Semavo, and there is no way to allow the armored and logistics forces to advance at the same time.

"Staff Officer Ding, you can wait here for a while."

After sending Ding Zhennan to the front line command center and leaving a word, the staff officer who brought him here left, to be precise, went to find Liu Zunshan.

Because he came to the front line temporarily and did not make arrangements in advance, Liu Zunshan was not aware of it.

Fortunately, the liaison officer of the 5th Marine Division had been to the Joint Force Headquarters, met Ding Zhennan, and knew Ding Zhennan's identity.

The battle in the city is still going on, not too intense, and occasionally you can hear the sound of cannons and explosions.

It's too far away, and the gunshots are not very obvious.

Just a few minutes after the contact officer left, a team of armored vehicles passed outside the command center.

It is not an infantry fighting vehicle, but a self-propelled mortar, and the barrel extends out of the body of the vehicle, it should be a heavy mortar with a caliber of 120 mm.

This thing is a powerful weapon for siege.

Among the several standard calibers determined after the war, there were only two types of mortars, one of which was 120 mm.

Although the Imperial Army has never attached great importance to the construction of field artillery, to be precise, it has not given field artillery too high status, but in the battalion-level combat units of the Imperial Army, at least one artillery platoon equipped with 120mm mortars.

In mechanized troops, such as the mechanic division, they are equipped with self-propelled mortars transformed from armored conveyors.

These are the chariots that started driving past.

Although the caliber of the 120mm mortar is much smaller and the shells are lighter, the initial velocity of the mortar is lower, the acceleration during launch is much lower, and the external force it bears is smaller, which can make the shell case thinner and fill more explosives, so the blasting killing effect is far greater than that of howitzers of the same caliber.

In dealing with unreinforced buildings, the damage effect of the 120mm mortar is similar to that of the 150mm howitzer.

Even if reinforcement fortifications are encountered, special shells can be used.

The key is that mortars rely on high-spreading trajectory, which is very suitable for targets hiding behind tall buildings.

In siege operations, large-caliber mortars are often used to destroy buildings defended by the enemy or fortifications set up in covertly.

During the last war, in order to deal with fortifications such as Yongbei Fortress, both sides of the war developed large-caliber mortars.

Even now, mortars are mainly used on urban battlefields.

Soon, there were low shelling sounds and violent explosions in the city.

Although it is several thousand meters away, the fire light generated by the explosion, to be precise, is still very dazzling, as if it illuminates the entire night sky.

Ding Zhennan didn't wait long. About 15 minutes later, an armored ambulance drove from the direction of the city.

Liu Zunshan was in the car, but he was not injured, but just took a ride.

After he got out of the car, the armored ambulance drove away. There were several wounded people in the car, two of whom were still seriously injured and had to be taken to the field hospital immediately.

"Why are you here?"

"Come here to see what's going on here, the fight ahead is very fierce?"

"It's okay, it's about to advance to the municipal government. Maintain the current offensive momentum and you can defeat the municipal government tomorrow morning."

"Where are casualties?"

Liu Zunshan did not answer this question, and Ding Zhennan did not ask much. The two went to the command center on the side of the road, which was actually a big tent.

There were only a few camp advisers inside. After Liu Zunshan gave his eyes, they all became tactful.

"The casualties are not too big, but there are also many. The reduction rate is about 20%, of which 32 people were killed." Liu Zunshan said, lit a cigarette. "The combat effectiveness has not been affected, but the officers and soldiers are very tired. It is best to retreat and rest for a long time."

Ding Zhennan nodded slightly, but did not answer.

"Come here, is there anything important?"

"It's almost 1 a.m., is seven hours enough?" Ding Zhennan glanced at his watch before saying this.

Liu Zunshan was stunned for a moment, then frowned.

"The situation on the Eastern Front is not ideal. The Iraqi army ignited almost all oil wells before retreating, and the ground forces could not advance according to the plan. Although the deployment has been adjusted to put the two battalions of the Marine Corps up, there is no way to ensure that they are in time."

"So, we need to work harder?"

Ding Zhennan nodded, saying that Liu Zunshan was right.

"Our troops..."

"The troops were directly transferred from the brothers to make up for the losses suffered in assault operations, and they can be appropriately strengthened according to the circumstances."

"Specific task?"

“Along Highway 1, march into Basra.”

After hearing what Ding Zhennan said, Liu Zunshan was stunned, but without saying much, he found a map of the war zone.

After a few seconds, Liu Zunshan drew the route of entry on the map.

There is no need to explain. Ding Zhennan is also an army officer. Obviously, he can understand the military map and know how far it is from Semawo to Basra.

"It's mainly logistics support, I mean," Ding Zhennan walked over and pointed out several locations on the map, "setting temporary supply points near Nasirier, Jelibai and Rumaira, near Highway 1, to provide ammunition and fuel through air transport."

"There are so many helicopters?" Liu Zunshan looked at Ding Zhennan.

“Transporter.”

Liu Zunshan was stunned first, and then said, "If you want to make such arrangements, you need to dispatch air assault troops first to control a large enough open area."

"You don't have to worry about this, I will make arrangements."

“When will we set out?”

"At the latest it will be 8 am tomorrow." Ding Zhennan looked at his watch inertia again, actually implying that Liu Zunshan was very precious.

"Okay, I'll go and remove the troops first. I'll send a staff officer to the airport, and then..."

"You go and do it, I'll just go to the airport by myself."

Ding Zhennan said this, and Liu Zunshan did not be polite to him anymore. After all, he could find the front-line command without saying hello before coming.

In fact, the biggest problem of accelerating the speed of the assault is whether logistics support can keep up.

It is not an easy task to strengthen the support of the Marine Armored Battalion.

Even at its current scale, which is about 130 main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, more than 20 self-propelled howitzers, and hundreds of other vehicles, the full-speed assault consumes about 350 tons of fuel in a day, and 100 tons of other oil and water, including drinking water, and including vulnerable parts and supplies, the consumption of nearly 500 tons of materials per day, and does not include ammunition.

If it is on other battlefields, such as Astrakhan, it is not difficult to transport 500 tons of supplies to the front line.

The reason is also very simple. The distance between the front line and the rear is only a few dozen kilometers, and how many round trips can a general-purpose helicopter fly by a day.

But it is not that simple in the Posa Bay.

The closest helicopter base is about 200 kilometers south of Rafha.

It is not that the Marines are unwilling to deploy helicopters forward, but that they cannot deploy forward, that is, the road only leads to Lafha, so the materials can only be transported to Lafha through the road. If the helicopters are deployed closer to the battlefield, such as the first stronghold controlled by the coalition, Selman, it also means that a small number of military trucks are needed to transport helicopters to the city in the desert to consume supplies.

Obviously, this loses the significance of tactical airlift with helicopters.

The distance is more than 200 kilometers, and the helicopter can only fly 2 times in a day, with a maximum of 3 round trips!

The key is that the main force of the Marine Corps aviation is a 6-ton general-purpose helicopter with a carrying capacity of less than 2 tons. Therefore, a general-purpose helicopter transports less than 4 tons of materials to the front line in a day. A total of more than 100 general-purpose helicopters need to be mobilized to complete the air transport mission.

Obviously, there are no so many general purpose helicopters deployed in Rafha at all.

Because Rafha is just a temporary advance base, it can only support one brigade of 30 helicopters.

If the assault troops encounter the enemy and fierce battles break out, it will be even more troublesome.

In high-intensity battles, an enhanced armored battalion can use up thousands of tons of ammunition in one day.

During the Boei War, during the battle for Abbas, a synthetic battalion of the Imperial Marines created a record of using more than 50,000 shells and 15 million rounds of guns and ammunition consumption in one day, and the ammunition consumption was as high as more than 2,200 tons, and it has not been broken to this day.

Fortunately, the Air Force left dozens of tactical transport aircraft.

In fact, these tactical transport aircraft have always been the "preparatory force" in Ding Zhennan's hands.

Although the capacity of the "Y-9" is not as good as that of the large strategic transport aircraft such as the "Y-10", the maximum load capacity is only 30 tons, and the load capacity needs to be controlled within 24 tons when taking off and landing at field airports, the tactical transport aircraft has the ability that a large strategic transport aircraft does not have. It can take off and land on unpaved field sites, and under light load, the landing and sliding distance is less than 1,000 meters.

Simply put, just find a flat site with a length of more than 1,000 meters and a width of 30 meters, and the tactical transport aircraft can take off and land.

Obviously, there is no shortage of such venues in the desert of Posha Bay.

If you want to say it, at most, you must dispatch an air assault force in advance to control the take-off and landing site, and remove larger obstacles, such as larger rocks, in the site.

The Marine Corps was not incorporated into the air assault unit, but all the Marine infantry units were able to perform air assault tasks.
To be continued...