The attack on Gal began in the early morning of December 21, which was also the deadline set by Ding Zhennan.

According to Liu Zunshan's suggestion, on December 18, three days ago, the 11th Marine Warrior Division invested a reinforcement regiment, and provided fire support by the 31st Special Mixed Fleet, and launched an amphibious landing operation near Kakinad, north of the Godavari Estuary Delta.

In order to attract the attention of the Fan army, the navy also sent dozens of transport ships, but most of them were civilian cargo ships.

In addition, the landing fleet heading north also passed the landing ground outside Kakinad and stayed for a day, but did not participate in the landing operation.

Because the Fan army had almost no resistance, the Marines consolidated the beachhead position in just one day and then spent 2 days expanding inland.

By late at night on the 20th, the Marines had already pushed the front line outside Kakinad City.

According to Ding Zhennan's requirements, the regiment began shelling Kakinad on the afternoon of the 20th, and increased the shelling force after nightfall.

Although Kakinad has no port, it is definitely of great value as a coastal city in the estuary area.

By taking the city, the Marines can go upstream and attack the hinterland of the southern region.

Of course, the premise is that there are enough troops.

However, whether the feint attack in the south had any effect was not clear at least in the early morning of the 21st when the main attack began.

Like traditional landing operations, it still starts with firepower preparation.

Perhaps in order to use up the stock of ammunition that has been piled up, especially those shells that have been stored for decades and have not had the opportunity to use, the firepower preparations before landing are carried out by the 31st Special Mixed Fleet, and after two rounds of bombing, they enter the artillery stage.

To this end, the Imperial Navy dispatched a total of 38 destroyers and cruisers.

Among them, four of them were built in the late stage of the Second Global War, sealed after the war, and were not opened until September, and they joined the battle sequence.

The shelling operation started with these four large cruisers.

If it weren't for the Posar Bay War, the stock of 400mm shells had been almost used, and re-producing 400mm shells was not only troublesome, but also meaningless in terms of cost-effectiveness ratio. The Imperial Navy would probably have sent those fast battleships here.

Of course, the gun power is 34 modern destroyers and cruisers.

These 34 warships are all equipped with 2 130mm naval guns. When performing ground strike missions, the firepower provided by each warship is equivalent to a reinforced heavy artillery battalion of the army, and it has stronger continuous combat capabilities, making it more suitable for performing firepower suppression missions before landing.

If you want to say it, this is also the main reason why the Imperial Navy retained large-caliber naval guns.

Use naval guns to deal with enemy ships?

Obviously, this is just a gimmick to get money.

The Imperial Navy has never attached much importance to sea-making operations. The reason is very simple. The Imperial Navy is the global overlord and there is no problem of sea-control. Even if there are a few opponents with some weight, such as the Newland Navy and the Torman Navy, the air battles that determine the outcome are also the air combat of aircraft carriers and carrier-based aviation. Only after seizing air supremacy can you gain the sea-control power.

After seizing air supremacy on the battlefield, or relying on carrier-based aviation, do you still need to worry about sea supremacy?

Of course, naval guns can indeed be used for sea-making operations, but they are mainly used to deal with small and medium-sized ships.

It is precisely because on some warships with smaller tonnage, such as frigates, the Imperial Navy gave up the minimum standard that had been adhered to for decades, that is, the main gun caliber of the main warships was not less than 130 mm, began to use 80 mm rapid-fire guns, and invested in the development of special ammunition.

However, if you want to say it, if you only use it to deal with small ships, especially armed speedboats, 30mm machine guns are actually enough.

However, on destroyers and cruisers, the Imperial Navy still insisted on using large-caliber naval guns.

In addition, the Yangcheng class destroyer, which was launched after the outbreak of the war, reduced the number of main guns from two to one. If you really want to say it, this was a compromise that had to be made. In order to install the "Golden Bell Cover" system developed for the "Qingzhou" class and 96 vertical launch tubes, the Yangcheng class also considered canceling all main guns during the design stage, and finally only retained the head of the ship. If you want to retain the main gun at the stern of the ship, you have to cancel the helicopter flight deck or hangar, resulting in a significant reduction in anti-submarine capabilities.

Obviously, two anti-submarine helicopters are more valuable than adding one main gun.

The Imperial Navy insisted on letting large warships use large caliber naval guns, that is, to strike ground targets.

In a sense, land support has always been the main task of the Imperial Navy, or it is the key reason for the Imperial to maintain a strong navy.

Don’t forget that the Liangxia Empire was a powerful country in Luquan.

Even after winning the Second Global War, the fundamental attributes of the empire remained unchanged and were still able to maintain and consolidate the land hegemony on the world island.

In other words, the empire's maritime power must serve the land power.

In fact, this feature has been revealed in the later stages of the Second Global War.

After defeating its main opponent, the Imperial Navy's main task in the last two years of the war was to support landing operations.

After the war, this was even more so.

During the Bo-Iran War, the Imperial Navy occupied the Bosha Bay and was not threatened at all. All combat operations were carried out around ground strikes and ground support.

Obviously, naval guns are the main ground strike weapon.

If the intensity of use is used is measured, no weapon is comparable to that of naval guns, and even carrier-based attack aircraft cannot compare with them.

Many people think that the Imperial Navy is still holding giant ships and cannonism.

To some extent, this is just a result of development inertia.

The key is that during the Second Global War and the Boei War, large-caliber naval guns have always been the main delivery tool for ground strikes, and both the strike effect and efficiency ratio exceeded that of the aviation force. Especially in landing operations, naval guns have irreplaceable value.

For this reason, the Imperial Navy had no reason not to develop naval guns.

However, with the birth of various precision-guided munitions, especially the emergence of cheap-guided munitions, the status of naval guns has been affected.

From the standpoint of the Imperial Navy, the Third Global War may be the masterpiece of the large-caliber naval gun.

No matter how wars will be fought in the future, under the driving force of technology, more and more traditional weapons will be sent to museums, including naval guns.

Of course, not now.

During the shelling that lasted for several hours, 38 warships destroyed tens of thousands of shells.

Then there is the landing operation.

Unlike traditional landing operations, this time there is no beach grab.

Among the first assault troops, or among the troops that launched the attack first, there were no amphibious troops at all. There were no landing craft, no hovercraft, no amphibious armored vehicles, no amphibious tanks, and even no charge boats. The closest landing ship was dozens of kilometers away.

The transport helicopters sent the first batch of landing troops ashore!

In fact, this is also the first time it has been used in large-scale landing operations since the birth of the "three-dimensional landing" theory.

For this purpose, the Imperial Navy dispatched 9 amphibious assault ships, 12 integrated landing ships, 24 dock landing ships, 24 troop delivery ships and 24 assault ships.

Here, other warships that were equipped with armed helicopters and participated in landing operations have not been included.

To be said, the main force is actually the latter two auxiliary landing ships transformed by civilian ships.

The so-called troop delivery ship is actually a necessary transformation, capable of carrying more than 3,000 officers and soldiers who strengthened the landing regiment, as well as all the main combat equipment, and also set up helicopter take-off and landing points on the open-air deck, which can provide support for helicopters.

It must be said that the Imperial Navy has been preparing for war.

Although there was no relevant law to provide support, during peacetime, the Imperial Navy used various means to secretly control shipping companies of its own country and allied countries. In order to strengthen the control of civilian ships with military purposes, the Imperial Navy also specially established an organization for private enterprises. Among the many civilian ships, the most important one is the Ro-ro-ship ship that can be used to carry main combat equipment.

The load-carrying capacity of the vehicle decks built in the Imperial Shipyard and operated by Imperial or Allied shipping companies meets military standards, and can load the main combat equipment of the Imperial Army and Marines without preparation, including main combat tanks equipped with additional armor.

In addition, large roll-ro-roll cargo ships also have helicopter take-off and landing platforms. If necessary, non-essential facilities can be removed and several helicopter take-off and landing points can be set up on the open-air deck. In fact, all the 24 large roll-ro-roll cargo ships requisitioned have added helicopter take-off and landing points.

However, due to the limitations of the hull structure, the roll-ro-roll cargo ship cannot carry a helicopter.

However, this is a minor problem.

In order to use the helicopter take-off and landing points on the Roll-Road cargo ship, all amphibious assault ships and integrated landing ships are equipped with assault transport helicopters as possible. Before the landing operation begins, all of these helicopters flew to the Roll-Road cargo ship and sent the officers and soldiers carried by the Roll-Road cargo ship ashore.

Relatively speaking, assault ships are more extreme.

This thing is actually a container freighter.

Of course, they are all large container freighters with displacement of about 100,000 tons.

Unlike Ro-Ro-Ro-Freighters, these container freighters not only have necessary transformations, but also have the ability to support helicopters in continuous combat.

The key is that it can only support helicopter operations.

Due to the limitation of internal structure, container freighters cannot carry Marines and are difficult to carry large equipment. At most, they can only transport some equipment and materials loaded in containers. Because the hull is extremely large and the deck is very flat, container freighters are very suitable for carrying and operating helicopters, and can even use containers to carry maintenance equipment to obtain continuous combat capabilities comparable to landing ships.

Simply put, these assault ships are actually helicopter motherships.

In fact, container cargo ships can also be transformed into aircraft carriers, equipped with light attack aircraft, or vertical take-off and landing fighter jets, thereby gaining stronger combat capabilities.

Although the carrying capacity and operational efficiency are not as good as that of a real amphibious assault ship, such as a 100,000-ton assault ship that can carry 1,500 standard containers, it can carry up to 30 "Zhi-18"-level assault transport helicopters, and set up 5 take-off and landing points and support 5 helicopters at the same time, with its huge tonnage, especially internal space, the self-sustaining ability of the assault ship is far greater than that of the amphibious assault ship.

With a distance of 50 kilometers from the landing site, according to the dispatch intensity of 120 aircraft per day, the supplies carried by the assault ship can last for 18 days.

It is almost three times that of a 40,000-ton amphibious assault ship!

In addition, after spending all supplies, the amphibious assault ships will need at least 3 days to replenish them.

In other words, regardless of the combat losses of the helicopter, the assault ships are about twice as efficient as amphibious assault ships when performing vertical delivery tasks.

Not to mention anything else, just 24 assault ships carried more than 700 large helicopters.

In addition, 12 amphibious assault ships and 12 integrated landing ships have also built nearly 300 helicopters.

Eliminate more than 100 armed helicopters carrying out attack missions, about 900 transport helicopters, two-thirds of which are large helicopters.

Send all these helicopters out, and can deliver more than 15,000 officers and soldiers at a time, or transport 2,500 tons of supplies.

Of course, it is impossible to dispatch all helicopters at the same time.

Only one-third of the helicopters were dispatched in the first round of assaults, but they were all "Zhi-18" and "Zhi-17", transporting a total of about 3,000 officers and soldiers.

In fact, it is just a strengthening of the army regiment.

In addition, supporting heavy weapons were also transported, including dozens of ultra-light howitzers, as well as larger-purpose large-caliber mortars.

However, so many troops will definitely not be sent to a location.
To be continued...