In the conference room, the staff officer who reviewed the landing exercise of the 7th Army spoke up: "The traditional landing combat method is indeed not very effective... This will lead to a large number of casualties."
Seeing that Loew did not speak, another staff officer continued: "The first batch of landing troops will be violently attacked by the enemy near the beach. It is expected that our casualties will exceed 500 within the first hour of the operation."
"That's just the beginning. Later, our casualties will increase to 1,000 to 2,000 people. If we can gain a foothold before nightfall, it is estimated that it will cost more than 5,000 people." According to the results of the exercise, the losses are indeed scary.
Calculating this figure, there is about a 30% chance of landing failure, which is something the staff cannot accept.
Therefore, Loew shook his head and said: "This number is almost equal to the total force loaded on three new dock landing ships, which is almost one-tenth of the force we invested in the early stage. This is not good, it is too unsafe."
The distance of the cross-sea landing determines the strength of the troops. In order to ensure that the landing troops have enough ammunition and sufficient logistical support, 50,000 people is almost the limit.
Of course, the number of troops that will come ashore may exceed 200,000, but the combat capabilities of these troops will be weaker. They can expand and consolidate the defense line after landing ashore, but the attack will definitely not be as good as the two or three divisions in the first batch.
The more modern it is, the more heavy weapons and fewer personnel are invested in the landing war. There is no way, a large amount of transportation capacity must be used for equipment, and it must also be used for related materials to protect these equipment.
For example, if you want to bring a tank ashore, you can't just transport this tank, right? Of course, there is also the fuel to ensure that this tank can run, and the ammunition to allow this tank to continue fighting, right?
So, do you want to bring some parts for this tank? Do maintenance personnel and equipment also need to be prepared? Based on this calculation, this tank needs to occupy the pure transportation space of about three or even five tanks.
By the same token, what about a self-propelled howitzer? Is it enough to just prepare a few hundred rounds of artillery shells? If the ammunition is used up, this howitzer will be useless, so we should try our best to ensure that it can continue to function at critical moments, right?
Back then, when fighting across the sea, it was enough to transport guns and men. That's why Tang Mo was able to dispatch so many troops when he attacked Dongwan Island from Long Island.
Now, for the same unit, a force needs three times the number of ships to transport it. Of course, it needs a ship with a larger tonnage and a more professional ship.
After calculating the army, we also need to calculate the navy itself: in the past, everyone just drove to the coast and fired artillery bombardments, but now the cover landing is much more complicated.
First, Navy aircraft must provide fleet air defense and dispatch aircraft to perform ground suppression missions. These aircraft will require a lot of capacity.
Maintaining an aircraft within an aircraft carrier is a very complex task, requiring professional maintenance personnel and even professional maintenance sites.
The open part at the rear of the aircraft carrier is actually a reserved position for testing the engines of aircraft carrier-based aircraft. The test run of a jet engine involves spraying hot flames, so of course it cannot be carried out in a closed environment.
In some complicated situations, special aircraft carrier transport aircraft will be dispatched to transport aircraft engines, but such extreme situations are rare.
Correspondingly, these aircraft require fuel and consume a large amount of ammunition. Supporting these aircraft in combat also requires a large amount of transportation capacity.
Of course, all the lubricants, parts, and ammunition needed to maintain these aircraft cannot be piled on aircraft carriers where space is precious. Therefore, additional ships are needed to help the aircraft carrier carry these odds and ends.
At sea, all this transportation capacity is provided by ships. The ships supporting these consumptions are also consuming fuel and food, so additional transportation capacity must be prepared to support this huge fleet.
Cumulatively, if a 100-kilometer cross-sea landing can transport 100,000 people ashore, the same transport capacity may not be able to guarantee a 1,000-kilometer cross-sea landing operation to transport 1,000 people ashore.
If this distance is further extended, the consumption of the fleet itself will overwhelm the transportation capacity. In other words, the entire fleet will return halfway.
In addition, in order to ensure the operations of the landing troops, additional hospital ships and food transport ships to support these troops must be included...as well as the ammunition and oil needed by the fleets to cover these ships.
The entire fleet does not count the battle, just sailing around for a while, which is enough to bankrupt a serious country. If you are a little bit poor, you really can't afford the navy or carry out cross-sea landing operations.
Sometimes military depletion begins because of this: just taking a warship out for a walk is enough to feed the officers and soldiers of a fleet of the Navy for half a month. What are you doing out there? How about just staying in the port? If you run less once a year, you will save 3 million. If you run less twice a year, you will save 6 million.
As a result, we saved our lives...the boat was rusty, the people were slack, and I cried when the fight started.
"It is indeed not easy to use the traditional landing method. The other party is not a fool. They have deployed a large number of defenses in the landing area we may choose." Loew continued after a pause: "Even if there are sea and air advantages, facing We must also be prepared to attack strong defenses. We only have one chance. If we fail, the entire landing plan will be cancelled."
Even on Earth in the 21st century, military powers like Mao Xiong and Er Mao still have no good way to build strong defenses. This is a long-standing problem that is not as easy to solve as imagined.
What's more, if the Tang army wants to fight with its back to the sea, it is very likely that it will be suppressed near the beach because it cannot break through the defense line, and then be driven into the sea by subsequent enemy reinforcements.
"So, we have to think of a different way to make our landing operation... have a higher success rate." Loew said while looking at Qian Jinhang who was sitting there thinking.
Qian Jinhang frowned and said nothing. Placed in front of him were photos of a large number of fortifications built by the Ice Empire in the northwest direction of Everwinter Port returned by the reconnaissance satellite.
Judging from these overlooking photos, the dwarves are indeed building an extremely strong defense line. There are bunkers and bunkers everywhere, forts and anti-aircraft gun emplacements everywhere...
The Tang army had no way to take action in advance to destroy these solid defenses... This increased the difficulty of landing in disguise.
"It's difficult." Qian Jinhang sighed with some resentment.
——
I'm quite busy today and don't have time to make up for the update, so I'll give you two updates.
(End of chapter)
