As a senior coalition commander stationed in the US Central Command, Lieutenant General Clark's assessment of the battlefield situation is brief, but he has to say that he is grasping the key to the problem.

After months of protracted confrontation and the "typhoon" operation in the past ten days, the ground forces of the NATO coalition were planning to drive the Russians to the mountains and seas in one go, and completely eliminate the Soviet ground maneuvering forces in the three republics of the Caucasus, but today they paid a heavy price for the one-sided battle situation in the air.

Hundreds of thousands of coalition soldiers who launched an offensive along the line, the "Air Marines" were a terrible day of hell march. What was the specific situation?

The "Air Marine Corps" who has lost its air superiority is actually easy to guess the answer to this question.

Looking back at the clear day in the Caucasus, starting from the morning launch of a full-line offensive, the ground battles of the NATO coalition were full of surprises and "surprises", and along with the bad mood, there was a long kia list that soared.

In the northwest suburbs of Kutai, which had just been occupied by the coalition forces, the 4th American Army Division, which was advancing along the railway line, encountered delays from the Soviet Army. Faced with a large number of solid fire points along the railway and the mechanized Soviet infantry that were harassing from time to time, the Americans called for air support for a long time. In the coastal area less than ten kilometers west of this battlefield, the Turkish Armored Brigade heading north along the ring road lost the screen of low-altitude fighter jets and was shot by the Red Air Force "assembler" fighter bomber.

In the central area of ​​the Transcaucasus, where the most intense battle was in the outskirts of Gori, a small town dozens of kilometers away from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the "Abrams" and "Bradley" of the US Cavalry Division made their debut after a burst of fire from the long-range artillery and tactical air force. They fought intermittently with the Soviet tanks that were rushing like a tide on the north side of the front. In the end, they were defeated because of their lack of success. They retreated more than ten kilometers in one breath before stabilizing their positions. Battalion Commander Fidel, who had almost lost all his troops, roared and scolded on the phone. He did not know that the "Apache" fleet that failed to appear on time was shot by the MiG aircraft. He did not know that the subsequent troops were lost because they had tasted a rocket and cluster bomb of Soviet fighter jets.

Going further east, Armenia's franchised republic of Yerevan, on the outskirts of the Armenian Republic, suffered a joint attack on open spaces for a whole day. Many frontier positions that turned into scorched earth were already in a mess.

The messy bushes and depressions on the frontier of the battlefield were worried, and the sound of cannons and warheads were roaring in my ears. The exhausted Royal Army soldiers of the United Kingdom, holding the rifle in their arms, looked around, but they had no courage to charge against the flames and shrapnel.

Just in the soldiers' pupils that contracted due to tension, there were clusters of charred vegetation and the wreckage of black smoke from the chariots; more than a dozen "Challenger ii" tanks that launched a wave of charges in the morning but were annihilated by the Russian iron current. The burning flames had not yet been completely extinguished, and there were several "samurai" infantry fighting vehicles with completely distorted outlines. The black smoke rising from the body of the chariot made the sight look covered with a gray mist.

Today's combat operation was a complete nightmare for the British.

With the intention of winning, he embarked on the road of attack, but suffered heavy losses on this ancient land. The "Van Fret" Royal Cavalry Regiment under the 7th Armored Brigade of the British First Marine Division originally wanted to intersperse all the way under the cover of the fighter jets of the NATO Tactical Air Force, compressing the weak Russians into the narrow northern valley and destroying them in one fell swoop. However, it seemed that a car hit the city wall and had a real battle with the 3rd Regiment of the 164th MoF Division of the Seventh Army of the Soviet Guards.

In the chaos, although the heavy and strong "Challenger ii" tanks resisted beatings, they had a double disadvantage in firepower and quantity. The John Bulls in the Cavalry Regiment were originally hard to distinguish from the Russians, but they were defeated by the "Frog Foot" attack aircraft that appeared above the battlefield in an air strike.

Compared with the 2a46 type 125mm smoothbore gun on the Russian T-72bm tank, the GSH-30-2 30mm naval cannon of the "Frogfoot" attack aircraft is far less powerful than that. However, the shooting angle of the dive attack aircraft can be very tricky. The armor-piercing incendiary bomb on the weak top of the tank can suddenly paralyze the seemingly majestic steel giant beast. The combustion agent of the warhead ignites the external fuel tank that hits from time to time, and then explodes.

Moreover, the armored vehicle's bad luck is more than that when it is scattered by a high-speed attack aircraft. If it is unfortunately hit by the ammunition in the car, the explosive cartridge will directly trigger a violent explosion - this kind of explosion sounds like earth-shaking, making all the British soldiers around tremble!

Since the war started, the soldiers of the 7th Armored Brigade have become accustomed to fighting under the cover of the tactical air force. Even when facing the powerful Warsaw Pact group, they can at least ensure that the sky above their heads is safe.

But today, facing an unprecedentedly fierce ground offensive by the Soviet army, the emergency call from the regiment command was not responded. Apart from the white clouds, there were only one enemy planes painted with red pentagrams shuttled back and forth. I don’t know where the American fighter planes ran. The unscrupulous Russians first used several anti-radiation missiles to reimburse the search radar vehicles of the air-blasting companies in the brigade area with several anti-radiation missiles, and then launched several air strikes of varying scales with sparse anti-aircraft artillery fire, throwing bombs and air-opposite missiles directly onto the attack echelon of the "Van Fret" regiment.

Faced with the double blow from the ground and the sky, the elite British armored forces charged against the aviation bombs and 125 mm shells were killed and injured. The courage to fight against the trend was quickly exhausted. After throwing down a large area of ​​wreckage and corpses, they retreated in a panic and launched the attack.

He devoted himself to the battle with confidence, but the original planned combat goal was vague. Before the British could calm down, they contacted the Americans to complain. Large pieces of steel dead rain flew from the sky once again looted their remaining troops. Grenades bloomed everywhere on the yellow grass slope. The infantry got out of the car in panic and jumped back to the "samurai" chariots to avoid the fire attack, but many people were still taken away by the shock wave and fragments.

He had never suffered such a big loss since he entered the war and escaped the bombardment by chance. Lieutenant Colonel Parker Good, deputy commander of the "Van Fred" regiment, cursed angrily on the radio.

If the howitzer attack that just encountered was considered the traditional strength of Russian artilleryism, and the tactical air force would not be able to discover and suppress all enemy preset artillery positions in time, then what happened to the previous "frog foot" and more fighter jets?

Lieutenant Colonel Goode was not polite at all when talking to his superior on the radio:

"Damn it, what are the Americans busy with? Russian fighter jets throwing bombs are everywhere in the sky. Why do we still want to launch an attack even though we don't have air supremacy? Before nine o'clock in the morning, our headquarters requested air support. Now we have been driven back to the starting position by the Russians, but we still haven't even seen a paper plane!"

"Lieutenant Colonel, please stay calm; the U.S. Army Command said they were in trouble and the Russians had just launched a full-line attack!"

"Calm down?-I've always been calm,"

Hearing the indifferent answer in the headphones, Lieutenant Colonel Goode was so angry that he raised his hand to hit the bulkhead of the "Samurai" command car, "Are those Americans who are bullshit, calm now?

Winston, please tell the generals sent by the Pentagon that all the officers and soldiers of the 7th Armored Brigade "Van Fret" regiment are calm now and their emotions are very stable. Of course, if they respond to our calls a few days later, or simply don't send any planes. When Russian tanks run over our bodies and enter Turkey, our emotions will be even more stable - after all, the dead will not complain!"

"Parker, these words are not funny at all."

Hearing a sarcasm from his subordinates, he also knew that today's Transcaucasus had become a bloody and terrifying hell on earth. General Winston Brooks, the Royal Army responsible for command and coordination, implicitly criticized him, and then ordered the "Van Fred" regiment not to advance recklessly and stand by on time.

After closing the call channel, the general sat in the tall tent of the command center for a moment, and his slender fingers slowly tapped on the table.

As the coordination liaison officer of the British troops to the Central East, he suddenly had to face this drastic change in the sky. The US Air Force, which was originally regarded as a protective umbrella and strong backing, was defeated today and gave up the air supremacy of the Caucasus War Zone. This really surprised General Brooks. Faced with the 7th Armored Brigade in crisis, he wanted to directly call the Royal Air Force stationed in Asia Minor and ask them to dispatch fighter planes to Yerevan to blow up the Russian tanks that were flooding like a tide, but hesitated because of the agreement that "all coalition command is subordinate to the US Central Command."

As the No. 2 member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he could only follow the Americans in this world war, and his status was even worse than that of World War II. When he thought of this, General Winston Brooks was very unhappy. He felt that the government was simply damaging the dignity of the United Kingdom.
Chapter completed!