Chapter 1554: Chapter 1471: The Dilemma of Cross-Sea Operations

In the conference room, one of the staff reviewing the 7th Corps’ landing exercise opened the discussion: “The traditional method of landing operations is indeed not feasible… This will lead to a large number of casualties.”

Seeing that Luff remained silent, another staff member continued: “The first wave of landing troops will face fierce enemy attacks near the beach, and within the first hour of action, we expect casualties to exceed 500.”

“And that is just the beginning. Subsequently, our casualties could increase to between 1,000 to 2,000 people. If we can establish a foothold by nightfall, the price will be more than 5,000 lives.” Based on the exercise results, the losses are indeed quite alarming.

According to these figures, there is about a 30% chance of failure in the landing, which is unacceptable to the Staff Department.

Therefore, Luff shook his head and said, “This number is almost equal to the total troop capacity of three new dock landing ships, nearly a tenth of our initial force deployment. This won’t do, it’s too risky.”

The distance of the cross-sea landing determines the force strength. To ensure the landing troops have enough ammunition and sufficient logistical support, 50,000 people are almost the limit.

Of course, the subsequent forces could exceed 200,000, but their combat capabilities will be somewhat weaker. They can deploy and consolidate the defense line after landing, but their offensive capabilities are definitely inferior to the first wave of two or three divisions.

The more modern it becomes, the more heavy weapons are invested in landing operations, while the number of personnel involved decreases. There’s no choice; a lot of transport capacity has to be used for equipment, and ensuring related supplies for these devices as well.

For example, to get a tank ashore, you can’t just transport that one tank, right? There must also be fuel to make the tank operable and ammunition for it to continue fighting, right?

So, should you also bring some spare parts for that tank? Shouldn’t the repair personnel and equipment be prepared as well? After calculating, the transportation space required for this tank is equivalent to about three to five tanks.

The same reasoning applies to a self-propelled howitzer. Is it enough to prepare hundreds of shells randomly? Once the ammunition is exhausted, this howitzer would be useless, so it is crucial to ensure that it can continue to operate in critical moments, right?

In the past, cross-sea operations required only transporting guns and people, allowing Tang Mo to deploy so many troops when attacking Dongwan Island from Dragon Island.

Nowadays, the same unit requires three times the number of ships for transport, so naturally, ships with greater tonnage and more specialized vessels are needed.

Besides calculating for the army, the navy’s requirements also need evaluation: In the past, you could just sail to the coast and bombard it, but now covering a landing operation is much more complex.

Firstly, naval aircraft need to provide fleet air defense and also carry out ground suppression missions. These aircraft require a large amount of transport capacity.

Supporting an aircraft on an aircraft carrier is a very complicated task, requiring professional maintenance personnel, and sometimes even needing a dedicated maintenance area.

The open part at the tail of an aircraft carrier is, in fact, reserved for engine testing of carrier-based aircraft. Tests of jet engines require the emission of flaming hot exhaust, which obviously cannot be conducted in an enclosed environment.

In some complicated situations, specialized aircraft carrier transport planes are used to transport aircraft engines, although such extreme situations are rare.

Correspondingly, these aircraft require fuel and consume a large amount of ammunition. Supporting these aircraft operations also requires significant transportation capacity.

The lubrication oil, parts, and ammunition required for maintaining these aircraft obviously can’t be piled onto the space-constrained aircraft carrier. Thus, additional ships are needed to carry these small supplies for the carrier.

At sea, all this transport capacity must be provided by ships. The ships supporting these consumptions are also consuming oil and food, so extra transport capacity must be prepared to sustain this enormous fleet.

Accumulatively, for a 100-kilometer cross-sea landing, sending 100,000 people ashore might not even ensure transporting 1,000 people over a 1,000-kilometer cross-sea landing with the same transport capacity.

Extending the distance further would crush the fleet’s own supply capacity. In other words, halfway through, the entire fleet would have to turn back.

Moreover, to assure the landing troops’ operations, support for these forces with medical ships and food supply ships also needs to be accounted for… not to mention ammunition and fuel for the fleet covering these ships.

The entire fleet’s mere deployment without engaging in combat is enough to bankrupt a decent country. Slightly poorer countries simply can’t afford playing navy games or initiating cross-sea landing operations.

Sometimes, military decay begins for this reason: A warship’s single sortie is enough to feed an entire fleet’s crews for half a month. What’s the point of going out? Is it not better to stay safely in the port? Skipping a sortie saves 3 million a year, skipping two saves 6 million, doesn’t it?

Then bit by bit… the ship rusts and the people slack off, and when it comes to fighting, they just end up in tears.

“It’s indeed not easy to use traditional landing methods, as the opposing side isn’t foolish, and they have deployed many defensive fortifications in areas we might choose for the landing,” Luff said after a pause. “Even with naval and air superiority, facing robust defenses requires preparedness for assault operations. We have only one chance; if it fails, the entire landing plan will be canceled.”

Even on the 21st-century Earth, powerful military nations like Maoxiong and Ukraine still don’t have very effective solutions against strong defenses. It’s a longstanding difficult problem, not as easy to solve as one might imagine.

Moreover, the Tang Army is likely to be fighting back at sea, potentially repressed near the beach by failing to break through the defenses, then pushed back into the sea by the enemy reinforcements arriving later.

“So, we need a different approach to increase our landing operation… success rate,” Luff said, while looking at Qian Jinhang, who sat there pondering.

Qian Jinhang frowned in silence, in front of him, displaying reconnaissance satellite images, showing massive fortifications built by the Ice Cold Empire northwest of Eternal Winter Port.

From these aerial photos, it’s clear that the Dwarves are indeed building an incredibly sturdy defense line. Bunkers and pillboxes are everywhere, as well as artillery and anti-aircraft gun positions…

The Tang Army currently has no means to preemptively destroy these strong fortifications, making the landing more difficult.

“Difficult.” Qian Jinhang sighed somewhat wistfully.

———

Today is busy with no time for updates, offering two updates.