The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 735 The Gulf War breaks out
Soon, the United States announced that it would use the U.S. strategic oil reserves to release 200 million barrels into the market every day.

In just three days, in order to suppress rising oil prices, the United States once again announced that it would increase the amount of oil released into the market to 300 million barrels per day.

In addition to the United States, the International Energy Agency immediately announced that if the Gulf War broke out, the agency would release 250 million barrels of oil into the international oil market every day.

You should know that the oil reserves of member countries of the International Energy Agency are as high as 36 billion barrels, which can be used for consumption for 96 days.

The actions of the United States and the International Energy Agency have had a huge calming effect on eliminating irrational panic about possible supply disruptions in the market.

In addition, Bush Sr. learned the lessons of the oil crisis in the 70s. He gave a speech to the nation and asked major oil companies to exercise restraint and not take the opportunity to raise oil prices.

In order to cooperate with the government, several major American oil companies, including Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, and Atlantic Richfield, publicly promised not to take the opportunity to raise oil prices and set a maximum price for oil.

This has prevented domestic oil prices in the United States from rising explosively as a war breaks out.

In this situation, time passed day by day, and finally it came to the last day.

Iraq remains very tough and refuses to withdraw its troops from Kuwait.

At this time, the coalition forces were fully prepared.

Dhahran Air Base, Saudi Arabia.

This is the largest military airport of the US Air Force in Saudi Arabia. The entire air base is now almost full of fighter jets of various types.

F111、A6、A10、F15、F16等等美军现役的各种功能战机，随处可见。

These fighter planes were parked densely on the ground outside the airport runway.

Around the airport, there are Patriot-2 air defense missile systems and some other missile systems.

The radar station's air defense radar is always on at full power.

This is the main base of the US Air Force.

There are also more fighter jets parked at the naval base in Jubail.

All fighter jets have been deployed and can be deployed at any time.

On the eight US aircraft carriers, the carrier-based aircraft have made final preparations and can take off and perform their missions immediately with just a command.

This is tantamount to bullying Iraq because it lacks ballistic missiles and cannot threaten these military bases.

If it were the Soviet Union, it could directly use missile attacks and air strikes to destroy the entire air base and turn it into ruins, and these planes would not even have a chance to take off.

However, in the US military's combat plan, these fighter jets were not the first echelon to attack Iraq.

At an air force base in southern Saudi Arabia, dozens of black-painted, triangular-shaped fighter jets, with their entire fuselages made up almost entirely of straight lines, are parked in the base's hangar.

This air force unit is very mysterious. The entire base is stationed and protected by US troops. No one else can enter the base, even US allies.

This unit is the only stealth attack wing in the United States, which has been renamed the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing!
It is currently equipped with the most advanced stealth attack aircraft in the United States.

This will be the main force to carry out air strikes on important military targets in Iraq.

But at this moment, it is not the time for the air force to take action.

The first thing that started was a missile attack. US warships stationed in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea launched missile attacks, and the warships launched a series of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which bombarded military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.

When the missiles were launched, more than 4700 aircraft of various types began to take off. Their goal would be to carry out air bombings on military strategic targets such as air defense and radar systems in Iraq and Kuwait, military and civilian airports, Saddam's residence, military command centers, government headquarters, communication hubs, biological and chemical ground and surface-to-air missile facilities.

The air defense positions in Kuwait and Iraq, which had already been strengthened, watched the Tomahawk cruise missiles arrive first.

The radar had already been turned on and locked onto the target.

Higher and faster targets are defended by the Aegis air defense missile system and SAM missiles. Lower targets are attacked by anti-aircraft machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, Type 80 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, and Vanguard air defense missiles.

The Tomahawk cruise missile, as a world-famous cruise missile, is actually not very fast.

Faced with this slow-moving missile, the defense system, which is mainly composed of the Aegis air defense missile system and supplemented by the SAM air defense missile, still has a high interception efficiency.

"Boom~~" The Tomahawk cruise missile at the front was directly intercepted by an "Aegis" air defense missile. The two missiles collided fiercely, emitting dazzling sparks.

One cruise missile after another was intercepted by the anti-aircraft missiles.

"Da da da~~"

Even some Tomahawk cruise missiles flying at a relatively low altitude were directly intercepted by anti-aircraft machine guns and Type 80 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.

There were even Iraqi soldiers carrying "Vanguard" individual air defense missiles who shot down a Tomahawk cruise missile.

Of course, no matter how tight the air defense firepower network is, it is difficult to intercept all incoming targets. There are still Tomahawk cruise missiles that are not intercepted. Some of these surviving Tomahawk cruise missiles hit the target, but more of them did not hit the target due to interference and hit the open ground.

Although the Iraqi army was happy and excited about intercepting the incoming Tomahawk cruise missiles, they quickly reloaded bullets and missiles. They knew very well that the next wave of coalition air forces would arrive soon.

The second wave arrived, still not the coalition aircraft, but Tomahawk cruise missiles.

This time, many Tomahawk cruise missiles were hit. After being locked by radar and their trajectories were calculated, the probability of this cruise missile being intercepted by air defense missiles was still very high.

This night was destined to be a sleepless night.

In the skies of the Middle East, it is always easy to see missiles with flaming tails streaking across the sky like a meteor.

The military observation groups from various countries also did not sleep either, and each of them was keeping a close eye on the battlefield.

Even the Soviet military observation group was actively collecting information, which was a rare research opportunity.

Through this method, we can learn and summarize, find ideas to strengthen our own military construction, and discover the combat shortcomings of the US military.

At this critical moment, it can be fatal.

This was a very rare opportunity not only for the Soviet Union, but also for other countries.

This is the case with every war. The combat capabilities demonstrated by the tactics and equipment used by the warring parties are compared with one's own country's national defense construction, so as to identify deficiencies and fill them in order to strengthen military construction.

Once information like this is collected, it will soon become a typical case for research in major military academies around the world.

For example, this time, the Americans mobilized such a large force, and the first round of attack was to use missiles to attack targets. To be honest, no one knew what the goal would be, not even the Americans.

(End of this chapter)