The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

The Iraq War and the air strikes by the joint forces are still going on.

Missile launches have been significantly reduced.

The missiles prepared previously have been basically used up.

The Tomahawk cruise missile fired its last round yesterday.

The Tomahawk cruise missile is a deep strike weapon developed by the United States that can be launched from outside the enemy's defensive firepower circle. It can be launched from land, ships, air and underwater to attack ships or land targets. It is mainly used to carry out precision attacks on targets in heavily fortified areas. It is one of the most important cruise missiles and long-range strike forces in active service in the United States.

The missile was developed in 1972, first tested in 1976, and equipped to the troops in 1983. The missile has a high flight speed. During navigation, it uses inertial guidance plus terrain matching or satellite global positioning correction guidance, and can automatically adjust the altitude and speed for high-speed attacks. The surface of the missile has a coating that absorbs radar waves and has stealth flight performance. It is the most powerful "outside air defense zone launch" missile in the US arsenal, with the characteristics of low-altitude flight and high hit rate.

As early as the Gulf War, the United States used Tomahawk cruise missiles on a large scale.

At that time, many Tomahawk cruise missiles were intercepted by Iraq, exposing many shortcomings, so the United States modified the Tomahawk cruise missiles.

In this Iraq war, the United States launched several times more Tomahawk cruise missiles than during the Gulf War.

一枚‘战斧式’巡航导弹价格在150~200万美元，美国总共发射了3990枚‘战斧式’巡航导弹，单单这部份的‘战斧式’巡航导弹便耗费59.85~79.8亿美元。

Together with other ballistic missiles, air-to-ground missiles, and air-to-air missiles, the United States used more than 10,000 missiles of various types in the Iraq War.

This was the first time since humans developed missiles that they were used on such a large scale as the main weapon of attack.

Many places throughout Iraq were hit by air strikes, causing heavy losses.

Faced with a large number of cruise missiles and other missiles and bombs, even Iraq's air defense network would find it difficult to intercept them.

As a battlefield, Iraq suffered much greater losses than the Americans.

After all, Iraq can at most spread the war to Iraq and Turkey, and there is no other way. Not to mention attacking the US mainland, even European countries cannot launch missiles to attack.

In total, Iraq launched more than 2800 Scud missiles at Israel and Turkey, and more than 300 Scud missiles were destroyed by joint forces during or before launch.

In addition to air defense missiles, air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, and anti-ship missiles, Iraq also used thousands of missiles.

By this time, the war had dragged on and Iraq had exhausted its missile stockpile.

The Americans are stepping up patrols along the Iraqi border and targeting convoys bound for Iraq, thereby undermining Iraq's ability to obtain weapons and ammunition from outside sources.

Iraq feels bad, and so do Americans.

The current war has not yet reached the ground stage, but is still in the stage of launching missiles and conducting air strikes.

However, Americans were also shocked by the consumption of missiles and bombs.

The consumption of so many missiles and bombs should be enough to destroy Iraq two or three times, but Iraq is still fine now, and the Supreme Command of the Joint Forces feels that the time is not ripe to launch a ground war.

A factory in Iraq.

This is where Iraq produces Hussein missiles, Abbas missiles and various Scud missiles.

As early as the 80s, Iraq had the ability to produce Scud series missiles.

During the Gulf War, the missile production plant was destroyed in an Allied air strike.

After the Gulf War, Saddam tried every means to restore the missile production plant and restored its production capacity in 1998.

But now, Iraq's production speed of Scud is far behind consumption. After all, Iraq's industrial capacity is not strong, and now in wartime, it is facing air strikes from the joint forces at any time.

Acquiring missile capabilities from outside has also become more difficult because the Joint Force Air Force has strengthened space and aerial reconnaissance.

There are three main channels for Iraq to obtain weapons, equipment and supplies from the outside. One is support from Arab countries, one is purchasing from Russia, which delivers them by land and air, and the other is purchasing from international arms dealers.

"Boom~~"

Relying on its stealth capability, the F117 broke through the defense line, and five F117 fighter jets launched an air strike on the missile factory.

The Maverick air-to-ground missile was launched and attacked the missile factory.

In addition to missiles, there are also laser-guided bombs!

The United States has decided not to produce the F117 fighter jet anymore, and even plans to retire the F2008 fighter jet in 117, replacing it with the F-22 'Raptor' fighter jet.

In the Gulf War and the Kosovo War, some F117 fighter jets were shot down, which made the stealth performance of the F117 fighter jet questionable.

The F117 fighter jet is really too expensive. The cost of a single unit is as high as 1.33 million US dollars, and its value has not been fully demonstrated!

This missile factory has been discovered for some time. During this period, the Joint Force Air Force has been formulating an operational plan and finally decided that the F117 fighter squadron would carry out the air strike mission.

This time, the F117 squadron lived up to expectations, avoided the Iraqi radar system, and successfully raided the area.

11 F117 fighter jets are enough to deal a fatal blow to this military factory!

"Boom~~"

A laser-guided bomb hit a warehouse and exploded.

After dropping bombs and missiles, 11 F117 fighter jets returned, leaving several military factories in flames.

The 11 F117 fighter jets had no desire to fight and flew towards Turkey because the early warning aircraft had been launched and the Iraqi Air Force had taken off.

At the same time, at the joint forces air force base in Turkey, F15 fighter jets and F16 fighter jets were taking off.

This air base is located outside the range of Iraqi missiles.

These F15 and F16 fighter jets took off to support the F117 fighter squadron.

After the losses in various wars, the United States does not have many F117 fighter jets.

The Iraqi Air Force was about to intercept the F117 fighter jets, but the American F15 and F16 fighter jets arrived and they had to retreat.

At present, the Iraqi Air Force has obviously lagged far behind the Joint Forces Air Force in terms of the number of aircraft. Now the Iraqi Air Force has less than 500 fixed-wing aircraft.

The brutality of the Iraq War lies not only in the fact that both sides used a large number of missiles, but also in the fact that the scale of the air battle between the two sides was the largest since World War II. The number of aircraft lost alone reached a shocking level.

To date, Iraq has lost more than 2500 fixed-wing aircraft!

One can imagine how brutal the air battle was.

Almost all the pilots flying fighter jets now are from Arab countries. They are volunteers who came to Iraq to participate in the war against hegemony. (End of this chapter)