Chapter 735 The Gulf War breaks out
Soon, the United States announced that it would use the U.S. strategic oil reserves to release 2 million barrels of oil to the market every day.
In just three days, in order to suppress the rising oil prices, the United States announced again that it would increase the amount of oil released to the market to 3 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 2.5 million barrels of oil to the international oil market every day.
You should know that the oil reserves of the member countries of the International Energy Agency are as high as 3.6 billion barrels, which can be consumed for 96 days.
The actions of the United States and the International Energy Agency played a huge calming role in eliminating the irrational panic of possible supply interruptions in the market.
In addition, Bush Sr. learned the lessons of the oil crisis in the 1970s. He gave a speech to the nation, asking major oil companies to restrain themselves and not to take the opportunity to raise oil prices.
In order to cooperate with the government, several major oil companies in the United States, such as Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, and Atlantic Richfield, publicly promised not to take the opportunity to raise oil prices, and set a maximum price limit for oil prices.
This has prevented the domestic oil prices in the United States from rising explosively with the outbreak of the war.
In this situation, time passed day by day, and finally came to the last day.
Iraq still had a very tough attitude and refused to withdraw from Kuwait.
At this time, the coalition forces were fully prepared.
Saudi Arabia, Dhahran Air Base.
This is the largest military airport of the US Air Force in Saudi Arabia. The entire air base is now almost full of various types of fighters.
F111, A6, A10, F15, F16 and other functional fighters in service of the US military can be seen everywhere.
These fighters are parked densely on the ground outside the airport runway.
Around the airport, Patriot-2 air defense missile systems and other missile systems are deployed everywhere.
The air defense radar of the radar station has been turned on at full power.
This is the main base of the US Air Force.
At the naval base in Jubail, there are also more fighters parked.
All fighters have been deployed and can be dispatched at any time.
On the eight US aircraft carriers, one carrier-based aircraft after another has made the final preparations. They only need to be ordered to take off and perform their missions immediately.
This is 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. These planes would not even have the opportunity to take off.
However, in the US military's combat plan, these fighters are not the first echelon to attack Iraq.
In an air base in southern Saudi Arabia, dozens of black-painted, triangular-shaped fighters with almost all straight lines are parked in the hangar of the base.
This air force is very mysterious. The entire base is stationed and protected by the US military. Others cannot enter this base at all, even the allies of the United States.
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 be dispatched.
The first thing that started was the missile attack.
US warships stationed in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea launched missiles to attack. They launched Tomahawk cruise missiles one after another, which bombed military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.
When the missiles were launched, more than 4,700 aircraft of various types began to take off. Their targets were to bombard military strategic targets such as air defense and radar systems, military and civilian airports, Saddam's residence, military command centers, government headquarters, communication hubs, biological and chemical ground and surface-to-air missile facilities in Iraq and Kuwait.
The air defense positions in Kuwait and Iraq, which had been strengthened long ago, watched the Tomahawk cruise missiles arrive first.
The radar had been turned on and locked onto the target.
The higher and faster targets were defended by the "Aegis" air defense missile system and SAM missiles. The lower ones were attacked by anti-aircraft machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, 80-type self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, and "Vanguard" air defense missiles.
The Tomahawk cruise missile, as a world-famous cruise missile, is not very fast.
Faced with this slow missile, the defense system with the Aegis air defense missile system as the main system and the SAM air defense missile as the auxiliary system has a high interception efficiency.
"Boom~~" The first Tomahawk cruise missile 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 air defense missile.
"Da Da Da~~"
Even some Tomahawk cruise missiles flying relatively low were directly intercepted by anti-aircraft machine guns and Type 80 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.
There were even Iraqi soldiers carrying the 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 to intercept the incoming Tomahawk cruise missiles, they quickly loaded bullets and missiles. They knew very well that the next wave of coalition air forces would arrive soon.
The second wave was still not 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 sky of the Middle East, it is always easy to see missiles with flaming tails, crossing the sky like a meteor.
The military observation groups of various countries also did not sleep, and each of them stared at the battlefield.
Even the Soviet military observation group was actively collecting information, which was a rare research opportunity.
In this way, we can learn and summarize, find ideas to strengthen our own army construction, and find the shortcomings of the US military operations.
This critical moment can be fatal.
This is not only a very rare opportunity for the Soviet Union, but also for other countries.
Every war is like this. Through the tactics and equipment used by the warring parties, the combat capabilities are compared with the national defense construction of their own country, so as to find out the shortcomings and strengthen the army.
If this kind of information is collected well, it will soon become a typical case for research by major military academies in the world.
For example, this time, the Americans mobilized such a large force, and the first round of attack was to attack the target with missiles. To be honest, no one knows what the goal can be achieved, not even the Americans.